Re: NewEra 3.0 and SE

> darrell@gteens.com (Darrell S. Thacher) writes: > When is NewEra 3.0 due to be released? I expect it this spring/summer. > Can someone list the features? I can't realy. I would also like this. I have seen several good roumors. > Can you truly use NewEra to develop and deploy simultaneously CHUI and GUI > apps (assume that screens are limited to character-type 4GL style)? I haven't tested this yet, but yes you are supposed to be able to do that. However - character mode means running on Unix. So you need to buy the Unix version of NewEra also. You need a Unix box with X-Windows to do the development. I don't even know which hardware this is available on, if any at all. I can't find any reference to NewEra ver.2.0 for Unix at the Informix web-site, so I have to assume it is non existant. Or is that a wrong asumption Informix? :( If you (Informix) want me to use a lot of time to call, fax or otherwise contact your salespeople to find such information you haven't fully understood the utility of the web, how this saves me time, and that it shows respect for your customers time and information needs to have an up to date information rich web site. Sorry for the diatribe. Informix's web site is gernerally good, but it could be so much better. Now ver. 1.x for Unix also isn't mentioned at the web site, and that does exist so who knows? Maybe someone is using 2.0 on Unix??? It may be burried somwhere in the porting information, but that is hardly possible to use at the web site. Informix have told me NE ver. 2.0 will not be available on any PC Unix (SCO). So it will cost a lot in hardware! Second using the same program in character and GUI mode isn't a good idea - in most cases. As you say yourself you have to limit the screen layout to what can be accomodated in character mode. Your GUI users will be more than unhappy with this. Also the difference between GUI and character mode is large enough I doubt the character users will be as happy as with a 4GL style program (character mode menu driven). If that can be made as well functioning with NewEra I don't know. It is interesting to be able to make character mode programs that you don't intend to run in GUI mode at all though. > What is the cost per site of an MS Windows client running a > NewEra-developed app over TCP/IP to the Informix engine? A Pentium PC with 16 MB memory or more, isn't it. Pluss the prices below for runtime and "support"-price to Informix the first year at least. If you want the real cost compared to an old fashioned character terminal you may want to include several administration type costs Gartner group style. This isn't allways entirely fair though, as the user may get his PC anyway. > Can you use NewEra with Informix SE 4.x engine? Not according to the release notes. You may be able to make an ODBC version of your programs that can use it (OpenLink has an ODBC driver for this version I think). But if you can afford it at all you should upgrade. The newer engines are very much better. Particularly the 7.x once. > What product/tools am I missing below and how far off are my pricing > assumptions?: > > Developer Client > --------------------------------------- > NewEra & Maint $5,000 Runtime $350 > Visual C++ $ 750 TCP/IP ?? > TCP/IP ?? TCP/IP is now free from Microsoft for Windows 3.11 as well as Windows 95 and NT. I can understand no reason why anyone would want to use anything but this TCP/IP (unless they must have NFS on the PC - but also here several alternatives are available). Isn't the NewEra runtime price $150. I think the $350 includes the SE engine for Windows that you wouldn't need if you have a server database. There is something about the ViewPoint runtime also I think, but is that usable? You may want an extra report writer. You will also need a Unix version of NewEra to be able to utilize application partitioning. You have to buy that at full price. It also carries it's own runtime prices which I don't know. It all becomes very expensive. And application partitioning is what realy sets NewEra appart from the rest of the world, so this sad. Perhaps this will become better when Informix finaly comes arround to realeasing a 32 bit Windows version that will run on both Windows 95 and NT and do application partitioning (with NT as the server) in one box. At that time abandoning Unix and using NT servers will become extremely attractive if you don't need the ability to scale up to very large databases that NT can't handle, yet... Also there is a "support" fee in addition to these runtime prices that Informix often conveniantly forgets. You are required to pay that for the first year at least. This isn't cheap, and tends to discurage the use of NewEra for several classes of applications. To be fair all prices here are list prices, and may not be what you end up paying. Perhaps now when PowerBuilder is comming with a true compiler and application partitioning, also Informix will reduce or eliminate these runtime prices like PowerBuilder did a long time ago. (For PowerBuilder on Informix you still need I-Net and/or an ODBC driver which means a runtime fee. There are other database servers you can use where you will avoide this.) > TIA - I have a fair amount of existing 4GL 4.x code using a standard engine > that I want to start converting. > > Also I am still creating 4GL character apps that I would like to > build/test/debug locally using (I think) NewEra. Remember you can develop, at least initially, with SE for Windows that is included with NewEra. Of course you need the client/server setup to test your applications. Also as said above, you have problems with character mode applications under MS Windows. As I understand it you still develop in grapics mode, and can therefore do the initial testing of your applications on MS Windows. But you must link with the character mode class library. I belive you can only compile, link and run this under Unix. We are still evaluating NewEra, and are in much the same situation as you. The issues mentioned here are the main reason why we haven't decided to actually use it yet. We have great expectations for version 3.0. If some of the issues mentioned here are solved (application partitioning problems mainly, including costs of tools and runtime) this is our main candidate for future development. Nils.Myklebust@ccmail.telemax.no NM-data, Aasesvei 71, 1300 Sandvika, Norway My opinions are those of my company