Re: 4gl

Steve wants to know: >Is 4gl really that popular around Informix community? Extremely. For those who are doing the things that it can do there is hardly a better tool. 4GL generates a sizeable revenue for Informix even now, and has for many years. >Is 4gl just another legacy thing? No future builtin? It doesn't have the "future built in" in the same way that the product around which that slogan was made does. The language is a character- based report generation and data input tool. It is not extensible to user-defined data types or even to run in anything but terminal emulation mode in a GUI (or darn close to it.) Given that, the company is still behind the product, still supporting it, and is releasing 4GL v7.2 in a matter of weeks. I was in a meeting with the product management for 4GL recently where they candidly admitted that they don't have a complete product plan for that tool. At the same time they were emphatic in their support of it as a powerful and money-making application builder. Though Informix management in the past has had different views of the future of character-based applications, they have mirrored the feelings of us all in the IT industry. Now we, and they, are finding new value in the speed, simplicity, and power of a "heads-down" character interface. >Are there any similar products in the market that can do >a better job than 4gl? Put it this way: are there any products whose marketing literature *doesn't* say they do the job better? It depends on how you define the job, and since that's an individual definition only the individual can decide. There are no other products from the same vendor as the database that can build a character-based data input and output application simpler and easier to maintain than Informix 4GL. >Is it still make sense to build character-based GUI applications? Is that a contradiction in terms? As long as our primary vehicle for communication with computers is characters it makes sense to code character-based applications. The Macintosh was a great GUI when it came out in 1984. I still remember reading the instructions for data entry on the Excel spreadsheet: "...to move from one cell to another simply move the cursor with the mouse and click it in the desired cell." How simple! But what a pain in the neck to take one's hands off the keyboard, find the cursor, place it in the adjacent cell, click, then find the home keys again to continue data entry. But that's neither here nor there. You can debate this topic ad nauseum in forums other than this one. I suggest you see the Association for Computing Machinery web page at http://www.acm.org , especially the SIGs on CHI for fascinating and neverending discussion. >What are the pros and cons? They do that, too. >Will you recommend people new to Informix to learn 4gl? And why? If they want to. For the same reason that COBOL programmers are now turning down US$100/hour (I saw it firsthand). They have an enormous base of installed applications to maintain, a great deal of new work to do in places that want to get work done and are not enamored of fancy interfaces at the expense of productivity. And it is still a powerful tool. I am running a web page that uses a 4GL interface to an Informix ODS database to dynamically generate the contents of a schedule reporting system. Both the 4GL and the html were written with vi! >Any takers? I guess I've already answered that one, too. :) _____________________________________________________________ Clem Akins (aka clem@informix.com) Informix Software, Inc (Standard disclaimers apply) International Technical Support Last seen: Motorcycling through shady redwood groves near SF