Re: Need Advice: Upgrading 4GL v4.0

In article <4qenvh$qgn@asia.lm.com>, Implematix Computer <implemx@telerama.lm.com> writes >Yes, I know, 4GL v4.0 is prehistoric. What I need to know is what >issues are involved in upgrading to a newer version of the 4GL RDS. > >Can anyone share their experiences upgrading from v4.0 to v6.0? Do >programs written under 4.0 run OK under 6.0, or do they need a lot >of modifications? > >Is 6.0 a reliable product, or is it buggy? (For comparison, is it >more or less buggy than 4.0?) > >What about v5.0? It's still available, right? Is there any reason >to upgrade to 5.0 but not all the way to 6.0? > >Thanks for any advice you can provide... > -- David Shuman -- > Implematix Computer, Inc. Go for version 6.03.UC1 of the 4Gl i.e. the latest version. Early copies of version 6.0 we buggy but it is becoming more stable as time passes. There should be no problems moving to version 6 with well written code - i.e. code which does not use undocumented 4GL features. I moved 2 large and 1 small systems to v6.0 within 1 day. i.e. literally just recompiled - ok,ok, bad move but the client INSITED that since Informix said well written code would work that I had 0 time to test under version 6. I arrived on-site at 10am in teh morning, recompiled some new modules and linked them in to the rest of one of the large systems. My executable then hung over with no error messages on the front screen. This really confused me until if anything had changed on the system. The client said yes, we installed a new version of Informix. I then said it would need porting an the client's IT manager said, "Informix told us all you need to do is recompile so do it!!". I was given no change to argue and the client was even annoyed that the rest of my day on site would be wasted as the system took 12 hours for a full recompile. When tested it didn't work as we had found an Informix bug. (6.01.UC1 I think). We a patch arrived from Informix, I told the client how to recompile everything (they insisted they would not pay for me to do it). Everything then worked!! -- David Williams