50 replies to this topic

[Joseph Serra]

I fear that ScottM is right. Most non ProIV developers would take one look at ProIV and laugh. Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great tool, but let's be honest, ProIV is and NOT . And I feel a newbie's thoughts would be compounded if they got their hands on VIP! Of course things will improve when Rob gets his editor out to market! (HURRY UP ROB!!!)

The single user developer is a great idea, but more for the existing ProIV developers out there who might start a project on their own. Fingers crossed a few individuals may come up with some new enterprises! I can't see it enticing new programmers unless the programming environment is more like VB or Java etc etc...

[tank]

Very interesting commentary. So why should developers or businesses consider proiv at all? Why not redevelop all proiv "legacy" into something more commonplace and cheaper?

[Bill Loven]

We are a small company and yes, the PROIV Licensing is not cheep, but have you looked how Oracle is. If you have a two processor machine, Oracle wants $40,000.00 US Dollars for each processor, 25 users per processor, thats $80,000.00 for a $4000.00 CPU. Go figure. I seams to me that Oracle only wants fourtine 1000 customers. They are driving small companies to SQL Server (that is sad). Microsoft will not release their API interface so you are forced to use ODBC whic makes it slower and difficult to trap errors, locks and soforth.

We are using PROIV because our application is written PROIV. We looked at VB and PowerBuilder and decided to stay with PROIV because of 5.0. We have almost replaced all of our Green Screen (1980 Archecture) with GUI. For you poor souls that have to stay Green Screen good luck.

Of the 35 years that I have been writting software, I have used 13 of 14 different languages and once you learn your way around PROIV, it really is not much different than any thing else.

[tank]

OK "I hear you". But what if you were starting from scratch. What would you use then?

[Rob Donovan]

Hi,

I think the ProIV language is excellent once you learn it, its fairly simple to use.

Writing and following 'Updates' is so simple in ProIV compared to any other language (once you know the timing cycle).

The only problem I can see is the development environment.

I thought that since ProIV had the chance to start a new environment, we would have seen something great.. but all we got was VIP.

If you show VIP to someone with no ProIV background and only VB, Delphi or C... they would laugh at VIP.

I'm trying to get a decent development environment written, but it does take some time. I want to get it right, make it as 'standard' as possible and easy for people to understand and use.

Also, the cost is quite high, yes Oracle can charge huge amounts, but then they can afford to cut off people because they have enough. ProIV is a very small world and as far as I can see, its not getting any bigger.. possibly only smaller.

Rob D.

[Bill Loven]

You are correct about the Standard Edition. What you do not get is replication with standard. We tried the named user with Oracle. They changed their pricing in March. Oracle would not come off the origional price. May be our sales person does not want to dos not know any better.

[Bob Filipiak]

Bill,

That swipe at us "Green Screens" felt a bit below the belt.

Like you, I work for an entity that does not have the resources to re-code the existing PRO-IV app into v5.5 or whatever.

In the even that a new owner comes along; I will make it crystal clear to that owner what the consequences would be if the computer died. That is my biggest fear every am when I fire up the "box'.

I guess the current owner figures I can always pull a rabbit of the hat; like the time the hard drive quit.

One thing I absolutely hate about GUI interfaces is that they are CPU HOGS! Give me a stripped down Unix O/S any day.

At one time PRO had promise, today, I am not so sure anymore.

[Rob Donovan]

I think that GreenScreen has is place.

If that is what the customer/users like/want ... then that is what they should have!

There is no point giving a guy a mouse to work with in the middle of a factory, where there is loads of dirt, dust and grease to enter his orders etc into... it will just stop working after a while.

However, if you have a system that you need to sell to many customers and is a front end system, then obviously GUI is a must.

One place I worked at, the customer just did not want to spend the time/money on making the system GUI, since it was only used in-house. They had too much work on new projects and getting software enhanced to cope with aggressive marketing campaigns.

Rob D.

[Phil]

Absolutely Rob, if you had a head office system and many branch systems beneath it, then possibly the branch systems are designed purely for recording the data and transmitting it to Head Office.
Where I currently work that is exactly the situation, dealing with Tyre depots.
Also your friendly Tyre fitter has been using the green screen since he was knee high to a grass hopper and doesn't have a need (or the time) for anything else.

[Bill Loven]

That is my exact point. If you do GUI correctly, You do not need a mouse. Many of my user's do not use a mouse. They came from Green Screen and do not want to take their hand off of the key board. Also, the learning curve for a GUI app is 50 times faster. Our Green Screen app took about two months to learn. The same GUI app only takes two days to learn.

Many of our employees are under 30 and have made several comments about Green Screen (Stone Age). They have grown up using the internet and windows.

With Green Screen, our users felt that they were fighting the computer to get their job done. With our GUI app, the couputer is helping them get their job doneand we are helping our users to better manage the staff requirements.

Another example, one group of our collectors, it required four people using Green Screen. Now with GUI, we are exceeding the collection efforts of four with just two people. The cost savings of two people will buy a real nice CPU.

Do not get me wrong, I have developed in green screen for years but I have moved beyond that. From our Company Owner's point of view, the investment in software development, he can grow our business with out adding staff.

[Bob Filipiak]

Bill,

What do you do with an owner who figures he has not gotten his original investment (in the sdone age stuff) back; and you are trying to convince him that it needs to be replaced.

BTW, he tells me, "I don't want to learn to use a mouse!".

Example: i moved a couple of functions out from a crowded (in terms of sheer number of choices) menu, into one less crowded. I got rebuffed, "Don't change anything without my permission!" The problem is that the owner has the menu key sequences burned in like they were in a ROM.

One weekend, I had actually set up a windows machine with 4 serial ports, connected to 4 ports on the Unix box, and got 4 concurrent sessions up and runnng. Problem, you must use a mouse to switch between them. Thinking that this could solve a problem he sometimes encounters (needing to see data on two different screens at the same time); The problem - windows and a mouse. A good idea down the drain. What is that line about teaching an old dog? I told myself to stop "banging my head against the wall". People who are comfortable with windows eat up GUI; but there are still a lot of Trogladytes; who are terrified of it.

[Cleve Haynes]

Bob - thanks for expanding my vocabulary...

Main Entry: trog·lo·dyte
Pronunciation: 'trä-gl&-"dIt
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin troglodytae, plural, from Greek trOglodytai, from trOglE hole, cave (akin to Greek trOgein to gnaw, Armenian aracem I lead to pasture, graze) + dyein to enter
Date: 1558
1 : a member of a primitive people dwelling in caves
2 : a person resembling a troglodyte (as in reclusive habits or outmoded or reactionary attitudes)
- trog·lo·dyt·ic /"trä-gl&-'di-tik/ adjective

[Bill Loven]

Bob, We are in Health Care and one of the things we did to get Management approval for going GUI was to challange all of our management to Check In and Check Out a patient with our old green screen software.

They could not figure out how and they spent two hours trying to figure it out. We then asked them to try the same thing with a prototype GUI app. It took them two minutes to complete the task. Our management reailized what the training saving would be.

When we hire a new person in one of our clinics, they spend their first week in the clinic and then come to home office for HR stuff and some policy training.

With the green screen software, the new person had to speed three weeks training before they could use the system. When you have over 500 clinic staff, you can quickly compute the cost savings.

With no training at all, our management uses our GUI app to monitor our users progress and use some dicision support software we have written.

We did not write the green screen software, but was part of the purchase when our founder bought the original clinics from another clinic group. The original clinic group bought the green screen app from some one else.

[Bob Filipiak]

Bill,

Like you, I recognize the savings, but our oerations is so much smaller. There are a lot of inefficienciesin our operations that could be removed with more modern software. Like faxing purchase orders. First you have to print them, then you have to fax them. Any up to date software, you just print to the fax modem and that is it!

The preblem here is (owner motivation) convincing an owner at retirement age that he shoulkd spend his dollars on new software. The way he feels: Why pay for it out of your pocket NOW, let someone else do it LATER? (Sounds like the thinking in Washington DC).

BTW: Trogladyte (or however it is spelled); I never correctly learned how to utilize that word, as I was expelled from the "University of Hard Knocks"
(where you don't get a diploma, you get a kick in the a==!