Re: web access to application partitions - possible?

Eric McDermid wrote: > > In article <33E1D563.8FC99577@mindspring.com>, > Tim Schaefer <tschaefe@mindspring.com> wrote: > >bernie ryan wrote: > >> > >> i'd be interested in hearing from anyone with thoughts on / experience > >> with having web clients utilise new era application partitions. > > > >The direction seems to be, at least based on what I saw at the Informix > >conference,and the Object World conference, Java. > > Correct, though not quite the way you're thinking. NewEra 3.1 > includes additions to the partitioning wizard that will allow you > to generate Java stubs which will communicate with NewEra application > servers. We demonstrated this at the user's conference in the > NewEra booth. > Sorry. Didn't see it. Was that the booth where people were disappearing? :-) Just kidding! Don't get me wrong, I didn't really see any banners for New Era, and so didn't think about looking for it. But think about this: let's say I didn't make it to the conference. My chances of seeing New Era 3.x are less than having a close encounter with aliens from another planet. I could expect to see a UFO before I'd see New Era 3.x. > Come to think of it, NewEra 3.0 lets you generate COM stubs, so > I suppose you could also use ActiveX controls to get to NewEra > app servers. I don't know if anyone's tried it though. > Hmmm... interesting. So this would mean a Visual Basic or Visual C++ client app communicating with New Era on the server. > >In terms of using > >New Era, the new Data Director for Java is heavily laced with New Era. > > Umm.. not really. > > The 1.x versions of Data Director for Java do reuse much of the > NewEra Window Painter, but only for short-term practicality. At > the time we were developing DDJ, the JavaBeans spec wasn't ready, > meaning that we couldn't just plug our components into any old > Java IDE. Reusing the NewEra Window Painter let us get the product out. > > From 2.0 onward, all of our components will be JavaBeans, and DDJ > will rely on the form painter included with whatever JDE you are > using (initially, of course, we'll be best integrated with Symantec's > Visual Cafe Pro). > So are you going to have a special edition of Visual Cafe Pro from Informix and Symantec have their own version for those that do not want Informix? Two separate versions? > DDJ did bring the SuperTable idea along, but most people consider > SuperTable's features to be a good thing (though they may disagree > with certain parts of the design). These features will continue > forward in future versions of DDJ, though we expect to make them > more modular, flexible, and powerful. > Um... well the Supertable doesn't exist in any other product that I know about, so I would say it's New Era for Java at this point. It's an interesting concept, the supertable, but I haven't caught the vision it represents just yet. > >You can have and end-to-end solution in Java. > > Between DDJ, JOI, and Java in the Server (plus a few as-yet unannounced > goodies), that's exactly what we intend to enable. > > >Maybe DDJ is New Era's replacement. > > Absolutely not. The Data Director products represent a broadening > of our tools strategy, not an abandonment of NewEra. As you read this, > Informix continues to develop and enhance the NewEra product. > > Mind you, I haven't talked to Paula this week, so I don't know if > you've managed to convince her to shrink-wrap it yet... > > -- Eric > Judging from the look on her face when I mentioned it, I don't think I was very successful. :-) However, I maintain that unless it is indeed brought to mass market it remains a red herring in the tools world. As visible and well advertised products are from Borland, they struggle to compete. New Era will end up on the niche tool pile, for a very small group of users. It's unfortunate but the way of the market. You can have a great tool but unless it's marketed correctly and aggressively it doesn't stand a chance. And in New Era's case it's not marketed at all. :-/ Tim > ------------- > > Eric McDermid > Principal Software Engineer, Java Development Tools > Informix Software Inc. > > (posting via a personal account) -- Tim Schaefer \\\\|// tschaefe@mindspring.com 6 6 --------------------oOOo---( )---o00o--------- http://www.inxutil.com ==============================================