EMAIL TO: emy@gsb.uchicago.edu
FAX TO: Elena Yatzeck [country code] 773-702-0233
These are the compiled results of the surveys returned to me from members of the CA-OpenROAD users group. I had hoped to compile and comment on these, but I just haven't been able to find the time, and I did want people to see the results soon. I have passed this document directly to the OpenROAD developers at CA, and make them available to this list as well. Note that I have edited out most references to people's actual companies (I may have missed some--I apologize), to avoid revealing industry secrets, etc.
After the new year, I hope to get back to those of you who indicated that you had tools to share and try to get these up on the NAIUA web page for all to use. These sound fantastic, and we can all benefit from them!
Thanks again to all who replied. If others would still like to reply, please send responses to me, and I will append them to this document. I would also encourage people to post comments on the compiled survey to the user group--is there some policy we would like to form as a group?
Elena Yatzeck
EMAIL TO: emy@gsb.uchicago.edu
FAX TO: Elena Yatzeck [country code] 773-702-0233
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
you what one thing you would like to see changed
about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
I have no burning hot-button issues with OpenROAD right now.
It would be nice if performance was improved.
2) If you could change some other things too, what would
those be?
See #1
3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
development platform?
Being an INGRES shop, it seemed natural for our GUI Applications.
4) Have you developed any general code to support your
CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
to others for such tools?
Such sharing would be great. I'm not sure what I would contribute,
but I'm sure after we get started, I'll have stuff to share.
5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
your plans to use it in the future.
We have used W4GL/OpenROAD for all new development for the past 5
years, and plan to for the forseeable future.
6) Other comments.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? I would like to see a decent program editor in OpenRoad with syntax hilighting for example. Just one thing? :-( 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? An integrated report writer is a must. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? Zero, we had the Ingres database. First, we didn't see ODBC as reliabe for OLTP. So we wanted native access. Second, we needed team development. Third, we wanted a flexible tool. Code generation was not that important for us. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? I have developed some code to fill OptionFields dynamically but it was not tested in production yet. 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. I have used OpenRoad for more than a year. We intend to continue using OpenRoad for our corporative projects.
>1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked >you what one thing you would like to see changed >about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? > Store source code in files rather than database so that: a) We can do global edits using our normal tools b) We can use our version control systems c) Its all a lot faster d) We can have development going on in more than one place e) People can take work home without WAN links >2) If you could change some other things too, what would >those be? Add a compiler so it runs a lot faster. Scrap or reduce UNIX support and concentrate on exploiting all the features of Windows. Release 4 starts this, but there is a long way to go. > >3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications >development platform? Software house had traditionally used ABF and saw OpenROAd as the safe choice. If only they had known ....! > > >4) Have you developed any general code to support your >CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share >with others in the user community? Do you have any requests >to others for such tools? Have not really developed any of general use. Tools to get source in and out of Ingres in bulk for manipulation by >global editors and version control. > >5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or >your plans to use it in the future. > Have used OpenRoad since the very first release. Would be very unlikely to recommend it for a new project. Many existing customers are in general moving away from OpenROAD for future developments and modules. Many Windows tools are now much stronger than OpenRoad and the gap is widening. Have quite a lot of code in maintenance using OpenROAD so will continue to use it on and off for some time. >6) Other comments.
> 1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
> you what one thing you would like to see changed
> about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
>
Re-engineering tools to allow developers of large established
applications (like ours) to more easily take advantage of new and
improved features in new releases of CA-OpenROAD.
-----
Ability to specify one of the System Classes as Parent Class
for a User Class. This would allow inheritance of System Methods
and Attributes and allow the User Class to extend the System
Class (like a real Object Oriented Language).
>
> 2) If you could change some other things too, what would
> those be?
>
1. I'd make everybody in the sales "organization" (?) aware
of the [ status of | release dates for ] CA-OpenROAD releases
for different platforms (e.g. Ben vs CA-OpenROAD 3.5 / Solaris).
2. For resellers, I'd plan on making my money off of the resellers'
customers, not the reseller.
3. In conjunction with #1, I'd like to be able to order a product
for a particular platform and get what I ordered, on the media I
requested.
4. I'd like to see some built-in methods for doing "drag & drop".
> 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
> development platform?
>
Single-source provider for client development tool AND
server database, with implementations across multiple
client and server platforms.
-----
Another factor in our decision was the built-in source code
control features and multi-developer support.
> 4) Have you developed any general code to support your
> CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
> with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
> to others for such tools?
>
1. I have written a couple of tools for programmers for
OpenROAD which I plan to submit to the NAIUA archive if I
get approval from my company and can find the time. They
are: an application parser and a userclass displayer/printer.
The parser allows you to enter multiple strings to search
for and for each string, what type of components to look at,
whether to skip variable declarations, look in DML only. It
then searches all the components (of the requested type) in
your application for the specified string(s) and creates a
table of the results. This is very handy for things such as
finding all the components that have to be changed if the
name of a table or column is changed.
The UserClass displayer/printer formats the variable declarations
in a UserClass into a nice report and displays it in a
StringObject which can then be saved to a file, cut and pasted,
or printed.
2. We have also purchased a tool from PeaceTower Software called
the PostProcessor (they also make A2W which converts ABF apps
into OpenROAD). This tool allows you to write procedures (4GL
and 3GL) which can make global changes to OpenROAD applications.
It was kind of expensive, but we have saved several hundred person-
hours with it. For example, I used it to add speedkeys for all
buttons and menu options and to add Help menus to all of the
frames in our application.
>
> 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
> your plans to use it in the future.
>
I really don't care to stop to think about how many hours
I have "invested" in developing with this product over the
past 4.5 years.
-----
Me neither.
>
> 6) Other comments.
>
For Charles Wang: Interested in buying software companies
in Tennessee?
>
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
you what one thing you would like to see changed
about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
Product: Compliance to standards for desktop integration and distributed
application support (N-tier).
Support: Timely delivery of releases and patches for all platforms and
database drivers. We support Windows NT and Windows 95 clients with
CA-Ingres, Oracle, and SQL Server database servers, so we require six
different drivers each time a release or a patch is produced. Also, a
predictable delivery schedule that we can count on.
2) If you could change some other things too, what would
those be?
Improved error messages and error detection. The following message is typical
of those throughout CA-OpenROAD:
E_DO0040 The image file could not be created.
A non-recoverable error occurred during the creation of the application
image file c:\temp\purchasing, so the file could not be created.
The question is, what error prevented the creation of the image file?
3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
development platform?
Windows/4GL was picked 5 years ago as a very capable client/server development
platform that included integrated database support and high productivity.
4) Have you developed any general code to support your
CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
to others for such tools?
We have spent some time analyzing stored components in the database for
automating a change control system and would like to talk to others about the
best way to manage their CA-OpenROAD components (source code).
5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
your plans to use it in the future.
Used Windows/4GL and CA-OpenROAD for 5 years. Our application has 2000
components and accesses 600 database tables. We are developing with
CA-OpenROAD 3.5/02 with the drivers for CA-Ingres, Oracle, and SQL Server on
Windows NT and Windows 95 clients.
6) Other comments.
The quality of the CA-OpenROAD 3.5/02 release was very disappointing. We have
spend many hours/days/months documenting problems with this release, and
reporting those problems to CA. We are on our third or fourth set of patches
already. A number of the problems were very easy to reproduce, indicating
that little testing was done. For example, the Apply Template utility does
not work with the Oracle or SQL Server drivers. If CA had tested this utility
with those drivers this would have been apparent. Hopefully the CA-OpenROAD
3.5/03 maintenance release will be more solid.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? As far as features, I can't think of anything that the OpenROAD developers haven't already considered. Technical support has always been there for us. (I admit, we are a high level priority account.) Of course, I'm always impatient for the next release to enhance our applications. 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? I expect OpenROAD 4.0 to alleviate a number of application concerns in our department. We have been able to develop whatever we needed to do in some way, even if it meant a third party interface until OpenROAD could take over. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? We have been with Ingres since 1984 and had too much invested not to utilize the tight integration using OpenROAD gives. We looked hard for 9 months at a number of products and Ingres won in the end. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? We are in the final stages of an integrated address system, generic values, and a generic error handler. It's possible one of these will be a session at CA-WORLD 97. 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. I personally have programmed exclusively in OpenROAD since January 1994. At the Foreign Mission Board, I am the OpenROAD administrator and have the most OpenROAD experience. We have one very experienced Ingres programmer using OpenROAD and several new programmers learning on OpenROAD. FMB's plans are to have all new development in OpenROAD, rewrite legacy applications in OpenROAD as time permits, and bring all 15 programmers into OpenROAD development. 6) Other comments.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> 1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
> you what one thing you would like to see changed
> about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
>
Marketing.
Should be much more agressive, i.e. towards Oracle customers.
>
> 2) If you could change some other things too, what would
> those be?
>
Product Enhancements, like:
- Export files for the template libraries provided
- International language support
(sth. like using a string resource tables for any
freetrims, label texts, ...)
- Subclassing from System Classes
- Persistent Objects support
- Distributed Objects Support
- 3-tier application development
>
> 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
> development platform?
>
Used to work as an INGRES employee - now doing consulting
and training for OpenROAD.
>
> 4) Have you developed any general code to support your
> CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
> with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
> to others for such tools?
>
>
> 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
> your plans to use it in the future.
>
Windows4GL since 1991, OpenROAD since Pre-Beta
(spent some time in the OpenROAD development team)
>
> 6) Other comments.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? Sort out the mess with the editor/debugger when the script goes 'oversize'. (Industrial strength - not!) I also claim that Wang must plug up the memory leaks in the 16 bit version to make the thing usable under Windows 3.x. (I've used the 32 bit at home and it seems better, but not perfect) 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? If there are going to be bugs, then at least have the confidence to release bug lists and any workarounds; we all live in the real world and do our coding there, so damn the corporate sensibilities and let us not be forced to waste time trying to make things work which don't (yet.) 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? Being a humble programmer, I didn't, but I am happy that my bosses did. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? I have, and feel that it is the kind of thing which could be offered up for public consumption, but I sense the presence of the copyright fairies and corporate lawyers. If the list is fair and open, I see no reason why an open exchange should not be possible. (For the record, I have a neat way of coding for cut, copy & paste, obviating the need for each field to be constructed as an editfield.) 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. I have about 6 months' exp and hope to continue using OpenROAD for many years to come. Our immediate project ends its first phase in 12 months' time. 6) Other comments.
>1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked >you what one thing you would like to see changed >about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? Make it 100% Microsoftish, both in the development tool and in the interface capabilities. > > >2) If you could change some other things too, what would >those be? Fix the bugs. Functionality that is there is great, but the development >environment is very buggy. > >3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications >development platform? It is the best cross-platform (especially when Motif is involved) tool >that I have seen. > >4) Have you developed any general code to support your >CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share >with others in the user community? Do you have any requests >to others for such tools? > > >5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or >your plans to use it in the future. I have been using OpenROAD for four years, since it was Windows4GL. I teach CA's Using OpenROAD class for TPG as well as CA. I foresee me >using the product for at least two more years. > >6) Other comments.
<<1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?>> More flexibility in terms of database connectivity. <<2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be?>> I haven't used the tool enough to say too much, but I though that the GUI was pretty non-intuitive and could use some re-work. <<3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform?>> We haven't picked it yet, but it would be because it is fairly feature-rich. Oh, the fact that the product is free for EDS is a little bit of a factor :-) <<4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools?>> No <<5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future.>> I used it for several hours at CA world and probably spent another 5 hours trying to get the thing to work with Ingres Desktop. If CA gets around to making the tool more open, I'd like to build a couple of applications with it and potentially recommend it as a development tool for our staff. 6) Other comments.
Question 1) Develop a real compiler(s). I've tried to use OpenROAD for some modeling applications with some computationally dense algoritms. The code is easy to develop, but the performance penalty of OpenROAD vs compiled c is 200/1. I usually give up the classy interface stuff oadn live with command line arguments of compiled C or C++ using embedded SQL calls (UNIX). 2) Improve the documentation. Make a deal with some third parties to write some decent how to books. Produce a really good description of merging OpenROAD with Microsoft Visual C++ without having to be an SDK expert. Linking 3gl procedures to PC-OpenROAD is an exercise in futility. I am a unix programmer and have little experience building DLLs. 3) Ingres is our database and we wanted a consistent language for UNIX and MS Windows that would allow us to build database apps quickly. 4) I have a real need to port UNIX C code to MS Windows or Windows NT. I need real examples of merging compiled 3gl procedures with OpenROAD under Windows and building Visual C++ routines with embedded SQL. The CA documentation covering this hasn't been updated since 1991 and stinks in general. 5) We are the regional planning agency for San Diego County. Most of our applications involve modeling ofsome kind (economic/demographic estimates and forecasts, land use planning and so on). We use OpenROAD primarily for an interface to the underlying data which is stored in Ingres. The applications are relatively straightforward, but are sometimes heavily computational. OpneROAD doesn't work very well if the algoritms require a lot of iterations or recursion. More and more, I've moved code out of OpenROAD back to Unix C to get the processing speed. 6) Other comments: I like the prototyping ability of OpenROAD, but I wish it were faster. Tech support (1st level) often has no idea how to address some of my concerns.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
you what one thing you would like to see changed
about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
Under Windows95, disable the "feature" which checks
the /ingres/files/users file for the name of the user
before that person is allowed to start the gcc and the
gcn. This has cost us hours of time in supporting our
Windows95 users, some of whom had purposely set their
machines up so that they didn't have to log in every time.
2) If you could change some other things too, what would
those be?
1) Per-user license fees. We need to give a program to 2500 MBA students
per year to use while they are students. The sales team worked with us
to give us the pricing we needed, but it took three months of negotiation.
During that time we found out that we could buy both Oracle Developer/2000
and PowerBuilder using a scheme where the "developer" package was
quite expensive ($8-16K), but where there was no per-user fee. If
CA had had a system like this in place, our sale would have moved much
faster. Note that we are perfectly willing to pay per simultaneous
user on the database server end--all we are asking is that there not
be a user-based licensing fee for end use of the software we write
using OpenROAD.
2) Very difficult for end users to install. For distribution to our 2500
students, we wrote our own InstallShield script. It took one of our
programmers 6 weeks to develop robust installation scripts for our
applications on MS Windows 3.1 and MS Windows 95. We admit to some lack
of experience with MS-Windows based programming, but even so, his seems
too long.
It would be great if OpenROAD came with an InstallShield "wizard" for
creating full end user installations of OpenROAD applications. The
wizard could prompt for information to allow pared-down installations to
be created which didn't have unnecessary .DLLs or the Swahili character
set, if that was not going to be used (for example).
3) Missing some standard Windows concepts and functions, such as printing,
straightforward use of control-c, control-v, and control-x for cut and
paste, etc.
4) Does not work with standard MS Windows tools. We have had a lot of
problems accessing the Windows API. We have also found that when
we call a .DLL we wrote in Delphi, we have to pass three bogus arguments
first, to pad the stack, and then place our "real" arguments after them.
( callproc foo( 1,1,1,real_arg, real_arg ) ) The first three arguments
get trashed in transit.
5) Difficulty hiring experienced programmers. This isn't just an OpenROAD
problem--this is true for Ingres as well. We lose time training every
new hire.
6) Difficult to write self-documenting code. The only provision which
is made for storing documentation is "short remarks". Remarks
can not be stored for individual user class attributes or methods.
Moreover, the "docuapp" facility provides output which is very difficult
to read.
7) Difficult to automatically generate applications. The new "assistant"
facility is geared towards making the process of creating frames and
fields move more quickly and automatically. The assistant does not,
however, provide a mechanism for updating system catalogs automatically,
which means that any element which must be checked in, must be checked
in by a programmer. It would be particularly useful if it were possible
to create user classes using an assistant, and have them checked in.
We have created our own templates for user classes which we use in
conjunction with code we generate automatically, but we still have to
manually edit the templates, create attributes and methods, and check
those user classes in.
8) Old fashioned look and feel. No support for OLE.
9) Limitations to the object-oriented model. It would be nice to be
able to create user classes based on system classes.
3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
development platform?
1) Based on my research, OpenROAD is the best development environment
on the market, in terms of its ability to straightforwardly handle
a complex database schema. It provides a sophisticated development
environment which we can use to write our own tools, and to develop
programs which we will need to maintain and upgrade a long time. (These
applications have existed in some form since the 1970s, and have been
ported in their entirety from an HP running proprietary code to a
DEC-20 running 1022, then to a VAX with Ingres).
2) Excellent client/server support. We were amazed that even OpenROAD 3.0/03
allowed us to run an application from home, connecting via a commercial
SLIP service. This is very robust!
3) Tuned to work with Ingres--it provides a native Ingres driver
4) Language similar to ABF--an easy learning curve for our programmers
4) Have you developed any general code to support your
CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
to others for such tools?
1) Printscreen .DLL: we did not write this ourselves, since someone else
had posted it to the net. This .DLL can be used from any MS Windows
platform, and it prints the current OpenROAD window. We did write a .DLL
to handle standardized display and printing of files.
2) Winsock .DLL: we wrote our own .DLL to allow us to access the Winsock
API to do the following:
a) validate a login and password on a specified network machine. This
allows our users to use the same passwords for accessing their database
applications that they use for accessing email, etc.
b) collect information on the local IP address of the machine, so we
can log usage.
c) provide SMTP mailing, so we can build in problem reporting.
On any screen, the user can choose a menu item which brings up a
"mail" screen, and they can report problems as they run into them.
d) provide FTP functions. This allows us to run reports on the server
machine, and automatically ftp them back to the user's machine, where
they can be displayed or printed.
3) OpenROAD transaction handling facility. (I'm presenting a paper on this
at CA-World). We provide a "transaction" user class with methods that
we invoke after every data access statement. The userclass handles
unexpected rowcounts as well as errors, which is vital, since we are using
table integrities. In addition to providing a standard transaction handling
interface, the user class allows transactions to be written in a modular
manner, and provides centralized problem logging.
4) Code generation methodology. We relegate the majority of our
database access code to user classes which are built directly from
our database tables. We have templates which we use for creating
the user classes, and we generate the method scripts automatically
with c code which accesses the systems catalogs. This methodology
would be even better if we had the ability to automatically update
the OpenROAD system catalogs. We also have a set of frame templates
which we use for the vast majority of our frames. The frames come
with standard menu items and tool bars, and standard scripts. The
scripts can be generic because we can simply assign groups on the
frame to have the data type of one of our user classes, and then
rely on the user classes to do the bulk of the actual work. If you
are interested in these, I can send examples to you.
5) OpenROAD generic browse facility. We wrote an OpenROAD user class
which makes it easy to provide a standardized "lookup" screen with
multiple fields on it from multiple tables. You provide the user
class with information about the base tables which the fields are
found in, and pass it the current frame, and then it does a lookup
against the supplied set of tables, based on which fields are
currently populated.
6) OpenROAD "temporary container" facility. We have another user class
which provides the ability to create a temporary table (currently
implemented as a permanent table with an expiration date) which
consists of a single column, "obj_id". Methods are provided for
manipulating these tables based on user actions such as browsing, or
tagging rows in a tablefield. Temporary container names can be
passed to reports, so that generic reports can be run against user-
specified sets of data. This is the primary use for these containers.
7) OpenROAD "translation library" facility. We have another user class
which caches data translation values for use in on-screen activations.
We store most of our translations in a central "translation table" in
the database, where a fully cased text value is mapped to a 5-letter
code and an integer value, and groups of these translations can be
located by a translation type column. The "TRANSLIB" facility will
go out to the database and load translations as they are needed from
the translation table.
8) OpenROAD menuing/report dispatch facility. We have another application
which provides a menuing user class. This has two features of
note: 1) menuing is done on a per-user basis, since for most applications,
some functions are restricted to a particular set of users. 2) we
provide a set of options for report output which allow the user to
run a report on the database server machine, but handle the output on
his/her own PC.
5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
your plans to use it in the future.
We have hundreds of frames and millions of lines of embedded sql/c
and ABF code. We are converting our user interfaces to OpenROAD.
Our users will be running Windows 95 or Windows NT. We have currently
put four applications into production, one of which is used by 2500
students, some of who install and run it from home via a SLIP line.
6) Other comments.
It seems very hard to get information about OpenROAD--directions,
etc. I hope having a user group will help.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? Ability to subclass system classes. 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? The items I am aware of I believe to already be in the works: built in report generation capabilities, OLE, more Windows like interface. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? Already have an installed base of Ingres users. Like the fact its object-oriented. Like the fact that it doesn't depend on ODBC to connect to other major database vendors. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? Not at this time, since we're in the analysis phase of our project. As we move in to prototyping, we might generate some code. I would certainly be interested in what others have to offer. 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. Trained in Windows4GL 2.0 and have some experience there. Have played with OpenROAD but not done any serious development yet. 6) Other comments.
> 1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked > you what one thing you would like to see changed > about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? To integrate our three tier architecture extension for CA-OpenROAD with our product Xi-OpenMOM (Message Oriented Middleware) to allows application to exchange objects accross the network. > > 2) If you could change some other things too, what would > those be?To integrate our CA-INGRES Database and CA-OpenROAD Application generator named Xi-WING to compete against Oracle Designer/developer 2000, Sybase/Porwerbuilder/Star*Designer and others > 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications > development platform?NT 3.51 and SOLARIS for development W3.11, W95 and other Unix for porting > 4) Have you developed any general code to support your > CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share > with others in the user community? Do you have any requests > to others for such tools?We have developed a set of CA-OpenROAD Classes to integrates MDI (Multiple Document Interface) and floating toolbar support for CA-OpenROAD applications. To identify a Microsoft MFC/C++ from a CA-OpenROAD development becomes really difficult with this native integration of MFC in CA-OpenROAD classes. > > 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or > your plans to use it in the future.All graphical developments of our products (Xi-Wing, Xi-9000, Xi-Writer, Xi-OpenMOM) are CA-OpenROAD code for approximately 500.000 lines. Others modules are writen in C++. > 6) Other comments. We are grateful for your commitment in CA-OpenROAD community, and I hope CA will better understood that they got from Ingres/ask the best development language on the market.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? I would like CA to publish a Known Bugs and work-arounds list so that we don't all have to waste time 'rediscovering' bugs 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? I would like more control over positioning of items on screen and more automatic handling of different screen resolutions. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? It seemed a natural progression for us as committed Ingres users. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. We are using OpenROAD for Student Admissions and Student Records Systems which will be used both here at University of London and at other Universities throughout the UK. We will probably use OpenROAD for other projects in the future but there are no definite plans yet. 6) Other comments.
> CA-OpenROAD User Group Survey
>
> EMAIL TO: emy@gsb.uchicago.edu
> or FAX TO: Elena Yatzeck
> [country code] 773-702-0233
>
>
> 1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
> you what one thing you would like to see changed
> about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
Make the bloody thing multitask!
> 2) If you could change some other things too, what would
> those be?
In no particular order (other than stream-of-consciousness):
a. It sure would be nice to have the OpenRoad runtime be usable
from a readonly directory on a file-server. It would be
especially nice to have this NOW, rather than when OpenRoad
4.0 comes out next spring.
b. Make it less piggish on resources.
c. We only care about Win95 and WinNT platformns, could we please
have some tools to make it actually LOOK like a Windows program!?
(ie OCX controls).
d. Sticking really wide tablefields inside a viewport looks really
ugly. The VizBasic "grid" comes to mind as a better looking
tablefield. (Elena, I've written a generic "select-statement"
browser that my boss has given the unofficial OK to make public
-- let me know if you want to see it -- plus it demonstrates
very nicely how crappy wide tablefields look (and function) in a
viewport).
e. Make it faster.
f. Make the "set lockmode session where readlock = nolock" sort of
things be settable from the DBsession object. The current
locking-mode doesn't always seem to filter down to new dbsessions
created with the OpenNewConnection method, and I'd prefer not
to have to edit every frame we have, to add it. Also, (it may
be in Ingres/Net), deadlocks sometimes are never rolled-back,
OpenRoad just hangs forever, even with a "timeout" set, and
you have to kill the session in IPM.
g. Please make it possible to "kill" an OpenRoad frame, without
bringing all other OpenRoad frames down.
h. Fix the bugs.
i. Fix the Ingres/Net (6.4) bug where I can't select an ESCAPE character
(ascii 27 is converted to ascii 28) through ANY of the tools
[tmor, OpenRoad, esqlc].
j. Fix the Ingres/Net bug where I can't call a dbprocedure with
more than 30 or so paramters.
k. StringObjects need a case-insensitive LocateString method.
l. Give us working examples of using the QueryObject to manage
simple tables. If they work like I suspect they should, we
could eliminate many frames that do nothing but let the user
add/delete/update simple lookup-tables.
m. An "on keypressed" and "on childkeypressed" event would be VERY
useful.
n. Let me raise a system event. Something along the lines of
CurFrame.RaiseAnyEvent(EventType = EV_CLICK,
EventTargObj = FIELD(menu.save_btn));
o. Give me a CANCEL button, with ESCAPE key mapped to it. It's been
suggested that I set up a speed-key, and map it to the ESCAPE key,
but the only place one generally uses a CANCEL button is on a popup,
and popups look pretty damn goofy with a menu. Perhaps if CA simply
let us have access to the windows control-box "system" menu.
p. Printing!!! I dunno, might be a nice StringObject method. Need both
a Windows-like print option, as well as a raw/passthrough option,
preferably with some way to allow (or not) the user to pick which
printer.
q. EntryFields need Cut(), Copy(), and Paste() methods.
(No, I don't like having to use Shift+CtrlIns, etc.)
r. Fix the documentation. Give me some useful examples.
s. StringObjects need a RawWriteToFile() method, where the
NewLine chars aren't converted to NewLine+CarriageReturn.
t. Cursors need a way to start the query on the server, but
not block all of OpenRoad until the first row is returned.
> 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
> development platform?
Actually, I was rather in favor of NOT using OpenRoad, but the
people in charge found out we could magically convert our ABF
application to Windows with PeaceTower's "A2W" garbage, and thus
the decision was made. It's been a big headache ever since.
Other factor: support for other databases, most notably Oracle.
> 4) Have you developed any general code to support your
> CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
> with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
> to others for such tools?
Just my "select-statement" browser. Let me know if you'd like to
see it. I'd love to see some working QueryObject stuff that would
be suitable for maintaining simple tables without any coding.
> 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
> your plans to use it in the future.
Since December of 1995, starting at 3.0/04, and now 3.5/03 with
many patches. It's been painful. We are committed to it for the
forseeable future (which is why I complain so much about it).
> 6) Other comments.
I don't totally hate OpenRoad -- it's not *too* bad -- but it sure needs
a lot of work before I will ever like using it, much less recommend it
to anyone else.
1) OpenRoad needs a built in report writing/printing capability. We are now in the process of evaluating Advanced report writer version 1.0/01 which is rumored to be a possible inclusion in version 4.0. I can say up front that Advanced Report Writer is not sufficiently integrated with OpenRoad, nor is its development tool what I would consider to be RAD. 2) In the PC implementations, there is a need for better tools for interacting with the operating system. This includes the need for a more transparent version of the "call system". There should also be built in methods for communicating with such protocols as DDE. 3) The selection of what was then Ingres W4GL was made about five years ago. The criteria for the decision was the need to communicate to an Ingres RDBMS running on a UNIX server, and the ability to develop applications once that could be deployed in both OS/2 2.X and MS-Windows environments. 4) No. 5) We have had minimal use of W4GL/OpenRoad so far. A few auxiliary business applications were developed and used. Future use of this tool should grow substantially. Our new business system, CA-ManMan/X, uses OpenIngres as it's RDBMS. OpenRoad will be used to develop peripheral applications using the same data source. 6) None for now.
Reply to Survey Questions
1. Cross Platform availability simultaneously for each new version
3. Cross Platform Tool
5. Depends on Cross Platform capabilities. If other platforms begin to
lag behind as
we have observed then OpenRoad has lost it's competitive edge for us.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
you what one thing you would like to see changed
about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
They have to speed up the development on OpenROAD.~
They have to have the product no more than three month after~
an operating system release (win95, nt40). not just the old
version, but a version that exploits the things in that
environment.~
If they dont speed up the product development, it will become
obsolete~
before it is released.
2) If you could change some other things too, what would
those be?~
1. be able to make ole objects in OpenROAD.~
In 4.0 it looks like OpenROAD can be used as a container, but
no the other way around. This a way to secure the investment
we have made~
2. Internationalization.~
Not the development environment. please keep that in english.~
But I have to be able to make multilingual deployment versions.~
3. Installation program~
ca-installer or an other product~
4. A more integrated way of making help to frames and fields.~
5. Today you have assistant-code on creation. I need
assistent-code to be run prior and/or after I change the
code.~
6. Sourcecode management control system.~
The version numbering in OpenROAD is not of much use.~
It code be a tight integration to existing systems
3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
development platform?~
We thought that A2W from PeaceTower was the right solution~
It wasn't.
4) Have you developed any general code to support your
CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
to others for such tools?
We have generated lots of utilities.~
But I'm not shure that I am allowed to ship that as~
free of charge tools.~
It is allways nice to see what others have done.~
thanks to your txlib we changed a little in our own
transactionhandler.
5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
your plans to use it in the future.~
We are in our 10's year with Ingres product's~
We have used OpenROAD for 1.5 years now.~
When we are on full speed we will have 30 consultants working
with OpenROAD.~
6) Other comments.
I think that this interest group should be sited under NAIUA.~
Kim Ginnerup~
Technical manager~
UNISTAR A/S~
Denmark~
email: kgi@bording.dk
>>1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked >>you what one thing you would like to see changed >>about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? FIX THIS BUG IN THE FRAME EDITOR: After duplicating or cutting/copying and pasting a column in a tablefield, the header for that column cannot be split into two or more lines. For some reason, The Enter/Carriage Return key stops working for that column, so editing is limited to one line. >>2) If you could change some other things too, what would >>those be? The Apply Button for the Property Sheets would also close the Property Sheet. This, however, should not apply to the Color Frame Editor. >>3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications >>development platform? I was not a part of this decision. >>4) Have you developed any general code to support your >>CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share >>with others in the user community? Do you have any requests >>to others for such tools? No. >>5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or >>your plans to use it in the future. I've been using OpenRoad continuously for about 4 or 5 months, since my applications under development were moved from a Unix Workstation platform to an NT PC platform. I'm not certain how long I will continue using it, but I suspect it will be for at least 6 more months. >>6) Other comments.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
you what one thing you would like to see changed
about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
The way that the properties are organized. Their should be one
comprehensive list of properties. Although navigating around to set the
different properties does become easier with time I feel that I spend a lot
of time just trying to figure out what properties have been set for a field.
2) If you could change some other things too, what would
those be?
An example would be best. If you try to set the bias of a table
field to resizable you get a message in the status bar saying that that bias
setting is not allowed. Why was it option in the first place?
3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
development platform?
The company I work for has migrated its original code to OpenROAD
from ABF. It was chosen for it's OO approach and templating. It was also
considered a good choice as their was a conversion tool available which
eliminated the necessity for a massive re-write.
4) Have you developed any general code to support your
CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
to others for such tools?
We are currently in the process of moving to a full OO approach.
This will take some time and therefore have not yet discovered anything I
would feel comfortable sharing. I am interested in any tools that other
developers have created, not only from the practical aspect but also to see
what people are doing.
5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
your plans to use it in the future.
I have just started using OpenROAD in the last couple of months and
feel very much like a beginner. As I said previously, the company I work
for has migrated its software to OpenROAD and I can count on using it for
quite some time.
6) Other comments.
<< 1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? >From what I know, I would like to see true OO features and the ability to generate Java code. 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? No comment. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? I didn't yet. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? No comment. 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. Haven't used it yet. May in the future if I can land a project. 6) Other comments. >>
>
> 1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
> you what one thing you would like to see changed
> about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
>
MDI.
>
> 2) If you could change some other things too, what would
> those be?
>
Control of the windows z-number (coming in 4.0 I think).
Easy access to task/app/sys modal window calls (without accessing
windows3.1/NT dlls)
Ability to trap a Window maximize event.
Better/different security and password arrangements when starting up
OpenROAD.
OR should 'remember' something about the developer's profile too -
but I think this is coming in 4.0.
>
> 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
> development platform?
>
Apertus Systems are an Ingres Development specialist.
>
> 4) Have you developed any general code to support your
> CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
> with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
> to others for such tools?
>
I think we have some code in the library that is in common circulation
already.
- window lock/unlock
- auto tablefield resizing
- auto scrollbar thing
I think we have already given an OpenROAD aware editor to the tools archive
called Apertus/Elvis.
>
> 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
> your plans to use it in the future.
>
Apertus has used OR for about 4 years. It is a major and strategic
front-end devt tool for Apertus.
>
> 6) Other comments.
> --------
er... why don't more people know it is better than VB et al?
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
you what one thing you would like to see changed
about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
2) If you could change some other things too, what would
those be?
3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
development platform?
I had seen demos and read about it. I thought it was a
very good product that was very competitive with other
like products. I have been using an Ingres database with
ABF/4GL applications for 4 1/2 years.
4) Have you developed any general code to support your
CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
to others for such tools?
I have not developed any general code but would be very
interested in any that is out there and available. If I
do develop some, I would be happy to share with others.
5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
your plans to use it in the future.
I am new to OpenROAD. I have two applications that have
been developed by contractors and are not yet in production.
One of them will be in production before year-end.
6) Other comments.
1. Make it run faster - provide something to precompile it into C? 2. A number of things in no particular order: a. Make it more reliable as a development system and not crash my PC (I have seen a lot of problems both under Windows 3.1 and UNIX/Motif) b. Allow changes to templates to automatically propagate through to any frames/fields created using them. c. Include some kind of multi-threading so that, for example, if I have a C "receive message" routine which I want to call from 4GL I can do so without freezing up the 4GL while waiting for the routine to return, and without having to write lots of ugly code using User Events. d. Allow frame mode to influence more than just the bias of each field - perhaps there could be an object-oriented way of coding up fields so that colour could get changed automatically for example. e. Make the debugger work properly under WIndows (IMPORTANT!) f. and another thing... how about some configuration control that works? Even to be able to copy/move frames between applications without all the nause of export/import would help. 3. On my present job this is historical - the choice was made a long time ago before I got here so I don't know. I was around when the selection was made on a previous job. This would have been about 2-3 years ago and at the time it was put into a proposal as a way of reducing the development cost of a complex GUI application. (Subsequently experience didn't really bear this theory out!) 4. No, I don't think so - I think everyone must have their own error handling routines and attribute setting routines 5. I have been using OpenROAD intensively on windows since March 96 and before that on Motif since about October 94 (and occasionally before that). 6. Isn't it getting a bit too late for this... isn't VB sweeping the world?
>1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked >you what one thing you would like to see changed >about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? Available to the mass market like PB Desktop, and at a competitive price. (e.g. no more $200/seat runtimes) > >2) If you could change some other things too, what would >those be? Consistent with MS Windows interface standards, and available on major new releases soon (e.g.Windows95 and WNT 4.0) > >3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications >development platform? Strong Ingres interface, strongly coherent OO structure. > >4) Have you developed any general code to support your >CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share >with others in the user community? Do you have any requests >to others for such tools? Not as of yet, but my development has been limited to several small-to-medium projects. > >5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or >your plans to use it in the future. 5-6 months over the last 18. I am tending to do higher level stuff, so my use will tend to taper off, unfortunately. > >6) Other comments.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? The ability to process Report Writer reports from the database or from scripts. This would certainly make migration of the ABF and Vision apps that run our company much easier. They have the engine, so why can't it be made to work with OpenRoad? 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? I always wished that the 4GL had some file I/O capabilities. In some apps, this would eliminate the need for embedded SQL programming in a 3GL. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? 1. The driver to Ingres 2. Familiarity with ABF's 4GL 3. Easier than VC++ or VB and ODBC programming. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? Not at this time. 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. I have written a couple of small apps from scratch, one to do some data entry, and another to display electrical load data. Have also used A2W to convert a couple of major ABF applications but have not reproduced all of the Report Writer reports, have been waiting, hoping, that CA would see the light. 6) Other comments. Still at the bottom of the learning curve, really, especially about how to make the best use of the object orientation features and user classes.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? I don't know - we just installed it last week and I haven't yet used it. 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? I don't know - we just installed it last week and I haven't yet used it. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? We already have a lot of Ingres code and do not have the funding to support a move to Oracle, though this was considered. We are going to OpenROAD primarily because we want to move to a GUI environment and secondarily because we are excited by the object-oriented capabilities. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? Not yet! 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. None, we plan to use move our existing ABF code to the OpenROAD environment and we plan to do future GUI development in OpenROAD. 6) Other comments. Thanks for putting this interest group together. While I am not of much use to anyone currently as an OpenROAD resource, I hope to be once we begin development.
> 1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked > you what one thing you would like to see changed > about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? I'll ask him: to invest more money in developement of OpenROAD to make right polisy on the market to enforce support. We are still not able to use OpenROAD under unix(motif), because it does't support our charecter set ISOlatin2. We also don't know how to connect PC client to unix DBMS selrver, becouse PC clients use Esten Eurepe caharacter set (code page 1250) and server side uses ISOlatin2 charactrer set (code page 88592). > > > 2) If you could change some other things too, what would > those be? Because I'm new in the OO paradigm, I'ld like to have with CA-OpenROAD destribution, a book that discuse the relations between OpenRoad and differnt OOAD Metodologis (Booch, Coad, Fuision, Jacobson OOSE, Rumbaugh OMT,...). If there is a prefered metodologi?, How to inplement diffrent principles of OO metodologies... I'm missing also some documantation (or tools) where i can understaned how OpenROAD works and i can trace the aplication in reale life. I'ld like to have more advansed editor, taht support: - spelling of system and user calsses beside all ohter funcitons - thesaurus, that help me see all classe's atributes and metods on wich I'm working on. > > > 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications > develop Because We have Ingres DBMS. > > > 4) Have you developed any general code to support your > CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share > with others in the user community? Do you have any requests > to others for such tools? not jet > > > 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or > your plans to use it in the future. As I mentioned I'm new on OO developement, but I'ld like to make future developemet on OpenRoad. We are developing a medical and hospital aplications. > > > 6) Other comments. I'am allmost aloven to use OpenRoad in my country, so I'm very glad to have opurtunity to comunicate.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? I would want to be able to access BLOBs using OpenROAD. Currently I cannot even link 'c' code which uses BLOBs into OpenROAD. 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? Point and click Report Writer (I think this is on the way). Compiler checking of parameters to frames/procedures. Compiler checking of SQL syntax. Better configuration management of frames/procedures. Built-in test capabilities ie recording/playback of user actions and automatic verification. I'd like to see the source code for the 3.5 templates. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? For its cross-platform independence. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? Not at present. 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. I have used OpenROAD for about 4 years from version 1 to currently 3.5 on Windows NT and 3.0 on SCO Unix. 6) Other comments. One of my major moans about Ingres products in general is that it is so difficult to get hold of release dates and price information. I am waiting for OpenROAD 3.5 to be released on SCO Unix and it makes a big difference to my development plans if it is released in the next month or not for another 6 months. I would like to use the new templates functionality but 6 months into the development cycle will be too late to start using them. For work on new bids, it always takes too long to get a price (even a rough one) for Ingres products whereas for competitive products eg Oracle Developer/2000, Visual Basic etc I have all the prices at hand without ever even asking for them. Oracle Developer/2000 is very expensive (5000 GBP) compared with OpenROAD although I couldn't give an exact price for OpenROAD for the reasons given above. I think the cost difference between the 2 products should be advertised STRONGLY. I like OpenROAD very much and was very impressed by version 4 at CA- World. Certainly in the UK however, I do not think that OpenROAD is advertised as well as it could be. I have been trying to get CA to give a demonstration of the latest Ingres products on-site for about 6 months and they have produced nothing but promises. What we really need is details of existing and new customers who are using OpenROAD/OpenIngres so that Ingres is not seen as 'off the short- list' as it was for a while after the takeover. In the UK I have asked for details of new customers so that I can pass on such information to our 'new bids' teams but no such information has been forthcoming. Oracle appears in so many new bids that our bids teams tend to prefer Oracle just because its popular. What I need to be able to say is "Look, company X and company Y have just signed major contracts to use OpenROAD, and company Z has just signed a new 5-year contract etc". In my experience many people have never even heard of OpenROAD/Windows4GL whereas everyone knows about Oracle. Also many people don't realise that Ingres and OpenROAD are 2 separate products eg some bids teams prefer the Oracle database because its more popular and then automatically bid the Developer/2000 front-end without even realising that they could use Oracle AND OpenROAD. I don't think that CA is getting the message across well enough. The cross-platform independence seems to have been forgotten about as well.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked
you what one thing you would like to see changed
about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be?
I would make it as much like Power Builder
as possible in regards to ease of screen creation.
While OpenRoad has much more programming and OO
power than PB, PB lets you build screens easier with
shortcuts for drawing controls, keeping track of
them, etc. It's a much easier developer interface.
2) If you could change some other things too, what would
those be?
Create ways to minimize code that has to be
written. To make a reasonable application in OR, much code
has to be written. Not so with PB. This especially
applies to database access. Since you can build some
amazing object classes for these activities, perhaps
several generic classes should be built ahead of time. I
know the more recent versions of OR have pre built methods
for things like master/detail screens. They should expand
on this.
Another thing that should be fixed is improving memory
leakage problems. I wrote an application with 3 frames. I
hit a limit on the maximum number of controls on the frames
and the whole thing faulted. OR for all of it's neat
features is a serious memory hog. In OR's defense, PB
isn't much better. Note that I haven't used it for almost
a year so I'm not up to date on the latest stuff.
3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications
development platform?
The customer was using Ingres and it seemed like the way to go.
4) Have you developed any general code to support your
CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share
with others in the user community? Do you have any requests
to others for such tools?
No.
5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or
your plans to use it in the future.
I wrote one application over a period of 2 months. When I worked for
CA, I gave many demos of the product and became very knowledgeable with it's
features.
6) Other comments.
>1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked >you what one thing you would like to see changed >about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? > User class inheritance from system classes. > >2) If you could change some other things too, what would >those be? > Application partitioning as provided by Forte. > >3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications >development platform? > Accident of career development. I was with Ingres and became interested in W4GL. > >4) Have you developed any general code to support your >CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share >with others in the user community? Do you have any requests >to others for such tools? > Would welcome such exchange of code, especially when it illustrates an OO approach. > >5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or >your plans to use it in the future. Have used OpenROAD for nearly 2 years and W4GL off and on for 3. Future plans depend entirely on the size of the CA-OpenROAD client base and on the development of the product. > >6) Other comments. The ActiveX support in OR 4.0 is a very important development for the product and I think that all CA-OpenROAD developers are eagerly waiting for its release in the middle of next year. I think that there is a need now for some statement of where the product is going beyond that.
> 1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked > you what one thing you would like to see changed > about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? > The code generation process can be re-done once there are some changes happens. > 2) If you could change some other things too, what would > those be? > An step by step concrete example demonstrate the various feature of OpenROAD. > 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications > development platform? > My company has chosen it. > 4) Have you developed any general code to support your > CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share > with others in the user community? Do you have any requests > to others for such tools? > No. The tools mainly in the area of on-line transaction handling. > 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or > your plans to use it in the future.Just start to read the manuals and try the material in the Travelling Guide. > > 6) Other comments.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? A compiler, without the need of a runtime environment. 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? 3D Controls, Built in report-writer & support for OCX's. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? When we chose them, they had sales division targeted directly at the Media Vertical Market which is where our application is directed. Secondly, when chosen, CA-OpenROAD was ahead of the competition. I would choose CA-OpenROAD now thought. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? We have developed some code language translation code which I would be glad to share. 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. I use CA-OpenROAD all the time and will continue to do so. Our long term plans are to re-develop in an other language. Which language that is hasn't been decided yet. 6) Other comments. Why is CA so far behind in development tools. For the second largest Software company in world their technical ambitions are incredibly low.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? I would like to see it become even more object oriented. This includes being able to inherit from system classes. For example, the ability to create a userclass (MyButtonClass) that inherits all of the properties of a ButtonField as well as additional properties that I define. 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? I would like to be able to take complete control over the tabbing sequence between fields on a frame. Not only between the fields within a group. The ability to "lock" a flexible form so that you can't accidently pull it out of shape. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? I wasn't involved in choosing OpenROAD, but from what I understand it was chosen because it was easier to access the Ingres database using OpenRoad than using something else and ODBC. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? I may have some stuff to do with program menus and "tabbed frames" that others might find helpfull. 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. I have been using OpenROAD for 1 1/2 years starting with v3.0. We are developing using WindowsNT 3.5 with Windows 3.1 clients and an Ingres 6.4 server running on a VAX/VMS machine (VMS 5.5-2). All of the company's applications are being migrated to OpenRoad. 6) Other comments.
>1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked >you what one thing you would like to see changed >about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? Make development environment more reliable and faster - we use Win95 clients. It takes quite a while to get going in the morning, it's too easy to lose scripts and work due to crashes etc. > >2) If you could change some other things too, what would >those be? OLE, easier to exist with other languages, runtime speed - compares badly with say Delphi. I realise some of these are coming with OR4.0. > >3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications >development platform? Licensing issues, not much else available at the time, portability (which has become less important to us), easy upgrade from 4GL. > >4) Have you developed any general code to support your >CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share >with others in the user community? Do you have any requests >to others for such tools? Not much at the moment - we are still getting to grips with some general purpose frameworks etc. Always keen to look at other stuff and review good example code/libraries. > >5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or >your plans to use it in the future. A fair bit - 5 - 7 developers for over 6 months. We will be reviewing our strategy over the next few months. > >6) Other comments.
1) If Charles Wang called you up tomorrow and asked you what one thing you would like to see changed about CA-OpenROAD, what would that be? Give me OLE. Integration with other Windows apps is number one. 2) If you could change some other things too, what would those be? I would like a 3D GUI and independent executables. It is very hard to recommend to recommend development in OpenROAD when another tool is just as capable and has a nicer look and feel along with easier deployment. 3) Why did you pick CA-OpenROAD for your applications development platform? Niche in market for this development. The segment is getting smaller all the time, and more competitive. PowerBuilder and other tools are squeezing hard. 4) Have you developed any general code to support your CA-OpenROAD applications which you would like to share with others in the user community? Do you have any requests to others for such tools? I would be interested in sharing code. Unfortunately, my company owns our code and giving it away is difficult. I would be interested in offering some of our developments, however. Is there a library? 5) Please describe how much you have used OpenROAD, or your plans to use it in the future. We have been using it since W/4GL was upgraded. We will continue to use it as long as demand for our skills stays satisfactory. It looks steady for the next year or so. 6) Other comments.
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