Most pertinent on v11.4 converting question

[Harry A. Bernstein M.D.]

DAVID NASRALLA's comment is the most pertinent on v11.4 converting question:

After all that work, what do I get... the same system. (Granted, I'm ready to
more forward to more things....) I would prefer to move to v11 when my systems
would clearly benefit from its new features, rather than from fear of the
current system breaking because Apple has release a new OS (eminent in 2-3
months).

MY TAKE:

Moving any 'old' 4D application onto V11 is a huge undertaking. I have seen
some people use the word 'conversion'. My experience is that this expression is
really inappropriate and misleading. I think a more reasonable term would be
'rewrite'.

There is no way to 'convert' a serious full sized legacy system into V11. For a
seasoned 4D developer it takes three month to get to the bottom of the
Conversion manual and experiment with the various alternatives (it is
impossible to make the critical decisions before mastering the Convserion manual
(600 pages).

Once that phase is over, the real work may start. Count 3-6 month to adapt all
the forms, replace obsolete methods and functions etc. etc. Your first beta is ready.
Let your users work with it and you will see a new big wave of
issues coming at you. This may take another 3-6 months, again, if you are
lucky!

Morals of the story: count a year! Some on this list tried to make this seem
otherwise in various shapes and forms. I debunk their stance by pointing out
that none of those who suggested a short/smooth conversion should/would be possible or
plausible, actually have an V11 version of their products out, not even after a
year!

'After all that work, what do I get... the same system (David Nasralla said), is the
REAL question here. And the answer indeed is that the user will think that he
has the same program, provided you have been lucky, again, and have not been
forced to abandon certain functionality (chances are that you did drop certain
features because the plug-ins are dead).

So, who is going to pay for V11? Walt Nelson - Guam was head on about this
several months ago! The jump from legacy 4D to V11 is much too big! It should
have been done in smaller steps. 2003/2004 to 2009 is silly.

Now the real stinger: after a year of V11 development, and 4D server causing
you and your user's blood pressure to go thru the roof, V12 comes around that
basically sunsets the 4D Language (at the last summit 4D people called it the
'old' language), which is to be replaced by an ECMAScript Language
Specification.

I guess that's why some people talk about V11 being a bridge release. For some
the bridge may serve to jump off of it, instead of going over it.

As always, my 2 cents worth...

Regards,

Harry.

PS: I am somewhat dark sided right now because I just lost my long time
developer, who decided that he would no longer want to be involved with what he
described as unworkable 4D Server.

[Jeffrey Kain]

I take it you haven't done many rewrites. Converting to v11, even a large
app, is nowhere near a rewrite.

On 6/25/09 3:54 PM, "Harry A. Bernstein M.D." <hbmd2@...> wrote:

> Moving any 'old' 4D application onto V11 is a huge undertaking. I have seen
> some people use the word 'conversion'. My experience is that this expression
> is
> really inappropriate and misleading. I think a more reasonable term would be
> 'rewrite'.

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[Chip Scheide]

On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:54:28 -0700 (PDT), Harry A. Bernstein M.D. wrote:

> DAVID NASRALLA's comment is the most pertinent on v11.4 converting question:
>
> After all that work, what do I get... the same system. (Granted, I'm ready
> to more forward to more things....) I would prefer to move to v11 when my
> systems would clearly benefit from its new features, rather than from fear
of the
> current system breaking because Apple has release a new OS (eminent in 2-3
> months).

Harry,
the plugin issue you raised has its points -
however, I have done a test conversion (I dont use any plugins) I have
found 1 'killer' problem with my system.
Drag n Drop
this has changed drastically (from v2003 where I currently am) in v11 -
and all of my drag n drop stuff breaks.
However, repairing this is not a huge undertaking.

Other than that, and the one issue mentioned below (remove 3 lines of
code and everything is happy) my application runs under 4D V11.  This
is NOT a 4gb structure and 2 tb data file system; but it is not trivial
either.

In simple testing I have seen at least 2 really good reasons to move to
v11
1 - speed -
on the same hardware (ancient 1.6ghz G4) stand alone v11 starts and
executes process code SO FAST that a delay loop in my new process
wrapper caused system start to hang - as the wrapper was waiting for a
process to come into existence - not only had the process (being waited
on) come into existence - IT HAD COMPLETED execution - during a 5 tick
delay
repeat
  delay process(current process;5)
until (process_exists)
2 - selection  based list boxes - FINALLY !! "included forms" can
behave as the user expects.  double clicking to open/edit, while still
being able to select a line (or lines).

as far as your lead dev - I suspect that you might just be able to find
someone to help out (at least you posted to the right place).
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[Jody Bevan]

Harry:

> PS: I am somewhat dark sided right now because I just lost my long  
> time
> developer, who decided that he would no longer want to be involved  
> with what
> he described as unworkable 4D Server

Certainly the dark side toward 4D v11 is showing, but the biggest  
thing is that you know that is the case.

I think that any statements of it will take ....   for all systems is  
not fair to 4D at all. As usual broad brush statements like this are  
not valid for all.

I believe that there are some of our internal applications that could  
be converted in a few weeks. Our decision to rewrite our shell into a  
format that we have talked about over the last 8 years is what is  
taking us so long for our conversions.

We will be converting our flag ship product to version 11 last (after  
we have more experience with v11). With that conversion we are going  
to do a 'simple' conversion first. We are doing this to get the speed  
advantages to our end users as quickly as we can. Our testing shows  
that a simple conversion will give massive speed increases to our  
users. A side to that method is that it will let us know how much work  
we MUST do to get it to work with v11. Our flagship product is larger  
with 31,800 methods, 248 tables, (126 meg structure uncompiled).

As a vendor that must provide rock solid product with a product used  
around the world we are always behind the curve on converting to the  
latest 4D product. Typically we don't get to it until it is a .5  
release, or in the past we have even skipped some versions all  
together. Part of this is the development cycle we are in. We are  
pushed into by customers for certain features, and various regulating  
bodies force us into different development cycles. Therefore our  
'wish' as developers for the latest release of 4D is trumped.

All vendors get forced into the upgrade because of the OS. Then this  
trickles down to the end user, with us as developers caught in  
between. I love MacOS, but it is Apple that causes this rush in the  
past as has been described on this forum. Up to Vista, old versions of  
our product will run from windows 95 to XP. So I have a bit of angst  
with Apple, but I understand their perspective as well.

I really don't expect that our initial release with v11 of our  
flagship product will be anything close to a rewrite. Even as we make  
it multi-lingual and a few other nifty features it will not be a  
rewrite.

I have been developing with 4D since 1988. The switch from version 2  
to version 3 was the biggest change until 2004 to v11. To take  
advantage of the features of these version does take work. As well, it  
does take time to learn the new features of the environment. I know  
that there are many features in v11 that I have been asking 4D for,  
for several years. To deliver it they needed to make a big change. I  
appreciate this, and understand there is work on our part.

I know of several of my competitors that had to switch development  
environments totally as the environment they used was stopped (i.e.  
FoxBase as one example). I'm happy that 4D has provided me with 21  
years of staying within the same development environment. This is much  
easier than a rewrite by far. I certainly am hoping for another 20  
years, but I hope I'm not still working in 20 years.

my 2 cents worth

========================================================
Developers of JonokeMed™, FaxButler™, ImageButler™, WebButler™, J-
Forms™, and J-Jump™

Jody Bevan                            Jonoke Software Dev. Inc.


On Jun 25, 2009, at 1:54 PM, Harry A. Bernstein M.D. wrote:




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[Peter Jakobsson-2]

To be fair to 4D, I think Harry's assessment needs to be put into the  
appropriate context...

4D just can't win here - they originally planned to have 2 separate  
product lines precisely because they realised themselves that the  
"jump" may be too big, but then the developers moaned . . . "we want  
our structures to be upgradeable and not left behind".

Right, so they go and spend another 2 years doing a huge amount of  
code writing themselves to make sure our old structures work  
transparently with the new DB engine, 4D can run 2 languages at the  
same time, SQL can work alongside 4D native, our form objects go from  
custom to native OS objects without us having to redo our forms, we  
can work in Unicode but our old ASCII stuff still works, we can use  
SQL and modify the structure but we still can do it in the structure  
editor, our datafiles automatically upgrade without import/
export . . . and that's just the stuff I know about.

Now the developer's come along and complain that their 20 year old  
database designed in 1989, doesn't convert with a double-click !?

Notwithstanding some specific concerns about v11, we are generally a  
bunch of spoiled developers in the 4D world compared to most  
environments I've worked in and Harry, your post is a good example of  
this. Instead of measuring the work involved in upgrading against the  
work we're NOT having to do, or the work required in other  
development environments you measure it against NO work at all -:))  !

I hope 4D can continue to improve the upgradeability process for  
legacy structures, but more than anything, I hope the server  
reliability can be addressed because this for me is what makes  
everything else worth doing (..or 'not' as the case may be).

As far as this remark goes, I can only offer some background reading  
if you really think the grass is so much greener...

On 25 Jun 2009, at 21:54, Harry A. Bernstein M.D. wrote:
> ...  I just lost my long time
> developer, who decided that he would no longer want to be involved  
> with what
> he
> described as unworkable 4D Server.

See . . .

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sqldatabaseengine/ 
thread/60611cc4-b127-4b40-8cb7-4287ac8e3040/

http://www.phwinfo.com/forum/ms-sqlserver-server/361777-sql-server- 
crash-lot-time.html

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Servers/Q_23521474.html

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic496241-340-1.aspx

http://bytes.com/groups/ms-sql/80800-help-sql-server-crash-memory-leak

http://www.mydatabasesupport.com/forums/ms-sqlserver/140095-sql- 
server-crashing-fatal-exception-no-fix.html

http://sqlserverpedia.com/blog/uncategorized/why-does-our-sql-server- 
crash-with-multiple-connections/

http://www.lazydba.com/sql/1__598.html

http://www.codingforums.com/showthread.php?t=88012

Regards

Peter



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[psmith-3]

Peter,

I think this point is the key, particularly server reliability. The 4D  
community can smell when versions are ready - or not. Some of us bit  
the bullet and upgraded some of our customers' databases which could  
no longer wait but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There is  
certainly a huge pool of revenue waiting for 4D once the community is  
convinced things are ready. Until then, they can come out with v12,  
v13 or whatever and that won't save the ship.

For my customers, the most important aspect with v11 is speed and  
scalability. V11 is much, much faster and can handle much larger  
workloads than any previous version. That is enough to sell it to mid-
sized to large customers  (stability issues notwithstanding). The  
others will come along if and when they have no choice, such as new  
OSes, etc.


Paul Smith

TSE International

> I hope 4D can continue to improve the upgradeability process for  
> legacy structures, but more than anything, I hope the server  
> reliability can be addressed because this for me is what makes  
> everything else worth doing (..or 'not' as the case may be).

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[Walt Nelson-4]

Harry,

When I voiced my opinions, most 4D developers rained down scorn upon me. You
should have seen some of the messages I received!

But my concern was not for 4D Developers, but for 4D CUSTOMERS like you --  
especially customers from the medical profession. 4D has deeply penetrated
the medical market, but my fear was that if too many MD's have experiences
like yours, the negative word-of-mouth in the medical community would be a
killer for 4D.

11.4 contained more than 25 crashing/freezing bug fixes, but is it now
stable enough for 4D Server 24/7 deployment in multi-user environments? That
is the question.

As you quoted me, I still feel that "v11" should have been released in small
increments over a 3, 4, or 5-year period, to make the conversion and bugs
more manageable. Every authoritative tome on software development warns
against biting off too much in one version. When I looked at v11, I just
could not believe that 4D Inc. would so blatantly violate this basic
concept.

But that doesn't help you, Harry. I read on this forum that someone else
finally went back to 2004. That might be a viable option for you. I know it
is an "admission of failure," and a "waste of money," but just focus on how
happy you will be having a stable version again, and how unhappy you will
remain if you continue to struggle.

In a few years, v11 will no doubt be as stable as 2004, but by many
accounts, it's not there yet. If that is the reality, it would be wise to
deal with that reality, rather than engaging in wishful thinking.

HTH,

Walt Nelson - Guam

Harry A. Bernstein M.D."wrote:

> So, who is going to pay for V11? Walt Nelson - Guam was head on about this
> several months ago! The jump from legacy 4D to V11 is much too big! It
> should
> have been done in smaller steps. 2003/2004 to 2009 is silly.
>
> Now the real stinger: after a year of V11 development, and 4D server
> causing
> you and your user's blood pressure to go thru the roof, V12 comes around
> that
> basically sunsets the 4D Language (at the last summit 4D people called it
> the
> 'old' language), which is to be replaced by an ECMAScript Language
> Specification.
>
> I guess that's why some people talk about V11 being a bridge release. For
> some
> the bridge may serve to jump off of it, instead of going over it.
>
> As always, my 2 cents worth...
>
> Regards,
>
> Harry.
>
> PS: I am somewhat dark sided right now because I just lost my long time
> developer, who decided that he would no longer want to be involved with
> what
> he described as unworkable 4D Server.

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[Tom Benedict]

Harry Bernstein wrote:
>There is no way to 'convert' a serious full sized legacy system into V11. For a
>seasoned 4D developer it takes three month to get to the bottom of the
>Conversion manual and experiment with the various alternatives (it is
>impossible to make the critical decisions before mastering the Conversion manual
>(600 pages).

I can only find a 45 page Conversion4Dv11SQL.pdf document, not a 600 page version. Can anyone confirm that there is a 600 page version of the conversion manual?

Thanks,

Tom Benedict
Free & Clear, Inc




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[Matt Houghton-Thompson]

Maybe he means the 4D_v11_Updgrade.pdf file? Not quite 600 pages, but
is substantial and if you combine it with the addendums, it may reach
600.
-Matt

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Tom
Benedict<Tom.Benedict@...> wrote:

>
>
>
> Harry Bernstein wrote:
>>There is no way to 'convert' a serious full sized legacy system into V11. For a
>>seasoned 4D developer it takes three month to get to the bottom of the
>>Conversion manual and experiment with the various alternatives (it is
>>impossible to make the critical decisions before mastering the Conversion manual
>>(600 pages).
>
> I can only find a 45 page Conversion4Dv11SQL.pdf document, not a 600 page version. Can anyone confirm that there is a 600 page version of the conversion manual?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tom Benedict
> Free & Clear, Inc
>
>
>
>
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[Walt Nelson-4]

Tom,

I believe he meant the Upgrade Manual, Conversion Manual, and all the
Addendums to the various releases, which easily total more than 600 pages.
Don't get bogged down in terminology, Tom; what the Dr. was talking about
was the amount of study and experimentation that must be done before one can
do an intelligent conversion of a large legacy application from v2003 or
v2004 to v11. In that regard, I believe that his representation of the
situation was accurate.

With all due respect: there seems to be a disconnect between Developers and
Customers on v11. Developers think it is the best thing since sliced bread -
but it seems that Customers like Dr. Bernstein, who must work with it every
day live, real-time, 24/7, are not so sure...

Reminds me of the joke about the customer who walked into the used car
dealership and said to the salesman: "You sold me this car. Would you mind
telling me how great it is again, because I get so discouraged when it keeps
breaking down."

(grin) An exaggeration, but it makes the point.

Walt Nelson - Guam

Tom Benedict wrote:
>Harry Bernstein wrote:
>There is no way to 'convert' a serious full sized legacy system into V11.
>For a
>seasoned 4D developer it takes three month to get to the bottom of the
>Conversion manual and experiment with the various alternatives (it is
>impossible to make the critical decisions before mastering the Conversion
>manual
>(600 pages).

>I can only find a 45 page Conversion4Dv11SQL.pdf document, not a 600 page
>version. Can anyone confirm that there is a >600 page version of the
>conversion manual?

>Tom Benedict
>Free & Clear, Inc

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[Jack des Bouillons]

I just find it interesting that two of the most professionally run
development "shops"in the 4D community, those run by Jody Bevan and Jeff
Kain (BOTH of which are in the medical software arena with 24/7 systems) are
moving ahead with their v11 implementations, despite all the noise from
various sectors of the 4D community, and recommendations to the contrary.

I suspect that when I try to upgrade our production system to v11 that I
will face a multitude of problems.  I also suspect that many (most? All?) of
the problems will be traced to the fact that this is a system under
development for a dozen years, where 20 or more "coders" have put their
imprint (for better or worse) on the system. I suspect that v11 will be less
forgiving or various stupidities in the upgrade than was the case in
previous upgrades.

Jack des Bouillons

P.S.  And I don't think that either Jeff nor Jody pushed forward with v11
because THEY were enamored with the v11 technologies...my guess is that they
both had solid business reasons to do so, and that the decision was taken
after lots of testing and evaluations, along with input from many members of
their respective staffs.


On 6/29/09 11:48 AM, "Walt Nelson" <walt@...> wrote:

>
> With all due respect: there seems to be a disconnect between Developers and
> Customers on v11. Developers think it is the best thing since sliced bread -
> but it seems that Customers like Dr. Bernstein, who must work with it every
> day live, real-time, 24/7, are not so sure...



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[Walt Nelson-4]

Jack,

I'm not sure what you mean by "pushed ahead," but when I read Jody's messages, I estimate that he is probably at least one year away from his first live deployment of v11 to a customer.

The topic of this thread was about v11 suitability for deployment TODAY, not one year from now.

I don't know about Jeff Kain - perhaps he can tell us his deployment schedule?

Walt Nelson - Guam

Jack Des Bullions wrote:

P.S.  And I don't think that either Jeff nor Jody pushed forward with v11
because THEY were enamored with the v11 technologies...my guess is that they
both had solid business reasons to do so, and that the decision was taken
after lots of testing and evaluations, along with input from many members of
their respective staffs.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
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[Jack des Bouillons]

I'm not going to get into this with you publically...

You and I have ALWAYS disagreed over this very issue...

With respect to Jody...he may be a year away form deployment but I think
that is due more to the certification requirements form the various
government agencies he has to deal with, and not from having to conduct a
year of further stability tests.

Implementation at ANY vertical market company is always a long way off from
the point the company is satisfied with the technical stability of the
product.

I don't disagree with your assessment of the "deployability" of v11 for
production...I just think that the reasons have more to do with poor 2004
design rather than inherent v11 "badness"...

As I said, I suspect v11 is more intolerant of poor structures, poor design
and poor coding than earlier versions.

Our 2004 system is a mess...the system is going to have numerous problems
upgrading to v11...that's the price one pays for 15 years of multiple
developer coding with no overall plan.  Not v11's fault.

Jack


On 6/29/09 1:34 PM, "Walt Nelson" <walt@...> wrote:

> Jack,
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "pushed ahead," but when I read Jody's messages,
> I estimate that he is probably at least one year away from his first live
> deployment of v11 to a customer.
>
> The topic of this thread was about v11 suitability for deployment TODAY, not
> one year from now.
>
> I don't know about Jeff Kain - perhaps he can tell us his deployment schedule?
>
> Walt Nelson - Guam
>
> Jack Des Bullions wrote:
>
> P.S.  And I don't think that either Jeff nor Jody pushed forward with v11
> because THEY were enamored with the v11 technologies...my guess is that they
> both had solid business reasons to do so, and that the decision was taken
> after lots of testing and evaluations, along with input from many members of
> their respective staffs.

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[Jack des Bouillons]

Sorry, I thought I was making this a private reply...

I should let Jody speak for himself on this issue.  I have no inside
knowledge of his plans, nor of Jeff's as well.

BTW...I have receive private emails from developers who report NO TROUBLE
with upgrades, they just have not reported on the NUG...I urge them to do
so, as there needs to be good reports to go along with all the SKY IS
FALLING posts related to this subject.

Jack des Bouillons


On 6/29/09 1:49 PM, "Jack des Bouillons" <jack.desbouillons@...>
wrote:

>
> I'm not going to get into this with you publically...
>
> You and I have ALWAYS disagreed over this very issue...
>
> With respect to Jody...he may be a year away form deployment but I think
> that is due more to the certification requirements form the various
> government agencies he has to deal with, and not from having to conduct a
> year of further stability tests.
>
> Implementation at ANY vertical market company is always a long way off from
> the point the company is satisfied with the technical stability of the
> product.
>
> I don't disagree with your assessment of the "deployability" of v11 for
> production...I just think that the reasons have more to do with poor 2004
> design rather than inherent v11 "badness"...
>
> As I said, I suspect v11 is more intolerant of poor structures, poor design
> and poor coding than earlier versions.
>
> Our 2004 system is a mess...the system is going to have numerous problems
> upgrading to v11...that's the price one pays for 15 years of multiple
> developer coding with no overall plan.  Not v11's fault.
>
> Jack
>
>
> On 6/29/09 1:34 PM, "Walt Nelson" <walt@...> wrote:
>
>> Jack,
>>
>> I'm not sure what you mean by "pushed ahead," but when I read Jody's
>> messages,
>> I estimate that he is probably at least one year away from his first live
>> deployment of v11 to a customer.
>>
>> The topic of this thread was about v11 suitability for deployment TODAY, not
>> one year from now.
>>
>> I don't know about Jeff Kain - perhaps he can tell us his deployment
>> schedule?
>>
>> Walt Nelson - Guam
>>
>> Jack Des Bullions wrote:
>>
>> P.S.  And I don't think that either Jeff nor Jody pushed forward with v11
>> because THEY were enamored with the v11 technologies...my guess is that they
>> both had solid business reasons to do so, and that the decision was taken
>> after lots of testing and evaluations, along with input from many members of
>> their respective staffs.
>
>
>
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[Jeffrey Kain]

Some thoughts on all this...

First, despite my email last week replying to Harry B.'s post, I don't
take lightly the trouble that some developers seem to be having. In
fact, I empathize with them greatly. When we moved to 4D 2004, we had
some horrible problems achieving stability, and it roiled our largest
and most loyal customers. It was a horribly stressful time for us,
especially since we couldn't consistently reproduce the problem. It
turned out to be a bug in 4D, but it was also one that was probably so
obscure and so tied to a particular sequence of code that we had written
that the chances of it affecting anyone else, or even being caught in
some automated test suite at 4D, were near nil. Sometimes stuff like
this happens.

The fix was a one-line change to our application, and then all the
problems went away and we've enjoyed very good stability ever since. Of
course, finding that one line took a long time, which seems to be the
pattern for the worst bugs in software. After all, if it was an obvious
and glaring issue it probably would have been corrected long ago.

Our software is complex. 4D's software is much more complex. The
operating systems beneath 4D are probably orders of magnitude more
complex than 4D itself. So when bad things happen, it can take awhile to
sort the issues out. We only deal with Windows systems, so that alone
reduces the complexity that we'll face compared to some other
developers. I've also spent a lot of time over the past year looking at
the plug-ins we use, and removing those that are no longer supported or
that have been problematic in the past. Developers shouldn't
underestimate the role that plug-ins can play in their v11 conversion
plans.

Now, regarding v11 specifically, we are VERY excited about the platform.
The performance improvements appear to be tremendous, and the new
features and the new component architecture will open up new
possibilities for us as software developers. We realize the complexity
of a v11 upgrade, however, which is why we're moving very slowly in our
deployments. Our first beta site will be "going live" with v11 this
week, and we're going to be very cautious and methodical about
converting other customers' systems.

Our internal testing has shown v11 to be very stable (a point echoed by
some of those having problems), and it's also shown performance to be
outstanding (we've hit 4D Server with everything we've got, and nothing
has crashed it). Our development strategy for the past year has been to
add most of our new features to both our 4D 2004-based system and our
v11-based upgrade, as an insurance policy just in case we run into
unforeseen problems. We're also comforted by the fact that 4D has been
very quick to respond to critical problems, so we feel good that if we
do hit a snag that requires 4D's attention that we'll get the support we
need from them.

If there's interest, I'll definitely keep the list updated with our
conversion experiences. As I wrote, we're doing one this week, and if
all goes well we'll be doing a few more later this month.

Jeff


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[Jeff Grann]

On Jun 29, 2009, at 5:15 PM, Jeffrey Kain wrote:

> If there's interest, I'll definitely keep the list updated with our
> conversion experiences.

Please do Jeff!

Thanks for the great post.

-----
Jeff Grann
SuccessWare, Inc.

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[Tom Benedict]

Walt Nelson writes:

>I believe he meant the Upgrade Manual, Conversion Manual,
>and all the Addendums to the various releases, which
>easily total more than 600 pages.
>Don't get bogged down in terminology, Tom;

I was concerned that there was a significant resource which I hadn't seen. We're almost done with our conversion and I didn't realize that there was a manual other than the Conversion Manual. Hope I didn't miss anything important! ;)

Tom Benedict
Free & Clear, Inc

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[Alan Chan]

Hi Jack,

I believe most well-planned developers might not have too much trouble
"upgrading" to v11. What I do concern is the deployment, not simply
conversion and features enhancement. I'd greatly appreciate if any
developer who has deployed v11.4 from an upgrade on a heavy-loaded
environment, even better, on client/server over WAN.

Alan Chan

4D iNug Technical <4d_tech@...> writes:
>BTW...I have receive private emails from developers who report NO TROUBLE
>with upgrades, they just have not reported on the NUG...I urge them to do
>so, as there needs to be good reports to go along with all the SKY IS
>FALLING posts related to this subject.

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[John DeSoi]

On Jun 29, 2009, at 4:56 PM, Jack des Bouillons wrote:

> BTW...I have receive private emails from developers who report NO  
> TROUBLE
> with upgrades, they just have not reported on the NUG...I urge them  
> to do
> so, as there needs to be good reports to go along with all the SKY IS
> FALLING posts related to this subject.

I would like to hear about these also, especially Mac server  
deployments. Perhaps I have missed it, but I don't recall many  
positive endorsements in response to various posts asking if v11 is  
stable and production ready. If you have a successful Mac server  
deployment, please post some details about your data file size, number  
of users, and memory/cache settings, etc.

I'm excited about v11 and I had hoped to be using it now in  
production. The sad fact is the same application that works under 4D  
2004 grinds to a halt after a few hours of production use when  
converted to v11. Figuring out why is going to be a very difficult  
problem.


John DeSoi, Ph.D.

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[Walt Nelson-4]

Alan Chan wrote:
> I believe most well-planned developers might not have too much trouble
> "upgrading" to v11. What I do concern is the deployment, not simply
> conversion and features enhancement. I'd greatly appreciate if any
> developer who has deployed v11.4 from an upgrade on a heavy-loaded
> environment, even better, on client/server over WAN.

Alan,

I second that request. Deployment is what we need to hear about, not
Conversion. I hope that developers and customers who have actually deployed
11.4 in mission-critical, multi-user situations will share their experiences
with us.

As Jack DesBoullions alluded to in one of his posts, I have always been very
slow to deploy new versions to customers. He and I have had many "heated
discussions" over this point (grin).

I don't like to intentionally do things that create bad "vibes" with
clients. I make enough mistakes unintentionally; I don't need to add
problems that could have been avoided by using a little more caution. So I
tend to be one of the last to roll out a new version to clients.

Anyway: those of you out there who have successfully (or unsuccessfully)
deployed v11 in mission-critical client-server or web server environments,
please speak up!

Thanks,

Walt Nelson - Guam

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