Re: An insider's view

In article <memo.818132@cix.compulink.co.uk> shemminga@cix.compulink.co.uk writes: >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. > >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 >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 ? >------------------------------------- Just a few unofficial thoughts from another insider: 1) just because somebody has an informix.com email address doesn't necessarily mean a person is an *employee*. The author could well be a consultant or a contractor. 2) I know a fair percentage of the development staff, and I honestly can't this of *anyone* in Product Development who shares this attitude. And a fair percentage of people in Support and Consulting would actually be as critical (or *more* critical) of response-time-to-feature-requests than many of the posters in this group. 3) If we even *attempted* to continue to "sell 4GL as it is" for an extended period of time... we'd soon get to a point where we wouldn't be selling much AT ALL... 4) I would dispute the assessment that 4.1 4GL's screen handling is "state of the art". I expect that most people in this group would, too. 5) Contrary to the picture painted by the author, we are spending more on R&D than ever. -- Alan Denney aland@informix.com {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!aland Disclaimer: These opinions are mine alone. If I am caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of my actions. "What's the use of somebody who doesn't wonder? It's the hallmark of our species that we are continually wondering what is going on." - John Dobson, S.F. Sidewalk Astronomers