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:

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