Re: An insider's view

> I recieved this message today from someone inside Informix. I've been > asked not to identify the individual but am posting the message with > permission. > > ----------------------------- > > Hello, > > > I hear every day that we have the best 4GL on the market ! It seems > that our 4GL has a very big share of the Unix market. I don't hear > very much from the marketing department that there should be so many > missing features like popup menus, timer functions, improved input > and display array statements, better cursor handling ( by the way > ESQL/C has the same problem with cursor definitions. The only work- > around would be to use the level below. On the C-level you see that > cursors are structures. And there you can play with the address of > these structures. ) and many others as we saw in the emails. Gosh, I don't really recall the Marketing Department asking recently either. Maybe Marketing doesn't hear about it because it's almost impossible to point out these "little nits" in a simple demo. Early in our sales we end up having to talk away from some of the "flash" that clients like to see (namely lots of colors). And then later, they start asking several questions very similiar to the suggestions we've been hearing. Generally, we reply "No", or "Yes, but it's alot of work." Which basically means "no". Thankfully, the FourGen Tools do a lot of things for us. They've put a lot the extra work into giving us some really nice functionality. But as I'm sure has been noted, there's a lot of code there -- generated or not. > And if these feature requests should be really justified - what is > the problem ? As you already mentioned - is there something better > on the market ? No - and people who come from Cobol or Assembler > are happy with the product. Forget the few ones who want to make > software with a screen handling which is state of the art. I would Oh Heavens no, we never want anything state of the art...we know we're asking too much there. > say our 4GL is really a fourth generation language. And if there is > nothing which is much better - why should we spend money for > implementing all these features if we can sell it as it is ? Yup, I can see your point. Resting on your laurels is always an attractive alternative. Stagnation is cheap, easy to implement, easy to support. Don't have to rewrite any sales literature, don't have to retrain the sales and support staff. "We're number 1, let's shut down R & D and head to Bermuda for 6 months..." We poor sods that are banging all this code out for a buck certainly don't need any improvements...we've already written work arounds for everything, right? How does it work in the development meetings up there: "We've got a request for dynamic scrolling arrays? Any takers?" "Oh, I saw some guy post 14 pages of 4GL and C to do that, we don't need to do that." "Okay, how about...." My only hope is that Informix is putting all of its "Big Guns" into the 4GL++. That 4GL development is basically bug fixes with the intent that 4GL++ will knock its socks off and still be somewhat backward compatible. Done properly, an Object Oriented 4GL can give us real high level commands like "INPUT ARRAY", down to real detailed things (like changing form attributes on the fly...). Heck, it might even have consistent string expressions and maybe a few extra string functions. It can do all this by letting the programmers get as detailed as they need to, in the places where they need to, whenever they want to. Clearly, nobody wants to go deep down into bit twiddling to get everthing they need done. The fact that we've seen request for everything from UPDATE BY NAME to insanely flexible DISPLAY ARRAY statements tells me that the base functionality is there, but sometime the programmer has to go deeper. I certainly can't imagine that the attitude of this "Informix Insider" is prevalent throughout Informix. I sure hope not. "They can have any color as long as its black" died out a long time ago. What is clear to me is that the folks developing the 4GL don't use it. When the developer of a product USE the product, in the real world, they inevitably find something they can improve, if for no other reason than to make their own life easier. Dave Snyder is a great example of this. Every month or two his code generator goes up a version point. I'm sure that Dave's is the "Number 1 PD 4GL Code Generator". Yet, gee, it gets better everytime it comes out. Everytime he uses his generator he probably hits some wall that he can't stand, so he fixes it, cleans it up, and makes it better. Heck, I imagine he even listens to the folks that are using it in the field as well. FourGen does the same thing with their product. So, maybe Informix should use their product in the field, or let their Consultants send mail back to the development team. Of course, that assumes that the Dev. Team is listening. Will (uunet!la4gen!villy - me@zipbang.socal.com)