INFORMIX WORLDWIDE USERS CONFERENCE

INFORMIX WORLDWIDE USER CONFERENCE Trip report. I attended the opening address and spent the day examining exhibits at the First Annual Informix Worldwide User Conference in San Jose, CA on July 8, 1992. The San Jose Convention Hall was packed with users from around the world -- Japan, Australia, England, for instance -- so the title "WORLDWIDE" is not pretentious. The people I spoke to seemed genuinely positive about their experiences with INFORMIX tools. I discussed K-Mart's use of INFORMIX database engines, networking, and 4GL for hand-held radio PCs with a manager from K-Mart. He was very upbeat about the power of INFORMIX to automate K-mart's inventory, order, and stocking processes. INFORMIX founder Roger Sippl, in his welcoming remarks, had a lot to say about INFORMIX's decision to target UNIX as a strategic platform for enterprise-wide data processing and the heavy emphasis INFORMIX has always placed upon tools and languages. Mr. Sippl announced that an Object Oriented version of INFORMIX-4GL, INFORMIX-4gl++, will soon be available. It will provide class libraries and presumably enable developers to create abstract data types, classes, and to use inheritance, encapsulation, and all the other OO concepts. Mr. Sippl stated that he believed OO languages and tools are even more important than OO databases. The next release of INFORMIX On-LINE, Version 6, is to be announced soon. Two phase commit, stored procedures, more online transaction speed and power, and other features are included which Mr. Sippl claimed will make it obvious that INFORMIX engines running on UNIX are not just capable of doing enterprise-wide on-line transactions,but are the "best" approach. INFORMIX-4gl/GX was discussed as a way of automatically running existing character-based INFORMIX-4GL applications in a Graphical User Interface mode on X terminals and workstations, without any rewriting, recompiling, relinking, or any changes at all. Mr. Sippl stated that this is inline with INFORMIX's policy of reusing and enhancing existing systems, rather than replacing them. (The old systems were referred to as Legacy Systems -- yet another euphemism to remember.) The exhibit hall was packed with scores of vendors showing hardware and software that supports INFORMIX products. Such vendors as UNIFY, FourGen, SUN, NCR, Sequent, IBM, JYACC and scores of others were represented. There were a wide range of report writers, screen painters, graphical user tools and other productivity tools that will work with INFORMIX. There were a number of interoperability tools that would allow exchanges between INFORMIX databases and other databases. WINGZ 2.0 beta was being run on a SUN IPX under MOTIF. This is a greatly improved version of WINGZ that adds a lot of slick new features (like "Hypercons" -- which provide customizable buttons to fire off common commands). It seems to run much faster and without some of the bugs of current SUN versions of WINGZ. The user interface and menu have been drastically redesigned to let user's get to popular selections faster. HyperTools was also being demonstrated in beta. This is a set of powerful programming tools (including a source level debugger) for the WINGZ programming language, Hyperscript. It includes "painting" tools which allow programmers to merely draw, drag, click and point their way to completely functional controls like buttons, dialog boxes, menus, check lists, etc. -- without coding. The system generates source code automatically. SQL logic is embedded in HyperTools and developers will not have to use ESQL/C or Datalink to access data from SQL via WINGZ, if they use HyperTools. STORM will allow non-programmers to access data in SQL and to design screens and reports without programming and with minimal or no knowledge of the database structure. WINGZ 2.0, HyperTools, and STORM will probably be available late 1992 or early 1993. They all seem well thought out, powerful, flashy, easy to use, and well integrated with other INFORMIX tools. I think they will all be popular. Apart from the INFORMIX tools, I was most impressed with the work I saw from MicroStrategy, Inc. They are a company that specializes in building Executive Information System Software. They use INFORMIX-WINGZ to develop a set of very attractive graphical based tools for gathering corporate data from spreadsheets and/or SQL and/or text files and presenting this all in a very interactive, graphical, almost multimedia format. They market their own toolset for other developers to use. It is called EISToolKit for Macintosh and Windows. I was also very impressed by a NEXT computer that was able to run a WINGZ application I have written -- FROM A DOS DISKETTE -- with no recompilation. (DOS WINGZ spreadsheets and DOS WINGZ Hyperscript binaries ran fast and correctly -- directly from the NEXT Mach OS -- no DOS emulator!) I highly recommend the INFORMIX WORLD USERS CONFERENCE and plan to attend all three days in 1993 and participate in the many classes and workshops. INFORMIX seems to have a solid set of products and a strong international user community. Their new products are generating a lot of enthusiasm both among programmer/analysts and MIS managers. I expect INFORMIX will become an even bigger player in the UNIX world in the next year as the word spreads about their latest offerings. -- Steve Price UNIX: pacbell!pbhyf!rsprice PHONE: (510)823-1951 The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. Carl Jung