Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sgi!wdl1!shapiro
From: shapiro@wdl1.UUCP (David B Shapiro)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Any experiences with C-language screen generators?
Message-ID: <3560051@wdl1.UUCP>
Date: 31 Jul 89 17:46:31 GMT
References: <617173680.11604@telly.on.ca>
Lines: 42


>There's a company called the Oakland Group which has been doing a lot of
>advertising of a programming tool called C-Scape. It's designed to
>simplify the user-interface part of coding database applications in C.

>  Evan Leibovitch, SA, Telly Online, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
----------

I haven't programmed in many of these C forms systems. I currently own
Vermont Views - a set of C routines that allow validation and all sorts
of menus. I have seen C-Scape and it seems very similar. Another popular
package is by Greenleaf Software (in Texas). 

I'd like to use Vermont Views as an interface to Ingres/PC but I am
spoiled by the ease of screen management afforded by a 4GL. The problem
with the 4GL/Screen package with Ingres is that though it looks good,
it doesn't look like the commercial quality interfaces we have come to 
expect from PC software. But creating a form and performing all the 
validations in VV is extreamly tedious - and I would suspect this would
be the same for other packages. If there were a 4GL for VV that allowed
me dip into C for low level window management - then we'd be talking.
There is a company called Information Builders that offer a product 
called Focus - which is a front end similar to the above packages which
seems to offer a 4GL language with hooks into various data base packages
(Ingres, Oracle, etc.) which does allow one to work in C for the specialized
tasks.
On the plus side, most of these packagaes, including C-Scape and Vermont
Views are portable across many hardware and OS platforms, so porting to another
system should be easier.

What I'd like to see now is a 4GL that allows forms which take advantage of
Microsoft Windows/ Presentation Manager. Perhaps portable to Macs and
finally to Suns or DEC workstations (under X windows, even !!). 

David Shapiro
Ford Aerospace Corp.
Western Development Laboratories

shapiro@ford-wdl1.arpa
...{sgi,sun,ucbvax}!wdl1!shapiro

All opinions stated here are my own, not my employer's.