Re: Feature creep

In article <1mjm54INNd42@emory.mathcs.emory.edu> alan@effluvia.den.mmc.com (Alan Popiel) writes: >->>I work on several platforms, running everything from 2.10.03F ISQL and >->>1.10.03F 4GL (both fossils), to 4.00 and 4.10 4GL running against 5.XX >->>engines. Feature creep is a real problem for me. I really like the BEFORE >->>MENU, HIDE OPTION, and SHOW OPTION available in 4.10 4GL, but when I tried >->>to port an application containing them to a system still running 4.00, it >->>died big time. >-> >->These features are documented only in the 4.1 Supplement in the >->"4.1 Enhanced Statements" section. Was it unclear that these features >->were 4.1-specific? >->Alan Denney aland@informix.com {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!aland > >Hello, Colonel Panic! General Confusion here. I missed this first time around... > >No, my problem was not with the documentation of the MENU features. I found >them in the 4.10 4GL Supplement. I just forgot when the features arrived, >since I work on different Informix release levels on different machines. > >My problem is really two-fold: > >1. Feature creep in general: Maybe I don't understand the Informix release >numbering scheme. It seems to me that the MENU option changes were a pretty >major change, and thus I would expect them to first appear in some X.0, not >X.1, release. Now I find out that a moderately large group of functions >were also added at the 4.1 level. The primary meaning, traditionally, of a major upgrade was to indicate compatibility/support issues: for example, all 4.X front-ends are supported against all 5.X servers. Also, major feature changes usually warrant a new major rev number. >I would expect only minor changes in X.1, X.2, type releases; and I'd expect >bug-fixes in X.1.1 or X.1.1ud3 type releases. But as I said, maybe I just >don't understand the numbering scheme. Generally, that's true. You could say that 4.1 tools had enough differences that they could have been called 5.0, but that would imply that 4.1 servers couldn't be used with them, which isn't the case. >I call it "feature creep" because new capabilities creep in at peculiar >release levels, instead of in some more understandable manner as described >in the prior paragraph. Well, maybe we could take them out, if that will make you feel better... \\-8 >2. Document set: I have I4GL Reference Manuals (2 vols.), I4GL User Guide, >ISQL Reference Manual, and ISQL User Guide. I do NOT have "Guide to SQL: >Reference". Why does Informix have this third type of manual? I understand Because our Tech Pubs people are underworked and bored. [-: [-: [-: >the different purposes served by the User Guide and Reference Manual. But >why have this hybrid (at least in name) "Guide to ... Reference"????? But seriously, the Informix Guides to SQL (Tutorial and Reference) were designed to separate SQL issues global to most/all products into a distinct book set to reduce duplication within books. This was introduced with 4.1. Sicne the tools product manuals were not rewritten for 4.1, though, you have duplicated content between the tools mannuals and SQLR/SQLT. With the 5.0 servers/embeddeds release, the SQLR and SQLT were revised and republished to reflect the changes (these say "December 1991" on the spine). -- Alan Denney aland@informix.com {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!aland Disclaimer: Poster under influence of 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine Qvfpynvzre: Zl ubirepensg vf shyy bs rryf. Life's too short for regrets... but not too short for REVENGE!