Re: Honest Answer Hard to Achieve

I am an independent consultant with nothing to gain by the advice I am giving. Basically I have been working in the Informix arena for about 16 years and my advice is that you should bite the bullet and buy new licences for Informix-4GL at the same time as doing the engine upgrade. I know it sounds expensive but you have to consider what the situation could be if you don't. There have been a large number of new releases since the version of 4GL you are currently using and whilst Informix were quite diligent in testing new versions of the engine with old versions of the compilers I doubt if your combination would ever have been tested. And any errors could be encountered some way down the line. When they occur I doubt if Informix could easily put up your combination of releases for testing and they would advise an upgrade at that time before investigating. I also think that you should buy new development licences for your 3 developers and new run-time licences. I even think that using the old run-time licences against the newer engine would be in breach of your licence agreement. I assume from the age of your licences (1990) that you didn't encounter any Y2K problems and are either not using dates or always entering full dates. I also suspect from what you have said that you don't have support licences for these products. If you did you would have called Informix tech support about this issue and used the upgrade program to stay relatively current. In this case the upgrade is likely to be quite a shock as you will have to take out tech support contracts on the new products as well. But remember, the applications and the database engine are responsible for maintaining the most important part of your company - the information that it works with. Isn't it worth investing sensible amounts of money on this. As to whether or not to consider 4Js ... The advantage of migrating to a more modern 4GL compiler is that many of your applications will be able to migrate to Windows and the Web with a small investment of your time. That could ease the process of moving from the old green-screen apps into the newer methods of user presentation with a lot less effort. That is why it costs slightly more. If you want to discuss the requirements in a non-public arena please email me directly. Malcolm Weallans ----- Original Message ----- From: "Smitty" <wolphie@hotmail.com> To: <informix-list@iiug.org> Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 9:57 PM Subject: Honest Answer Hard to Achieve > Our company is using Informix SE 4.0 (1990) and want to upgrade to > Informix SE 7.x. The primary reason being so we can use ODBC to > connect to the Windows world (to use report writers, make VB/Delphi > front-ends, etc.). But we have 1000s of existing 4GL programs and > need them all to work under the new version of Informix (SE 7.x). > > We've been told several conficting things by several different > salesmen. For example, when we get SE 7, will we need a new version > of the 4GL compiler? Some say our existing programs simply need to be > recompiled with our existing 4GL compiler (c4gl Version 4.0). Some > say we need to upgrade to a newer version of the 4GL compiler (or use > "4Js", a similar product that can also do graphics mode). Everyone > giving advice stands to gain financially from our decision, it's hard > to know who honestly has our best interest at heart. > > Bottom Line: > We want a version of Informix new enough that ODBC drivers exist for > it. Informix SE 7.x sounds like that version. Do we need a newer > version of 4GL also? And if so, do we just need a few developer > licenses (we have 3 developers), or enough runtime licenses for each > and every user (80 users). We have the version of 4GL that creates > *.ec/*.c code then compiles/links that to make our executable (*.4ge), > no "p-code" or interpreted code. Any help much appreciated! > > wolphie@hotmail.com > sending to informix-list

Much as it hurts to do so, I agree with Malc by and large ... :-) On the subject of 4JS: he's right, your screens will be "modernised". They (4Js) may help you out with work that you'll have to do anyway. He might also have mentioned the database independence that you will achieve as a result. Probably not immediately relevant - I truly believe that Informix is all-but-impossible to beat in terms of performance, simplicity of administration and stability - but you never know .... "malcolm.iiug" <malcolm.iiug@btopenworld.com> wrote in message news:bs9m2q$1p0$1@terabinaries.xmission.com... > > I am an independent consultant with nothing to gain by the advice I am > giving. > > Basically I have been working in the Informix arena for about 16 years and > my advice is that you should bite the bullet and buy new licences for > Informix-4GL at the same time as doing the engine upgrade. I know it sounds > expensive but you have to consider what the situation could be if you don't. > > There have been a large number of new releases since the version of 4GL you > are currently using and whilst Informix were quite diligent in testing new > versions of the engine with old versions of the compilers I doubt if your > combination would ever have been tested. And any errors could be > encountered some way down the line. When they occur I doubt if Informix > could easily put up your combination of releases for testing and they would > advise an upgrade at that time before investigating. > > I also think that you should buy new development licences for your 3 > developers and new run-time licences. I even think that using the old > run-time licences against the newer engine would be in breach of your > licence agreement. > > I assume from the age of your licences (1990) that you didn't encounter any > Y2K problems and are either not using dates or always entering full dates. > > I also suspect from what you have said that you don't have support licences > for these products. If you did you would have called Informix tech support > about this issue and used the upgrade program to stay relatively current. > In this case the upgrade is likely to be quite a shock as you will have to > take out tech support contracts on the new products as well. > > But remember, the applications and the database engine are responsible for > maintaining the most important part of your company - the information that > it works with. Isn't it worth investing sensible amounts of money on this. > > As to whether or not to consider 4Js ... The advantage of migrating to a > more modern 4GL compiler is that many of your applications will be able to > migrate to Windows and the Web with a small investment of your time. That > could ease the process of moving from the old green-screen apps into the > newer methods of user presentation with a lot less effort. That is why it > costs slightly more. > > If you want to discuss the requirements in a non-public arena please email > me directly. > > Malcolm Weallans > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Smitty" <wolphie@hotmail.com> > To: <informix-list@iiug.org> > Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 9:57 PM > Subject: Honest Answer Hard to Achieve > > > > Our company is using Informix SE 4.0 (1990) and want to upgrade to > > Informix SE 7.x. The primary reason being so we can use ODBC to > > connect to the Windows world (to use report writers, make VB/Delphi > > front-ends, etc.). But we have 1000s of existing 4GL programs and > > need them all to work under the new version of Informix (SE 7.x). > > > > We've been told several conficting things by several different > > salesmen. For example, when we get SE 7, will we need a new version > > of the 4GL compiler? Some say our existing programs simply need to be > > recompiled with our existing 4GL compiler (c4gl Version 4.0). Some > > say we need to upgrade to a newer version of the 4GL compiler (or use > > "4Js", a similar product that can also do graphics mode). Everyone > > giving advice stands to gain financially from our decision, it's hard > > to know who honestly has our best interest at heart. > > > > Bottom Line: > > We want a version of Informix new enough that ODBC drivers exist for > > it. Informix SE 7.x sounds like that version. Do we need a newer > > version of 4GL also? And if so, do we just need a few developer > > licenses (we have 3 developers), or enough runtime licenses for each > > and every user (80 users). We have the version of 4GL that creates > > *.ec/*.c code then compiles/links that to make our executable (*.4ge), > > no "p-code" or interpreted code. Any help much appreciated! > > > > wolphie@hotmail.com > > > > sending to informix-list