Closing
Remarks
We have some stream-of-consciousness notes from Marylène
Delbourg-Delphis', Laurent Ribardiere's, Dominiuqe
Hermsdorff's, and Walt Nelson's closing remarks. Note that
these are mostly a question-and-answer session:
- She thanked everyone for coming, and asked everyone who writes
externals to write Jim Brickwell so that they can make a
catalog of available externals. She would also like to build a
catalog of interesting internet implementations; she asked people
to send this information to Lori Ralph. As well, she would
like to revive the success stories program, and asked for those to
be sent to Sharon Miller.
- MDD read some questions that had been collected throughout the
show. During this time, Laurent sat quietly in a chair nearby on
stage, and was present (MDD said) to answer the technical
questions:
- Q: Has 4D Chart been enhanced. (MDD: How typical of Tim Hall)
A: No, but we will probably address that.
- Q: Will we be able to purchase unlimited deployment for
server. A: No, because we would be broke.
- Q: When will v6 ship? A: When we are ready.
- Q: How much will it cost? A: We are still working on an
intelligent pricing strategy.
- Q: What are the limitations of web access? A: We don't know;
we are working on that. By default there will be web connections,
but how many, we don't know. We will try to make it logical. The
database market and the web market are quite different. The web
people aren't accustomed to paying a fortune. We know that.
- Q: Can we have a Bug List? A: Yes, we are working on it. I
cannot promise we are going to update it tomorrow, but we will do
it as soon as we can.
- Q: (for Laurent) Can you give us info about v7? A: (Laurent)
It would be a bit early to speak about it; the only thing I can
tell you is that we will integrate 4D Universal into v7 while
maintaining all the current interface changes we have made with
v6. That's about all I can say.
- Q: Why are you still supporting the flowchart editor? A:
(Laurent) The flowchart editor is not very useful; I have in mind
that the flowchart editor will support the same flow control like
the procedure editor. I plan to be able to switch from the
graphical representation to the text representation.
- Q: What is the strategy for increasing sales of vertical
market product. A: (MDD) We will be better about communicating the
superiority of 4D. I've been working a lot with Mark Yelich about
this. I can only encourage you to subscribe to DIMENSIONS again.
We will be making a document that compares 4D to other products in
the vertical market. We have a problem with price in the vertical
market; we are taking this into consideration.
- Q: When will we have inter-process message passing. A: (MDD)
(For now) Use Foot Messenger by Footprints. There is support for
this in v6.
- Q: How v6 affect Web Smart Server and other 3rd party tools?
A: (MDD) v6 isn't shipping. Use the 3rd party solutions now for
business now. I can confirm that DATACraft and Foresight are
working on new tools; NetLink will be nicer.
- Q: What about compatibility for existing externals? A:
(Laurent) We have tested many; the purpose is to make them work
with out modification
- Q: Will the modules be compatible? A: (MDD) Yes.
- Q: Can we show v6? A: (MDD) It wouldn't be wise; it' a
developer release. You will be free to show it in about 3 to 4
weeks.
- Q: Can we have more technical tech notes? A: (MDD) We'll do
our best to do more technical tech notes.
- Q: What about 4D Universal? A: (MDD) What was done for 4D
Universal will be re-integrated later.
- Q: What about multi-processor support? A: (Laurent) v6 doesn't
support it, even on NT, except for what NT gives you for free
(like IO and DMA on one processor, and application execution on
the other). Later, it (4D) will support it.
- Q: What about OpenDoc? A: (Laurent) Right now, we are trying
for OLE; the foundations of OpenDoc and OLE are similar, so it
helps get OpenDoc implementation along. (BG: Doesn't sound like it
is going to get support)
- Q: (Live questions) How do you go from v3 to v6? A: (MDD)
Where are v4 and v5? The French version is up to v5; we wanted to
synchronize the versions.
- Q: We have problems normalizing our data; where are the
totally virtual structures? A: (MDD) Explain virtual fields; what
do you mean? There is no true virtual structure.
- Q: Like Views in SQL? A: (Laurent) No, not one that can
combine different table in v6.
- Q: Will you ever have it? A: (Laruent) One day.
- Q: Drag and drop between apps? A: (Laurent) There are already
externals to do that; we plan it for the future with OCX and OLE.
But not in v6.
- Q: The CDs are DR1; will there be a DR2? A: (MDD) Domi will
respond to that later.
- Q: UNIX 4D Server in v6? A: (Laurent) No. When 4DU is
integrated, it will be supported.
- Q: Visual class in a form? Add this like FoxPro? A: (Laurent)
We will think about it.
- Q: What about technology implemented on Macintosh but not on
Windows; why do you not implement a technology because it's not on
Windows? What about better support of Apple technology like
OpenDoc and Drag Manager? A: (MDD) Regarding the Drag Manager, we
will implement it quickly. (Laurent) For OpenDoc, it has changed
too much; we would have lost a lot of time with it. In the past we
have wasted a lot of time with Apple technology, like PowerTalk.
We are cautious with OpenDoc; we don't want to waste time. (MDD)
We are irritated with Apple for not even giving us better disk I/O
speed (or a better file manager); why should we give them OpenDoc?
- Q: (Chris Grim) Is there any chance for removing the 31
character limit in the hierarchical item list? A: (Laurent) We
could change it in the future.
- Q: What about automatic text field indexing? Could we have
that feature? A: (MDD) I have wanted this feature for a long time,
like the last 10 years; I am sure that I will have it (looking at
Laurent while the crown laughs). (Laurent) I will give it to you
in a post-6.0 update.
- Q: What about future product support for 4D ORACLE? What is
your plan? A: To continue to enhance it. We won't drop it for
ODBC.
- Q: (Jim Redfield) The image of the company has gotten a lot
better; the one message I want to say is that v6 has more features
than we can use in 5 years. Please make sure that of them work. A:
(MDD) We are trying to o our best.
- Q: What about adding a GROUP BY feature, like in SQL? A:
(Laurent) I'm not sure how much I can say without MDD screaming at
me. (MDD: Just don't tell when.) One day we will have SQL in 4D;
this will solve the problem. I can't say anything more. It's
frustrating not to be able to answer completely. (MDD) You agree,
we need to ship.
- Q: What about composite keys? A: (Laurent) In v6, use a
trigger and duplicate the data. Of course, in a future release we
will have this.
- Q: With the changes in the last 6 months, what are your
marketing strategies, especially into the Windows market? A: Our
strategy is for the 4D community to have the right thing; to
ensure that the 4D community can put some effort into making
Windows solutions. When there are more applications built in the
Windows world, we can talk about it more. Right now, we are
low-key. Our motto will be "If you like Access, you'll love 4D."
- (Laurent) One more thing: a lot of you are waiting for
features we have promised for years. When planning v6, we planned
to get most of them, and hopefully provide at least work-arounds
for the rest. Our focus on this was to make it on time, not in ten
years, with the necessary features to reach the future of database
programming. The next release next year will be even better.
MDD and LR now exit the stage and Dominique Hermsdorff takes
the podium.
- (DH, referring to the DR1 4Dv6 CD) Everybody got the package?
(Applause.)
- Q: On the CD, are there all the current elements; and more
importantly will we get all the modules at v6 ship time? (DH) Yes,
they are on the CD, and you will get them when v6 ships. We have
gone to a great effort to ensure that all the modules are at least
compatible with v6.
- (DH) Note that it is DR release, not an end-user release. Save
your data beforehand when you try to use it. It has bugs, we know.
- (DH) There will be a DR2; you need to be a member of the beta
testing program to receive it. To join, send an e-mail to
beta@acius.com (BG summary: Domi went on to explain that joining
is not automatic, but instead is by merit. If you report a lot of
bugs in the DR1 release, you will be asked to join the beta
program and receive future DR releases. He intimated that there
might be a public beta period just before release, but didn't say
anything more.)
- (DH) Two things we missed (on the DR1 release): it is more
stable to play with the debugger in the user-runtime process.
Also, the splash screen has a tendency to appear in many windows.
(Laughter.)
- (DH) By the way, I read the
4D-NUG digest every morning. (BG: This is a very important and
exciting bit of news for regular readers of and contributors to
the 4D-NUG. Apparently, Domi keeps in touch with the rest of the
4th Dimension developer community the same way we do -- by reading
what what others have written in the digest!)
- (BG) At this point, Domi went through a final PowerPoint-like
presentation, showing a synopsis of all the new features,
including artwork for a new box for the shrinkwrap package and a
Dave Letterman-style Top Ten List whose first letters spelled out
the word IMPRESSIVE. He made some final comments about two new
evaluation editions of 4D. There will be an evaluation version
with a dialog appearing when you launch but with no record limit,
and, there will be a demo version with no dialog, but with a 200
record limit. He also made a final point of clarification when
someone asked about it: the web server feature is supported on
both 4D Server and regular 4D.
Domi now leaves the stage, and Walt Nelson takes the podium for
some closing remarks:
We will see you all next
year!
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