Re: 4GL to GUI conversion
On Thu, 26 Mar 1998 16:23:55 +0800, "Bradley White" <wings@power.net.au> wrote: >I was wondering if someone out there could possibly assist me with the >following scenario. > >We have a large number of customers with applications developed with >Informix 4GL. The size and extent of the applications varies considerably. >We would like to find some sort of conversion utility which will transfer >these applications from text based applications to GUI based applications. > >We are open to suggestions in regards to the destination environment. So far >we have located one system by the name of 'FourJays' which converts the 4GL >to TCL code. Are there any others on the market? Although 4J works to an extent (the product seems to do all that is advertised with relatively few bugs - curtesy Billy Wheeler) it doesn't give you a true GUI. It can't. Nothing can that is based on 4GL. You have to realize that with the basis in 4GL there is simply no way to create a true GUI application. For that you have to do event oriented programming from the start, and 4GL have no support for that. SuperNova has gone a little further. You can integrate your 4GL code with SuperNova code (there is no translation - you still retain your old 4GL code). You can do some extensions via new SuperNova code that can make your applications a little more GUI like, but still no true GUI unless you rewrite all user interface code. With SuperNova you will probably be able to retain your batch code and recreate only the UI code. That may however be a major task. In our applications it's typically the largest one by far. There are two problems with SuperNova that I can see. The smallest one is that it isn't an object oriented language wich I dislike very much indeed. There are so many things that becomes so much easier with object oriented programming. Most people don't realize that until they start doing it. The other problem is however much larger. Do you expect the SuperNova people to gain many new customers outside the converts from 4GL? I don't. In the face of Java as a development tool it will be very hard to compete. Visix (with Galaxy) just went under. Progress have essentially given up on the Progress language and tools. They now do Java tools. Next in line (appart from the smaller ones) is probably PowerBuilder. It's an ok tool within it's limitations, but nothing at all compared to what Java can now do for you. It will probably take a long time to disapear as there are a relatively high number of user with lots of legacy applications. One can speculate about anyone else as well. What do I suggest? Do what we do. Continue running your 4GL applications with 4GL and a high quality terminal emulator on the PC. We use GLINK (http://www.gar.no/) as that is the only one we have found that is high performance, all menus can be removed and colors can be controled so we get a light grey background, white fields and black text so the colors at least are the same as in many Windows applications. Then we rewrite one program at a time in Java. You'll be glad you did. Java is no longer a hyped up tool. With all the development going on all over the place on Java tools it allready is where you can create very professional applications. The performance is good and options and functionality is great. With new functionality coming along there is nothing arround that will be able to compete. There are just too many investing too much in Java for anyone to be able to remotely equal it. Some key features are component based, object oriented, multi threaded, multi tier programming all in one and the same language on all tiers with one set of development tools and one set of source code all running on most platforms, by next spring even within the Informix database engine as a sort of stored procedure language or as datablades. The power is awesome, the options are legion. You have to understand that you will eventually have to bite the bullet under any circumstances. There is no way you can continue to use your 4GL code. You can't even properly convert it. There may be some options for simple batch programs but GUI code has to be written from scratch whatever language you use. If you don't do this now, you will have to do it at some not so distant future time. Your users will see that any 4GL based GUI solution isn't GUI. They will eventually demand more. If you don't realize that now they will tell you. This may be hard, but it's life! >Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated. Please email your >responses to bradw@power.net.au. > >Thanks in advance. >Brad White >Development Manager >Power Business Systems >Perth, Western Australia >Email: bradw@power.net.au Nils Myklebust NM Data AS Norway E-mail: Nils.Myklebust@nmdata.com FAQ at: Primary with ODBC info: http://www.smooth1.demon.co.uk Official site http://www.iiug.org/techinfo/faq/faq_top.html