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Good evening all,
I have just finished the 7.0 training in Sydney and
am very impressed. As a developer with one 4.5++ commercial application
who is being hassled, understandably, to 'upgrade' to Windows, I believe that
the development time for my completely rewritten application and database
structure will be cut by about 2/3rds and will look much 'prettier' with a whole
lot less work.
I always thought that 4.5++ was a great and fast
application development program, especially with regard to previous versions and
I have only really programmed in RBase. 7.0 and Razzak did its well
reported trick of blowing everyone's socks off and they, I understand, were
declared as UFOs endangering the engine air intakes of landing jets over
Botany Bay.
I'm a fairly laid back bloke and don't get excited
too easily but I am excited and this heads up display of development simplicity
was stunning. In 4.5++ I used Application Express to do the outline of the
application and incorporated various command files. The application
developer in 7.0 works in a similar manner but with a much frendlier interface
and gives huge possibilities of adding many other functions and features
easily.
I would also like to thank Razzak for his
assistance with 4.5++ on XP Pro and with using 6.5++ Win to connect to
Australian MYOB Accounting products via ODBC. MYOB Australia have released
a Developer Pack which uses their ODBC read only driver to allow access to
information from a datafile and has another tool that allows you to autoload new
data into MYOB. As 7.0 sits on the 6.5++ engine and upgraded
6.5++ databases can be accessed by both versions I can think of a
number of applications that could be created for different clients of mine and,
I'm sure, that after my mind returns to a more coherent state I will be able to
think of a lot of different applications. The idea of a 7.0 developers
pack that allows you to distribute your applications as .exe files also excites
me but am afraid to ask the price, especially in Australian
dollars.
The cost of the training, about A$1250 for the two
day session including a free upgrade to 7.0 when it is released, was well worth
while, and tax deductable. The presentation was excellent, if mind
boggling, and the ability to use the Beta to develop applications prior to the
release of the product, and thereby testing the Beta, is great. A few bugs
were found and some enhancement requests were made and these are to be
incorporated into one of the next Beta updates - Razzak started the Seminar with
a CD of the Beta dated 15 Nov and we all got an update at the end of the Seminar
dated 18 Nov with fixes for the bugs found during the first day as well as other
bugs that had been reported by other Beta testers. This is such a change
from the MYOB beta testing where there is nowhere near the amount of time
available for the 400 or so Certified Consultants to test the product and, I
must admit, is not as much fun as 7.0.
Anyone who has the opportunity to attend the 7.0
training should make every effort to get there - you will not be
disappointed.
Regards
Clive Williams
CRW Services
Silverdale NSW 2752
Australia
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