Re: A liitle knowldege . .

On Tue, 10 Mar 1998 10:42:15 -0500, Dennis Fletcher <djf@entra-markham.com> wrote: >A series of qusetions from a complete neophyte, but first, some >background. > >I have recently inherited an Informix-SE db and report/form suite >written for Infomix-SQL, version 4.xx. I have it running on SCO-UNIX >(version 3.something) on a Toshiba 220cs laptop. > >The original programmer avoided Windows because: NT wasn't widely >available when he started, a mouse doesn't survive more than a few days >in the hostile environments this system is intended for, UNIX is much >more stable . . . > >In practice the system is run on a Wintel machine (actually a 486) >running SCO-Unix with 3 Wyse-60 terminals. It is a simple system with a >dozen-or-so tables, running to a max of about 300 meg of active data. It >is intended to take input from 3-4 terminals, connected directly, though >dial-up access would be nice. The DBA/manager uses the server for >reports, management and db administration. > >I think the concept is marketable, the system as it exists now is quite >elegant (within the limits of SQL), and has enjoyed the luxury of >needing only to do what it was intended to do, without being asked by >the front office to jump through hoops no one ever intended. As a result >its users have high praise and others who have seen it are quite >impressed. > > >Problems: > >I think I need to make it 'prettier' to be more marketable. Including a >mouse on clients is not an option. > >We have encountered some resistance to its UNIX platform. > >I have learned just enough about UNIX and Informix on my own to >understand how little I know. I want to stop now before my liitle >knowledge grows slightly to a dangerous level. > > >Questions: (the few I can think from many I can't) > >1. Should I be looking at 4GL? Perhaps. It limits you to a character (terminal) based user interface though with no real option to go to a GUI. >2. Is question 1 trivial? The question may be, but going to 4GL requires serious programmer knowhow as any other programming language does. (It's simpler than Visual Basic, Delphi and similar GUI dev. tools though.) The I-SQL solution you have now is probably somewhat simpler. It also have user interface and other limitations that 4GL or another programming language would easily solve for you. >3. Are more recent versions of SQL a viable option? or should I refer to >question 2? I-SQL is a dead product. It still exist, but isn't something to use for serious new developments. It's fine though if you can sell your current application. >4. Should I keep the concept and start over with other dev. tools, or >can I work from where I am? Depends on what you realy want to do. >5. Are UNIX-based systems readily portable to W-NT? No, not readily. Particularly not I-SQL. If you ever want to port to NT Informix 4GL is also *not* an option. Porting to NT means going to a GUI and a mouse might be required. >6. Is there a GUI or GUI-ish, that is reasonbly friendly, without a >mouse? There are two low cost GUI's arround that are reasonably well supported with development tools: MS Windows and Linux. On Linux you now even get a Windows look alike if you want to. You can create user interfaces inside an application that doesn't require a mouse. It isn't always easy, but if you do it right you can get keyboard driven applications that both look and perform better than with character based (terminal) interfaces. However at least with Windows 95 it's somwhat hard to run it with no mouse attached at all. I haven't ever planned to do that so I don't realy know what I would do. Perhaps you coud set up your application to start automatically and have a function within your application to both stop the application and stop Windows. I assume something similar would be an idea for Linux. With all this said you should be sure you realy want a GUI for your application. The only real reason to use a GUI for an application that is going to be keyboard driven is to be able to display more information or information of other types (graphics or perhaps sound or other things). If all you need are characters and 80 by 24 or whatever size your terminals are is enough your users may be better off continuing to use that. What you can not do is develop one user interface that works both in character and graphics mode. Sure there are tools who do it, but the one and only reason I know for that is to make it look "nice". I don't think a GUI translation of a basically character oriented user interface looks nice at all, but others may have other opinions. For pure sales purposes when you hit mangagers that don't know too much you may however make the sale this way. That may be a good enough reason by itself. >7. Have I made my point about how little I know? Yes. >If there are issues here appropriate for discussion please respond, >otherwise, please reply to: > >djf@entra-markham.com > > >Dennis Fletcher 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