13 replies to this topic

[Rob Donovan]

Hi,

I have to admit, its awful to use.

Not wanting to sound too 'Geeky' ... but it doesn’t make coding 'fun'.

Rob D.

[Bryan Nicholas]

I'm currently using VIP and I must admit I am very disappointed at PROIV's lack lustred effort here. I think we would all agree that PROIV really needs to put a big effort in to keep PROIV up-to-date with the current development tools.
Anway, I was hoping that VIP would do this, but dissapointed to say it's a load of crap and little effort has gone into understanding how a developer is going to use this to be productive! Have PROIV tried using this monster! For example :A simple task in native to set fields to Display Only would take a few seconds with a few quick and simple key strokes. In VIP, you need to go to the field, double click to see the properties window, then click on the behaviour tab, and then you get the opportunity to set the DO attribute, and then to finish click OK. And if this isn't bad enough, the performance at displaying the info is a joke. Once this is done, try genning the function ... click the build icon .. and then go and make coffees for the entire development team and the offices next door, and you should be back at your machine just in time to see it finish genning!!!
I have just read your points about the development tool you are developing. This sounds great.. good to see you are asking for people's thoughts and opinions developing something that will 'help' developers and not simply frustrate them. Hurry up and get it finished so we can then rename VIP to RIP.

[Tony White]

For us the proof has been in the pudding.....

We've had 3 developers here at Sertec cutting apps full-time in VIP, on a AIX kernel (204) since last October. The apps have all deployed live without problem, and certainly taken less time to develop than would have been the case with Studio/Native.

Whilst there are a few tasks that take slightly longer in VIP, these pale into insignificance when you consider all the plusses...

Linkage, worklists, Object cut and paste, Fragments etc...
all stuff we'd hate to lose if we had to go back to Studio. Just being able to chuck stuff from one function to another across a common clipboard is fantastic - Makes the old Studio LS Copier look like a scud missile (That's my attempt to keep this thread relevant).

Its true that VIP has had some minor bugs - but in fairness Pro-iv have fixed them as fast as we've reported them. We're now on VIP 5.587, and although I can only speak for our AIX platform it does seem pretty robust.

And finally - No! I'm not in the pay of Neil and the boys down in Hemmel! In the past I'd have been the first to agree that their products have lacked decent SQA - but as far as VIP's concerned - its a thumbs-up from Sertec.

[Rob Donovan]

Hi,

I'm glad you have not found the problems I have... for your sake

I've used VIP on a number of platforms. (Including AIX)

Its slow and clumbersome, and does not follow any windows standards. There are so many graphics files and Global Functions that it has too much data to process.

I've seen some very serious problems...It corrupts functions...lost source code...endlessly looping.

I agree, the cut & paste could help, but its just done so badly... it should be done like Windows drag & drop.

Its also difficult to navigate and work out how to do things.

VIP has only slowed me down in development.

I was hoping (when VIP first started... back 2 years now, If I remember correctly) that it was going to be a good env... but it simply doesnt live up to that.

Rob D.

[Tony White]

Hi Rob

Interesting - I guess that being relative new-comers to VIP, Sertec may have missed out on some early problems, and so we can only comment on recent versions, which have certainly treated our apps well-enough.

We've now got a VIP-built 4000 function app, multiplied across 8 company boot-sets and not (touch wood) had any corruption. VIP has been a little tempremental from time to time - but nothing too serious, and all of the bugs have been fixed fairly quickly - to the extent that we have no current outstanding issues with Pro-iv at the moment.

By the way - earlier in the thread someone mentioned how slow it is to alter the same flag on many fields. A handy trick is to use Forms Designer - By marqueeing all of the fields that you wish to change you can alter the properties box just the once.

Yes I did say Forms Designer ! - But amazingly this now works too. In the old days we used to steer well clear on the assumption that it could break a function quicker than Saddam could re-locate a weapons cache (got 1 in again!) but it really has been made to work hand in hand with VIP now - and we use it as standard without problems.

Rgds
Tony White

[Rob Donovan]

I am using the most update verion of VIP...

As for forms designer... we cant even get into that, cause it keeps on getting an error and it crashes the whole of forms designer.

Rob.

[Bryan Nicholas]

Tony mentioned using Forms Designer : this would be good but it takes for ever to load a function and that's if you are one of the lucky ones who can get passed the paintcom.dll error!!. So still takes for ever to achieve a simple task done in native. Back to the same old problem of slow performance. VIP is good if you're a contractor on an hourly rate!!!

[Bob Filipiak]

If the UN inspectors find banned code, then it should be made available (license free) to anyone who wishes to scrutinize the banned code and decide for himself (or herself) that it is indeed 'banned code'.

[Peter Davies]

Does anyone know the hourly rate that Saddam is paying ?

I've heard that the rates are pretty good but the trips home are few & far between.

Also - from what I've heard, Saddam will 'take care' of your relatives too.

Sounds like a sweet deal.

[Surajit]

Yes, it is real mass destruction weapon, because I have to format my hard disk and reinstall Windows to make it work (a little bit) smoother !

That's the reason why the UN investigation team can't find any hard evidence of mass destruction weapon.