RE: (forte-users) RE: Forte 3 vs Java -- Productivity ( wasFutur e of F

Question

Bravo. I completely agree. Right now Forte is helping me solve my business
requirements fast and that's all I care about. If Java will do that for me
tomorrow and I will use it. Otherwise I will keep using whatever
language(s)/tool(s) that helps me get the job done.
Ka
-----Original Message-----
From: Genesio, Fabrizio [mailto:fabrizio.genesiodatasign.ch]
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2000 5:22 AM
To: kamranaminyahoo.com
Subject: RE: (forte-users) RE: Forte 3 vs Java -- Productivity ( was
Futur e of Forte )
What an interesting debate....
May I just add some considerations?
- Successful Project capable to produce effective and maintainable
system. That's in my opinion should be our goal as professional IT
actors. Languages are just means to reach this goal. Therefore I would
like to see IT professional considering all the aspects of software
development, and not only the code and the languages.
- About distributed features in Java systems... Sure, you can do
in Java a lot of nice things, but, today, how much would it cost to
develop in Java real mission-critical distributed application?. I am
talking here about the IT "headaches" Forté has been capable to solve
during the past 5 years. Should I make examples? What about distributed
events, what about distributed transactions, what about fail-over, what
about load-balancing? Or, to move towards a more comprehensive view of
software development (and maintenance), what about partitioning (or, to
talk J2EE slang, assembly), what about deployment, what about monitoring
and run-time management? Is there, available today, an alternative to
Forté that cover so many aspects of enterprise-class systems? I
apologize, but I do not see one, or at least not yet. It not only a
matter of languages...Nevertheless, I believe tomorrow is another day,
Java will evolve as well as the environments for it (including Forté for
Java), and the all will be mature enough to really support distributed
application.
- This leads me to express a wish. I like the way one can turned
down the Singleton issue. However this is a perfect example of the
difference from Forté to Java. On one side you have an abstraction, that
hides complexity. On the other side you are (again) back at the
"plumbing" level. Now I do not know what you think about in my opinion
it is about time we move on from the "prehistorical age", making
abstraction, start to worry more about the business requirements (and
the users' needs). We should stop this sort of religious fight for the
best language (the term "crusade" came to my mind), and using our energy
to push for an easier integration, a effort-less plug-in between
components. There is no perfect solutions, all languages have positive
and negatives points. However all we really need is to learn to use each
technologies at the right time and place, and having all pieces
collaborating between each other. Pretty much like a house, where
several material are used, each of them useful but none of them capable
to replace all the others. Of course, it is clever to use sometimes only
wood, and some other times only concrete. However, most of the time you
need both, and you absolutely want them "collaborating" together to be
able to live in your house. Well, that's what "in primis" we have to ask
for to Forté, and to SUN, in particular: easy integration and
collaboration between TOOL and Java, a seamless cooperation between
partitions and EJBs.
I look forward to discuss all this at FORUM2000....
Fabrizio Genesio
Datasign AG für Informatik
ch. d'Eysins 53a
CH-1260 Nyon
Switzerland
Tel.: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
e-mail: fabrizio.genesiodatasign.ch
<mailto:fabrizio.genesiodatasign.ch>
URL: www.datasign.ch <http://www.datasign.ch>
-----Original Message-----
From: David Vydra [SMTP:dvydrajavamentor.com]
Sent: Thursday, 10 February 2000 04:57
To: Thomas Mercer-Hursh, Ph.D.
Cc: kamranaminyahoo.com
Subject: Re: (forte-users) RE: Forte 3 vs Java --
Productivity ( was Future of Forte )
At 03:06 PM 2/10/00 -0800, you wrote:
>At 06:28 AM 2/10/2000 , David Vydra wrote:
>How familiar are you with this product? Does it tell you
something that
>all of the FJEE tools are written in TOOL?
So what? IBM's VisualAge for Java is written in Smalltalk.
Look, if Forte management thought that they could fight the Java
invasion
they would tell their engineers to make TOOL much, much better.
Instead
they put most of the effort into SynerJ and sold the company to
Sun. Smart
move if you ask me.
>As for what is or is not a 4GL, I think that there are so many
>incomparabily different types of languages available these days
and in so
>many flavors, that any kind of division into generations is, at
the very
>best, extremely subjective. Certainly, TOOL isn't very much
like some of
>the classic procedural 4GLs, but personally I am very
comfortable calling
>it an OO4GL in comparison to the more common OO3GLs around,
like Java.
Agreed.
=========================================================================
>Thomas Mercer-Hursh, Ph.D email:
thomascintegrity.com
>Computing Integrity, Inc. sales:
510-233-9329
>550 Casey Drive - Cypress Point support:
510-233-9327
>Point Richmond, CA 94801-3751 fax:
510-233-6950
>
>--
>For the archives, go to: http://lists.xpedior.com/forte-users
and use
>the login: forte and the password: archive. To unsubscribe,
send in a new
>email the word: 'Unsubscribe' to:
forte-users-requestlists.xpedior.com
>
>
David Vydra
dvydrajavamentor.com
www.javamentor.com
(877) 270 - 9003
For the archives, go to: http://lists.xpedior.com/forte-users
and use
the login: forte and the password: archive. To unsubscribe, send
in a new
email the word: 'Unsubscribe' to:
forte-users-requestlists.xpedior.com
For the archives, go to: http://lists.xpedior.com/forte-users and use
the login: forte and the password: archive. To unsubscribe, send in a new
email the word: 'Unsubscribe' to: forte-users-requestlists.xpedior.com

Answer 1

At 06:28 AM 2/10/2000 , David Vydra wrote:
Also, it is a little unfair to compare a product in its third production
release with a beta product. I agree that for certain projects Forte 3 is
the right choice today. The issue for me is: will Sun continue the support
of TOOL? How much of a 4GL is TOOL? Will TOOL become more 4GL in the
future or will it be phased out?How familiar are you with this product? Does it tell you something that
all of the FJEE tools are written in TOOL?
As for what is or is not a 4GL, I think that there are so many
incomparabily different types of languages available these days and in so
many flavors, that any kind of division into generations is, at the very
best, extremely subjective. Certainly, TOOL isn't very much like some of
the classic procedural 4GLs, but personally I am very comfortable calling
it an OO4GL in comparison to the more common OO3GLs around, like Java.
=========================================================================
Thomas Mercer-Hursh, Ph.D email: thomascintegrity.com
Computing Integrity, Inc. sales: 510-233-9329
550 Casey Drive - Cypress Point support: 510-233-9327
Point Richmond, CA 94801-3751 fax: [phone]