Re: New Era, VB, Delphi, PB

Mark D. Stock wrote: > Look, if you don't want to use NewEra just yet and you want to stick to > good old 4GL, then just come right out and say it Tim. :-) > Actually, I'm over 4GL, have been for quite some time. It was a great product and occasionally I still use it. I've been having more fun with ESQL/C, Java, and some design work of late. > Your points are all basically valid, but a little cynical. With every new > development tool that comes out you have the catch-22 situation, where > clients are reluctant to buy because there are no software shops to > support them, and software shops are reluctant to train people up when > there are no active projects. > If you haven't consulted in the states recently, you haven't seen the typical site. It consists of a lot of managers that aren't technical, and do a bad job of managing. Lots of new-to-Informix people making a nice mess of things being led by the bad managers. :-) Dilbert is so appropos it isn't funny. I can't understand it. I talk to consultants all over the U.S.A., and the story is the same. Florida is a state where no matter where you go, the consultants are hated. The employees are resentful of the higher-paid consultants. Managers who can barely tie their shoes tell me they'll bring me on full-time at a laughable salary. "Oh, we can't afford to pay you what you're making as a consultant". They'll also be well below the mark for a benefit-laden salary, "because it's Florida...". Geez, yes I'm cynical. It's a grim situation. I'll show up to a new consulting position and sit for a week or two while the brain-dead networking group gets around to getting me set up on the network, and get a cube set up. I've waited up to 3 weeks waiting for a cube and a place to work, and collected a check for it. Absolutely amazing. And corporate America wonders why the morale is so low, or why there's no loyalty. Cynical? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! :-) I'm beyond cynical. I've been to a site of late that uses consultants to build morale among the employees by treating the consultants bad. "See, look how good you got it compared to that consultant". It's rampant stupidity in America. > In South Africa we pretty much provide all the skills for outsourced > projects. Some companies are developing in-house, but the number of NewEra > projects is increasing monthly. > A great opportunity for a proprietary interface to succeed. > I think you are wrong about people using different suppliers. People > generally select a company to supply their database, then they use the > tools offered by that company. People select a hardware platform, then > they get all their hardware requirements from that supplier. > C'mon Mark, I thought you were smarter than that. :-) Maybe that's how you do it in S.A., but not here. The product mix at a typical site is so varied here in the states. Informix is rubbing elbows with the likes of SQLServer, Oracle, DB2, and a myriad of interfaces. And hardware? Even small sites are a varied mix of hardware and software. There's a lot of sites with several different Informix customers at the same company. Different budgets, agendas, hardware. > If you look at all the hype from database vendors about ANSI standards. > The original sales pitch was that if you could write SQL for one > database then you could write it for all. If you could connect to one > database then you could connect to them all. This has only recently > become a reality with connectivity such as ODBC. You still need SQL > manuals for each database you need to connect to. > Yes. Very true. But there are baseline similaraities that remain. > So your ideal of using multiple vendors will become a reality in time, I > am sure. But at this point if Informix say they have a new wonder-tool, > then Informix clients will upgrade. If Oracle say they have a new engine, > then Oracle clients will upgrade (in a flash :-). > Well, I see a varied mix NOW, and I think it'll continue. Even Informix is buying an eclectic mix of products, putting their name on it, and offering it. You almost need a scorecard. > It may be just my warped sense of the universe, but to me the whole > industry has come full circle over the last ten years. With a return now > to host-centric systems with dumb or thin clients, running 3GL's like > Java. >8-) > Yes, we're back to terminal based sytems with one major difference. If the Network Computer becomes a reality, think about this: If the server crashes on a character-based system, the user could not work. If the server crashes on an NC, the user could theoretically continue to work, depending on the app because the app is LOCAL to the terminal. This is a profound difference to the server-centric character-based systems. I think a lot of managers here in the states long for the day when their workers are not downloading shareware GUI apps for their computers. They will have all their favorite PC apps running on a GUI terminal, only it won't be Xterm, or a fat-client app it'll be a GUI app they could run on a PC. And they'll actually be WORKING, a concept lost in a lot of companies. Microsloth is not too happy about Java and NC. Already there's enough Java out there to make a PC look silly. ActiveX? Ha! Why bother??? > <Soapbox is removed by passer-by with a promise to break both legs> > > Cheers, > -- > > Mark. > > +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ > |Mark D. Stock - The West Solutions Group http://www.west.co.za | > | The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org | > |mailto:marks@west.co.za +------------------------------------------------+ > |Tel: +27 11 803 2151 |If it doesn't work... force it! | > |Fax: +27 11 803 2189 |If it breaks... it needed replacing anyway! | > |Cell: +27 83 250 2325 |Well, that's how I code anyway! | > +------------------------+------------------------------------------------+ <Preacher is in a wheel-chair, legs and neck broken, sipping whiskey with a straw> :-) -- Tim Schaefer \\\\|// tschaefe@mindspring.com (6 6) ------------------------oOOo---( )---o00o--------- Liberty: http://www.lp.org Informix: http://www.iiug.org --------------------------------------------------