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Last updated: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 11:26 PST
Produced by Bryan Green. All content © 2001 Green Software Corp. All rights reserved.
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As I was waiting for the morning keynote to begin, I noticed that John Baughman's Powerbook was booting. Normally, I wouldn't take note, but his INITs had reached the third line, and so I reached for my camera. I asked, "How many INITs do you have, John?!?" He replied, "a lot." Here is photographic proof.
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| John Baughman's Powerbook booting up -- that's six rows of INITs! |
Brendan Coveney started by saying that he has a bit of a cold this morning. [Ed.: I wonder if this had anything to do with the party last night.] Then he went on to clarify something about 4D Portal. On the Summit CD there is a double-clickable application to run the portal, and it includes source code and a single-user web extension license. This is for personal use. If you sell it or distribute it you need to buy a regular web extension license.
Next Brendan wanted to talk about marketing. He reminded the crowd that the big feature of 4D is integration: it has a database, an application server, and a web server. Other platforms are not as integrated. For example, consider Cold Fusion next door. [Ed.: ironically, a Macromedia Cold Fusion conference was being held next door.] Brendan said that he felt like telling them not to buy it. With Cold Fusion, you get three pieces. With 4D, you get integration. With the web server plugins, you get two-tier systems. Today we will talk about three-tier systems. With 4D, you can take one application on one machine, move it to two machines, and then even to three machines. We told our Apple contacts about this and they said "Oh, you mean Dynamic Application Partitioning." So, we have that: moving code from client to server to database. On the CD there is a white paper explaining this architecture. Another thing you can do with 4D is have a task server.
Next Kent Wilbur took the stage and asked rhetorically, "how many machines can we involve in a system and see if it still works?" He started with WebSTAR V on one machine, and a French version of 4D Server on another machine. On another computer, he had a web browser. (The example was a web site for Chez Cadet, a hypothetical wine tasting club.) Kent started with regular old 4D server, and then used it to display the web pages. Then, he switched to serving with WebSTAR V with data served by 4D Server using the 4D Link. Then he used another server to show the same page using WebSTAR V serving only static pages -- and with no search ability. Then he launched 4D Client and changed the configuration. He opened the same page being served with WebSTAR V, with the data served by 4D Server through 4D Client. (Clapping). [Ed.: did you get that? 4D Client will now be able to run the web server! I double-checked the details later, and this feature will be available in 4D 6.7.6.] Then, to demonstrate adding a new record, Kent used Liz Delgado as a subject and added her as a new member of the Chez Cadet. He asked the audience to decide: should he add the record using 4D directly or through WebSTAR V? (Audience: WebSTAR V!) After adding the record and proving it was really there, Kent pointed out that he had used the same data, the same server, but each time with different delivery. He said he wanted to use more machines, but Brendan said four was enough. Brendan said that in case it wasn't clear, we have moved the web server into the client. You can now serve web pages from the client.
Mike Erickson then introduced Dan Beckett and lauded the return of Foresight Solutions to the 4D community. Dan said that they are glad to be back, and glad to be a Platinum Summit sponsor. He said that he knew how hard this conference is to produce, and then he asked the audience to give a hand to the 4D staff. (Clapping) Dan explained further that about 12 months ago, he was asked to be the President and CEO of Foresight. After that, he said, the first call he made was to Mike Erickson to get the formerly-from-Foresight tools back into the market. (Clapping) Then Dan talked about the last 12 months. He related that Foresight has been trying to generate more leads. About 300 leads a month from customers actively looking for accounting software is what they have been seeing. He said that they have a major new version coming out soon, and that they are looking for resellers. If your organization is set up to do sales and support, they want to give you leads. In our market, he said, we can't always hop on a plane every time someone wants to look at a product -- so having resellers really helps us. He said further that they have a strong web presence now, and that Foresight shows up when someone does a search for accounting. [Ed.: it is very, very good to see Foresight back in the community.]
Brendan then introduced Scott Vanderbilt and Simon Wright. Brendan went on to say that recently they started a web survey for new features in the new versions of 4D. [Ed.: I was amused by the subtle insinuation of Brendan's use of the word "versions."] Simon asked everyone who had voted to stand. (About half the room stood, including Brendan). Scott then explained how things worked: there are two parts to the survey, the design environment and language. He also explained the methodology of the weighting and that there were 249 unique respondents from 21 countries. Then Simon explained the results, which are on the web site:
http://4dsurvey.datagenic.com/survey/designresults.htm
http://4dsurvey.datagenic.com/survey/languageresults.htm
Lastly, Simon had everyone clap for Mike Erickson, who has done a yeoman's job at making the Summit run smoothly.
Mike then introduced Christian Quest, who said that it would be a short presentation. Christian demonstrated the Mac OS X carbonized version of Internet Toolkit, which he said had been working only for a few days. He showed the canonical ACME web server demo using the carbonized ITK and the latest alpha version from 4D. He started 4D and the ITK web server. Then he started Internet Explorer on the same machine. Then he connected. After a moment of happily stunned silence, Christian quipped, "Well, you can see, it works." (Clapping). He finished by saying "I hope there will be more carbon plugins soon." (Clapping)
Next, Eric Saltzen showed the latest incarnation of Powerview. Eric started by explaining, "if you haven't heard, Powerview is the replacement plugin for 4D Calc and Arealist Pro. If you were at the demos last year, you know about it. We want to show you a new demo." Then he opened a database with one million records in a single table. He showed an output-style Powerview area displaying all of them. He scrolled through the records very, very quickly. Next Eric opened a check register demo built with Powerview, based on the one from the 4D web site. Eric dropped into user mode, and used the Quick Report Editor to print some data. Then he showed a new choice under Print Destination: 4D Powerview. Eric printed to Powerview, and a new Powerview window opened up. All the calculations in the report were actual formulas, just like Excel. (Clapping) "Last but not least," Eric said, "let's have a look at dynamic interface generation with Powerview." Using a contacts database (also from the 4D web site), Eric showed a form with a Powerview area on it. He showed how enter in list works, and then attempted to show how double-clicking a record works. [Ed.: at this point, the database locked up, and so Eric had to restart 4D.] While waiting for 4D to restart, Eric said that he had been working with this database for a few weeks, and that a crash had never happened. Once 4D restarted, Eric double-clicked the record, and it opened up a new window -- a Powerview external window. It looked just like an input form! Eric then went on to show how an output Powerview form could open up another output Powerview form. His example showed how to select a person and then select their wife. He quipped, "if only it was as easy to select a wife in real life." (Laughter) Someone else from the audience replied, "if only it was as easy to change one in real life." (Laughter)
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| The Powerview list window as generated from a Powerview list window -- very impressive! |
Then Eric introduced Brendan to explain the pricing. He said that pricing would be the same as other productivity plugins: free with the developer edition of 4D. Deployment pricing will be the same as 4D Write, for example, 100 units for $9 per seat. (Brendan reminded everyone that partners get a discount on this pricing.) The next obvious question is when will it ship? That depends on you. (Simon Wright shouted from the audience, "You want the money first?" to which Brendan replied "you know me, of course I do.") We know you want it as quickly as possible. We need more bug reports. We need your help in testing it. Please, give us bug reports. Our goal to ship is this quarter, Q4 2001. We're working hard to get you a new version, so please help us.
Then Brendan introduced Mike Erickson to talk about Print List Pro. Mike said that as we move forward with providing print support for Powerview and continued support for Arealist Pro, we are looking at what to do next. Many of you have asked us when your our plugins are going to Mac OS X? Our plan is to port all of them. The first one is Print List Pro, in order to provide printing capability for Powerview. We have changed our Print List Pro demo to use Powerview instead of Arealist Pro. [Ed.: the politics of this seem very interesting.] Then Mike showed the Print List Pro demo, and it crashed on opening. While rebooting, Mike pointed out that Stewart Buskirk carbonized Print List Pro in his presentation yesterday. After 4D rebooted, Mike showed how Print List Pro showed a Powerview area on paper. When Mike was finished, Brendan commented that he that that it was cool, and went on further to say that 4D, Inc. was very very happy with how plugin vendors are moving their plugins to carbon. Then Brendan thanked Mike Erickson and Christian Quest for moving their plugins to Carbon so quickly.
Then Brendan reviewed the state of the educational market. He said that currently, 4D, 4D Development Edition, and the Web Extension License are respectively $39, $99, and $99. Then he reviewed how that pricing level has been working in the educational environment. Brendan said that developers have still been asking for more change in this area, and that he was very happy to announce a new "version": the 4D Academic Version. Educational customers can now download this version for free starting November 1. Brendan went on to say that the pilot program for this new version was implemented in Germany, and that its release would follow very soon in the rest of 4D's markets.
Mike Erickson came on stage and thanked the AV staff of the hotel, Bob and Eddie. Then he thanked the rest of the hotel staff, saying that they had done a fantastic job.
[Ed.: at the request of many, I attended Thibaud Arguillère's Patch It class again. Here are my notes. They are a little bit sparse, but fortunately Thibaud agreed to allow his archive to be hosted here: PatchIt.sit. It is Mac-only, but don't let that stop you!]
Thibaud Arguillère introduced himself as the editor of Planet 4D, a new English-language 4D magazine produced by his company, Osmose Editeur. He mentioned that an article about patching 4D will appear in an upcoming issue of Planet 4D.
Patching is changing software without recompiling. For example, Apple updates CarbonLib more often than it does the entire operating system. Microsoft does the same with DLLs for Windows.
We patch 4D to change the design environment to make it more convenient for us, and to change the runtime behavior to make it better. Patching does not fix bugs in 4D. There are no bugs in 4D. (laughter) I believe it!
Thibaud warned very carefully that this patching is done at your own risk. Don't try anything too complicated! The principles: patching without destroying. Work on COPIES, and test.
4D uses resources because it is a MacOS program. The secret is to override certain resources by changing them higher in the resource file chain than 4D's own resource file. Since 4D loads a resource from the resource chain, it will load from the first copy of the resource it finds --which can be your resource instead of its own resource. A patch is a resource of your own that overrides one of 4D's resources.
To patch, you need these tools: ResEdit, 4D Transporter, Sanity Check, and 4D. [Ed.: you also need the plugin that Thibaud wrote. It's available here: http://www.4dsummitnotes.com/2001/download/PatchIt.sit]
There are several places to put the patch: the 4D program file, the structure, and plugins. Patching 4D itself is not a good idea. Also, patching a structure file means that you must patch all your structure files, which is not good. Using a plugin is not a good idea, because its resource file is only open when 4D calls a plugin. The best place to put a patch is the 4D Extensions folder. This folder is new as of 4D version 6.7, always at the same level as the application.
4D opens its own resource file, and then the resource fork of every file in the 4D Extension folder, and then the resource fork of the structure file. Thus, the 4D Extensions folder is the best place to put a patch.
4D opens files in 4D Extensions only if the file type is 4DRS on Mac (the creator doesn't matter) or if the file extension is .4xr on Windows.
In this example, we will edit the form editor's ability to switch between the Object Properties and the Object Palette by adding a command key equivalent.
In this case, we want to change one of 4D's own resources. Start by duplicating 4D's application file, and then change the file type to 4DRS. Then, locate the resource that you want to change (MENU 105) and change it. Add a command key to the correct command in the menu. Then, delete all the other resources so that your resource is the only one in the file. Place the 4DRS file in the Web Extensions folder, and try it. You will see your new menu command in the menu.
What about Windows? Just use 4D Transporter to make the MacOS resource file into a Windows file. (To do this, you must hold down the command key to tell 4D Transporter to convert a file that is not a structure.) Alternately, you can convert the MENU resource to a BLOB and manipulate the file yourself.
Inside the 4D structure file, look in STR# 150 -- you find the first string "W0". Using the procedure outlined above, change the "W0" to something else, such as "*0". Then, you can use command W for something like closing windows instead of flushing the cache!
Thibaud explained that he has a colleague who hates clicking on command names in the method editor because they don't highlight completely if the command name has a space in it. (For example, the ALL RECORDS command.) So, Thibaud looked around for the resource containing the list of commands, and discovered that STR# 8 contains them. Then, he wrote a 4D method that loads this resource, changes all the spaces to underscores, and then saves the resource in a separate file. (For example, changing the ALL RECORDS to ALL_RECORDS.) Using the steps for the first patch, Thibaud set up an extension that applies this patch. He pointed out that the same technique can be used for applying custom constants, using the 4DK# resources. Thibaud also warned that this patch doesn't apply to the EXECUTE command's arguments, so you must be very careful when you use it.
Next, Thibaud showed how the 4STK resource can be patched into an extension so that the default stack sizes will be larger.
Thibaud explained how you can change the acur resources to make your own custom cursor. This technique works also on Windows just fine. No color cursors are supported, but otherwise they work just fine.
Thibaud explained that it's possible to patch practically anything, including Fga# resources, which are the form wizard's form object names. (Note: the TMPL for these resources is in early versions of 4D 6.0.x.) Thibaud exhorted everyone not to patch too many things. And, he warned that there is no tech support for this.
Then Thibaud presented a patching technique that is much deeper than changing a simple resource. Remember when 4D 6 came out that we heard that parts of 4D were written in 4D? Well, they are. The search, sort, and many other dialogs are written using 4D itself. The dialog is a 4D form, and it uses a form method. These resources are stored in 4D's resource fork, and it is possible to edit them to change the behavior of 4D itself, using the same mechanism that the designers of 4D use.
For a long time, Thibaud wanted to change the Runtime Error dialog. Using his patching techniques, he was able to do so. His custom runtime error dialog allows the user to add a comment and save it as a text file, and as well to decide whether to continue or quit.
To change the dialog, you must edit the appropriate FO4D resource along with its associated CC4D resources. (The FO4D resource contains the contents of the form, and the CC4D resources contain the form method and object methods, if any.) To edit these resources, you need to use ResEdit, 4D, and a special plugin that Thibaud wrote to convert a structure resource into a regular MacOS resource. [Ed.: it's available here: http://www.4dsummitnotes.com/2001/download/PatchIt.sit It's also available in an upcoming edition of Planet 4D.]
To edit the FO4D and CC4D resources, you must understand the risks. Thibaud recommends that you don't use unknown process variables, records, or project records. You can try, and please tell him if it works for you. He recommends caution.
First, locate the FO4D to patch by name. This part is a little bit difficult. Usually the names are in English, but sometimes they are in French. Sometimes they are named according to something else, such as "DLOG 1024". After locating the FO4D resources to patch, make a new structure file. Then create as many new empty forms as there are FO4D resources to patch. Give the empty forms exactly the same names as the FO4D resources. Then, using ResEdit, locate the resource IDs of the target FO4D resources in 4D. Next, using 4D Insider or SanityCheck, locate the target FO4D resources in the structure file. Next, using the special plugin, copy the FO4D resources inside 4D into structure file FO4D resources. Then use 4D to change the forms. When your changes are complete, use command-9 (control-9 on windows) to generate a resource file containing resource fork versions of the now-changed FO4D and CC4D resources. Install the resources in a newly-created 4D extension file, change the ID of the FO4D resource to match that of the resource already in 4D. (4D references its FO4D resources by name and number, so they must both match. The CC4D resources may be left alone, as their numbers are relative to the root FO4D resource.) Then make a new extension file, install the resources into it, and try it out. [Ed.: if this seems unduly complicated, it's not as bad as it seems. Thibaud's code examples give step-by-step instructions, and once you've done it done it the first time it gets easier.]
Once you choose a FO4D resource to patch, in order to properly select the correct CC4D resources you must must understand the numbering convention. The FO4D resource number is a base number. Its corresponding CC4D resources start with the same number and increment. If a FO4D resource has no CC4D resources, then there is no CC4D resource of the same resource number. Each form method and object method have a separate CC4D resource.
Thibaud emphasized that debugging these forms and their methods is very important. If there is a bug in a patch, it generates a syntax error that cannot be debugged.
Thibaud concluded by showing a very funny replacement for the confirm dialog.
Mike Erickson opened the session by saying that it feels like like this day started yesterday and that it's been a long week. (I think so!)
Mike introduced Steve Hussey, who started by saying "good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and Tom Dillon." (Laughter) He gave a brief history of DIMENSIONS, and pointed out that this year is the tenth year of publication. Steve said that recently the editors of Planet 4D contacted him, wanting to collaborate. Steve announced a cross-subscription discount: for DIMENSIONS subscribers, Planet 4D is available for 30% off. For Planet 4D subscribers, DIMENSIONS PDF is available for 50% off and the printed edition is available for 25% off. And, for Summit attendees who do not currently subscribe, DIMENSIONS is available for 20% off. Thibaud Arguillère encouraged the crowd to buy all the books and magazines that they could and they would be happy. Steve then announced that 4D purchased the rights to his book Jumpstart 4D, and will publish it within the next month.
Then Mike Erickson and Brendan Coveney took the stage, and Mike introduced Laurent Ribardière (Clapping).
Editor's note: in this section, the dialog is like that of a play. The first name of the person speaking is at the beginning of what they say, except for questioners, whose full name is used. For example, a dialog might look like this:
Tom Dillon: When will version 7 ship?
Laurent: Version 7 will ship next week.
Brendan: What he meant to say was "Could you repeat the question?"
And, as always, please note that what is written here is our interpretation of what is said. Do not make any business plans or public comments without first verifying your assumptions for yourself.
Laurent: Hi, everybody. Before starting the Q and A, I will explain a few things about how development went last year. When we started development for Mac OS X we thought it would be an easy job. We looked at the carbon library, they are well done, and thought that it would take one or two months with one or two engineers. When we started in, we found that it was actually quite difficult to do. In 4D, you have different levels of abstraction, and it makes things a little bit complex especially if you want full compatibility with Mac OS 9. For example, windows are handled differently between 9 and X. We had a version running in 3 or 4 months, and now 2 years later we are not quite ready. It has taken many engineers and has been time consuming. On the other hand, to get 4D running on Mac OS X we changed a few things which make it easier to transfer 4D to Windows XP. So, all that time was not spent just on Mac OS X, but it still took much longer than we expected. We apologize for being late.
The good news also -- that's the bad news -- we maintained our strategy where we have two teams working on 4D, one working on version 6 and the evolution of 6 on Mac OS X and another team working on the next big release, I don't know what we are going to call it. That team is still working, and is making good progress. We decided not to show anything this year but decided to show something next year. (At this point Brendan returned to the stage, as if he were hoping to catch anything too incriminating just as it left Laurent's mouth.)
Things are going well. We increased our engineering team. As you know, it takes time to mature a developer, 6 to 9 months going through the 4D source code, the links between the files. So, there were quite a lot of new people last year and this year. Now they are more accustomed to 4D, and we will be able to fix bugs faster now. Now there are more than 13 people working on 4D, and we are still looking for more. We just hired two new young developers we expect to be good enough in about 6 months. The pure developer team is growing. We also increased the number of testers for the products, but its still not enough. There is one large area we are working on: developer communications for bug reports. Everywhere in the world developers say that this needs to be improved. We are really trying to find people to just handle that part, which requires someone to write in English and French. We are trying to find that person to be a good link between the developers and engineering team for bug processing. That's the news on the engineering team. If you have questions about the product I am ready to answer.
Some Developer: When is it [4th Dimension] going to UNIX?
Laurent: Not before version 7. It will run on different platforms, on LINUX and UNIX. Maybe not before the first version of the Mac platform. We will make it run on UNIX.
Basil Borque: Thank you for your help this week helping me with my slowdown on 4D Server. There seems to be a problem with 4D Server that makes it slow down. Other companies have a way to identify issues and then escalate them. For me, it was to talk to you, with nothing in between. Also, in some of our testing, 4D Server 6.5 on Mac is too slow. It should be faster. A dual 800 MHz MacOS X server is slower.
Brendan: We are aware that we need a proper escalation procedure. We are working with that. We are working on an escalation procedure in the US. We are also working on improving the bug reporting. We are aware of the fact that we need to do something.
Laurent: About the server. There are many reasons that it is not at full speed right now. Even with 10.1 of Mac OS X there are things that need to be optimized. Even in 4D there are things that need to be optimized in Carbon. In Mac OS X you have the core, and then the CarbonLib, which is the Mac OS 9 API on Mac OS X. This is what we have been using with version 6. Those CarbonLibs have greatly improved over time. The first release was about 5 times slower than Mac OS 9 [native]. The current versions are good, but they need to be improved. In the past 6 months, they have done more than in the first 18 months of the library. They are doing a good job, so we expect to have a much faster version in a few months. And, in 4D, there are a few things we need to learn more about Mac OS X. For example, the way you set end-of-file. It is different, and we need to learn more. It is still a system in its infancy.
Chuck Miller: What about [4D] Backup? Will there be any improvement to [4D] Backup? In version 7?
Laurent: No, we don't link 4D Backup to version 7. First, we wanted Backup to be stable so we made quite a lot of improvements to it. But, Mac OS X is making us take longer in order to get it to be reliable on Mac OS X. We don't have plans to improve it right now.
Some Developer: There was another part of Basil's question. A dual-processor Mac is much slower than an old Pentium. A killer Mac is slower than a Pentium.
Laurent: For Mac OS 9 there are many reasons. First, for those of you who don't know, Mac OS 9 still has some 68K code in the file system. The file system is not very performance oriented for a machine of that class. There are a few other things with memory management, and I am not sure about the network code. The OS is not fully optimized for Power PC.
[Ed.: there was a random question that wasn't audible here.]
Scott Vanderbilt: There are a number of things about 4D that make it unique, including 4D Draw. What's the status of 4D Draw?
Laurent: First, we are carbonizing. Then, we will put some improvements in it. For 4D Draw, we are going through a lot of questions. The next Draw will be fully integrated into the language. In the meantime, we know a lot of people would like to have improvements. We are looking for someone to do it, because all our internal engineers are booked.
Some Developer: Are we having healthy growth in the marketplace? How is 4D doing?
Laurent: I don't know a lot of things about that. This year, we had the same level of income, maybe a bit more. (Brendan laughingly added "That depends on you developers.") This is more than more companies. ORACLE is down 6% in their database sales; I don't know for others.
Brendan: To answer your question, we have been ramping up [our sales] over the last few years, but the last year has been flat.
Some Developer: Will Windows 4D always be dependent on Altura?
Laurent: In version 6 yes, but the next major release will not.
Chip Sheide: With your announcement of free educational pricing, have you worked with hardware vendors to include it?
Brendan: It's an option. We test marketed it in Germany. We are investigating options. We're asking any of you who know educational institutions to contact us.
Some Developer: Is this new version world wide?
Brendan: Starting in the US, by the end of the year we will be [shipping the free academic version of 4D] world wide.
Doug Hall: Will the data segment file size be eliminated in Mac OS X?
Laurent: No. You are still limited to a 2 gigabyte segment size in Mac OS X. Changing this would require a lot of work for the kernel.
Some Developer: Will you talk about improvements in the language environment?
Laurent: There will be improvements in version 6. We haven't decided all of them. Some will be coming from your requests, actually, so if something is really needed and we see a lot of people asking for it we will put a priority on it. We know there are some areas which are weak, such as the method editor.
Brendan: We were very happy to get the survey this morning. Laurent will look at the list to see what to prioritize.
Victor Siegle: Since we can't see version 7 this year, can we hear about version 7? (Clapping)
Laurent: You want me to talk about version 7? Is it wise? Okay, a few things, but very general. It is based on the component model, real real components. The first thing we rewrote was the kernel to let any component to be part of the kernel. Components can be [written in] C, 4D, and Java. Based on this we have an object model. We write first a VM (virtual machine) that allows us to run on different operating systems. Based on that VM , we built the kernel and the database engine, which uses the memory management, process management, and file management of the kernel. All those virtual calls are mapped to calls in the OS. So when we use process management we use the native process management of the system. So on Mac OS X or on [Windows] 2000 it is preemptive threading and supports SMP and those kind of things. This is already done. Now we are working on what is more interesting form the outside: the UI (user interface), the structure, the language. The language is complete already. It will be compatible with 4D but will also support objects. You can create your own classes and your own objects. You can manipulate any 4D object: fields, tables, forms, objects in a form, using the language. It's very easy. The language is done it actually generates byte code, executed much faster than the interpreter now. We iterated from 1 to 10,000,000 in 4 seconds. It's not exactly machine code but it is very fast. When you close a method it is automatically compiled. (Clapping) This is something that is already working. (At this point, Brendan approached Laurent on stage as if to end the diatribe.) Just to finish. After that the way you use the language is changed a bit. Right now you create code and declare code. This can be done another way, we chose all the variables to be kind of a spreadsheet interface. They are automatically declared. You can still use undeclared variables. Also we are now based on the kernel that is 64 bits. The data size has grown from 2 GB to several terabytes. Segments will not be needed anymore. We will keep them because then you can choose where you want to put an object. The main thing which will change how you program is the component model. You open a component which is composed of code and data. From one database you can open another one. One can be compiled in true native code, the other one can be interpreted. From one database you can decide to create another one from scratch. You have full control about what you do. It is very easy to have components, one that handles this part, one that handles that part. You can have one on one computer, and another on another computer. Components can be C++ or Java. I think I'll stop before... (Brendan swooped in even closer to Laurent at this point.) (Laughter)
Stewart Buskirk: One quick follow-up. Will version 7 provide a SQL parser?
Laurent: The first release will contain a full SQL parser.
Some Developer: What is the expected date of carbonized version 6?
Laurent: By the end of the year, we expect to have everything except a few plugins.
Some Developer: Will we be able to aim 4D [version 7] at a SQL back end?
Laurent: Yes, in version 7 you can create virtual tables and views. The whole database can be external. There will be some limitations, for example no selections. But your SQL code will work the same way. (Clapping)
This ended the Q and A.
As a joke, Brendan said that he had an important new product announcement. He held up a mouse-shaped radio, and called it their own MP3 player, the i4D. He said that it supports unlimited music. [Ed.: I took a picture of the i4D, but my Smart Media cartridge failed. How annoying!]
Brendan then thanked everyone who put the Summit together. He gestured toward Mike Erickson and said "I can't say enough good things about this man. He did tremendous work for us. Any AV [audio visual] Mike was responsible for us. He did a real tremendous job." [Ed.: I thought so, too. Anyone who was at last year's Summit will remember the terrible trouble with the AV equipment. This year, under Mike's careful oversight, the AV went quite well.]
Brendan asked all the other sponsors to come up front: Automated Solutions Group, Foresight Solutions, Deep Sky Technology, Aparajita World, Braided Matrix, and Jin Technologies. (Clapping)
Then, Brendan gave a final really special thanks to the speakers and a thanks to the exhibitors.
This year's raffle reflected the economic times. 4D, Inc. gave away several of the "i4D" mouse radios, with Brendan specially commenting that "this radio goes to Cheryl Michaels because I insulted her piano thing last night." 4D also gave away a few copies of 4D Standard Edition. [Ed.: check eBay soon for a special discount price.] Deep Sky Technologies gave away a few copies of ITK Pro, and Braided Matrix gave away some special prizes at their booth.
Mike Erickson gave a special thanks to Debbie Brewer and Jim Staples. (Clapping) Then Brendan thanked his staff, quipping that everything good about the conference was theirs and joking that everything bad was his decision. Brendan then thanked all the attendees for coming, saying "it would have been easy to stay home this year." Mike Erickson ended the Summit by saying "bye!"