Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!ucsd!ames!amdahl!nsc!voder!cullsj!gupta
From: gupta@cullsj.UUCP (Yogesh Gupta)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: SQL = 4GL ???
Summary: 4GL, 5GL, marketing!
Message-ID: <402@cullsj.UUCP>
Date: 24 Aug 88 22:53:06 GMT
References: <24484@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <641@stech.UUCP> <314@telly.UUCP>
Organization: Cullinet Software, San Jose, CA
Lines: 41

In article <314@telly.UUCP>, evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
> 
> Let's face it. For the foreseeable future, the term 'fourth generation
> language' has been appropriated by marketing types, and should be treated
> as suspect in any non-academic context.
> -- 

For your enjoyment, here are excerpts from an article in "Digital NEWS", a
bi-weekly technical {:-) :-)} publication:

======
		Next Stop: 5GLs

    While software houses continue to tout the productivity gains of their
4GL products, they eye the future - and so-called 5GLs - with excitement.

    To Ottawa-based Cognos Inc., the makers of PowerHouse software, the
fifth generation is synonymous with expert systems and artificial
intelligence, said Henry Urion, senior product-line manager. [...] "We're
on the threshold of having some very serious offerings ourselves in that
direction," he said.

    [...]

    Roger Brown, president of Beaverton, Ore.-based Interactive Technology
Inc., producers of RDM: The Application Developer, could not offer a 5GL
definition.  "The paradox is, a 5GL is not going to be language at all."

    Mark Hannah, product-marketing manager for Alameda, Calif.-based
Relational Technology Inc., views the fifth generation as visual
programming.  "And we've started on that," he said.  "When you design an
application using Ingres, you use the Ingres screen painter.  It's similar
for reports and queries."

    [...]
======

Now things are really improving :-)!
-- 
Yogesh Gupta                    | If you think my company will let me
Cullinet Software, Inc.         | speak for them, you must be joking.