Re: 4GL or New Era

In article <kcjDFC3CL.JqA@netcom.com> kcj@netcom.com "Kate Juliff" writes: > I've been using ISQL and though I'm quite pleased with many aspects of > it, I'm finding it doesn't allow me to tailor the applications I'm > developing to our needs. I am tossing up between 4GL and New Era and > would be grateful for any advice from anyone who has used both. I thought I'd replied to this, but it hasn't appeared, so I'll do it again. Apologies if my first post did make it through and I'm wasting everybody's time.... The migration from SQL to 4GL is quite straightforward and it's certainly the option I'd recommend. 4GL is plenty robust, quick, and has a nice, simple but powerful development environment. NE is a lot more of a handful. It's very pretty and a lot more powerful and extendable than 4GL, but you have to go OO to take full advantage of it. (Please note, you *can* use it without resorting to OO techniques, but it's like only using the first three gears on a Ferrari! :) As far as "paradigm shift" is concerned, 4GL is definitely easier to learn, NE more powerful. 4GL is more stable, NE is prettier. 4GL is perfect for dumb terminals, NE needs >= 486 PC's. One final factor: I gather from Informix's lack of continued development of 4GL that they're probably going to phase it out one day. But that day is a *long* way away. And they'll probably do some serious work to make the conversion painless (I hope!) I've been monitoring the kind of questions you've been posting, and if you want to address those kinds of issues: go for 4GL (IMHO) HTH, Spokey the Wheeler------------------------------------------------------------- "Billy Boy" - das aufregend andere kondom! Carter - the Unstoppable Sex Machine / Wheeler - the Unstoppable Mail Machine!