An insider's view

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 ? ------------------------------------- So there it is. Comments are now invited from the audience... | I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way -- Jessica Rabbit | |------------------------------------------------------------| | Stuart Hemming | shemminga@cix.compulink.co.uk | | Tudor Labels Ltd | uunet!cix.compulink.co.uk!shemminga | | Roman Bank Bourne | Tel : (+44) 778 426444 | | Lincs PE10 9LQ. UK. | Fax : (+44) 778 421862 | Stuart |8-)