The IBM Informix 4GL (I-4GL) study I started at the beginning of this year is now available and I am glad I can announce it here.
About 100 people participated in this study, which created a very impressive quantity of data to process and analyze. The analysis covered many aspects of the Informix 4GL language, as well as vendors and their solution. I hope my analysis is correct and will help you in taking decision.
I am open to any private (and confidential) exchange using my e-mail (jgp at jgp dot net), if you do not get an answer within 48 hours, my spam filter might have caught you. I will be pleased to answer any public question on IIUG’s Informix Forum (Informix-forum at iiug dot org) and only there.
Very interesting Jean-Georges...
However about the use of Ajax to update the page displayed by 4GL Web front-ends, did you ever tried the Genero Web Client? It uses that technique since its first version, even before the word AJAX has been coined...
I am sorry if there are a few inaccuracies in the study. I took great care at making it as accurate as possible but I must admit it was not always easy. All vendors provided a lot of help as well, especially in reviewing the conclusions -- all vendors, except Four J’s, who simply ignored my numerous e-mails and requests. I do not wish to start any polemic debate here, I simply regret it.
On the specific issue, as it is not documented in the Genero documentation, would you mind elaborating a bit on how it works? I remember that, in the BDS Web solution, you could activate a flag to get all fields to be triggered, but it was not very convenient. Does it work this way too? How does it react when you have 3 fields on a screen, an AFTER FIELD in the second field and you leave field 1 to field 3? If you have any example, reference or document, I think it would be very helpful.
Charles Rogers (IP:151.140.160.231) 2007-03-30 18:56:19
Very well done. The content of this study I found to be absolutely relevant and timely. It is required reading for any migration or modernization efforts in the 4GL community.
Interesting study. I am surprised you did not include the Progress 4GL in your study. I honestly have never heard of any of the languages except Informix. I am guessing that you have probably never heard of Progress. There is a relatively large Progress community. Some how 4GLs just don't seem to get much attention. There latest release is named OpenEdge: http://www.progress.com/openedge/index.ssp. If you have any interest in the language itself all documentation and manuals are on the web site. They also have a tool called WebSpeed that allows you to embed the 4GL in html. Pretty cool.
Thanks for your comment. This study is mainly around Informix 4GL which has some common points with Progress 4GL for sure...
Informix 4GL has been around for a while: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Informix-4GL. Like many of the languages of the 80s, you were sticked to a database, in this case Informix. Nowadays, many vendors (described in the study) offer connectivity to other database servers and make the language more attractive and compelling.
Nevertheless, the study is really intended towards Informix 4GL users, therefore no big mention of Progress 4GL there...
I agree with you when you say that "4GLs just don't seem to get much attention". They probably don't have the communication budget that Java and .Net have...
