Most pertinent on v11.4 converting question

[Mark Schaake2]

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 have been waiting for enough seasoning with v11.4 to make this post. I was one of the SKY IS FALLING posters after upgrading two clients to v11.2. Our applications had crashing issues and data corruption that made my life a living hell for three months. However, both installations have been running well since 11.4. There are still occasional client crashes, but we haven't had any server crashes at all since upgrading to 11.4. As for data corruption, that has stopped as well (so far).

For me and my clients (both lending institutions, Windows environment, ~10 concurrent users), v11.4 is stable enough for production. With v11.4, I feel the new features over 2004 now outweigh any regressions in stability.

This is my experience and is not intended as a recommendation for others to jump into v11. I just wanted to say that for me and my clients the sky is no longer falling.

Mark Schaake

[Ken Reinecke-2]

We have a small 5 user DB running on mostly Intel Macs.

I started this DB in version 2, I could not find anything to buy that fit
our needs back then. I am self-taught, and only develop for our own use.

We do sales, inventory, pricing, rental management, accounting, equipment
records, and maintenance records with our system. The structure is 50mb, we
use it compiled. Our Date file is 200mb

We have updated through every version, never done a complete re-write.

I have had the normal amount of upgrade hassles, all of them end up being
related to my code in the end.

I have found things that work fine in 2004 break in v11. After spending some
time on these "bugs", I find 90% of the time, it shouldn't have worked in
the first place, but they did.

I think I spent three nights upgrading things after v11 conversion, the only
thing I still do not have working is hierarchical lists. They seem to work
totally different than in 2004. I didn't add any new features during this
process. I did update some things to make them work :)

I have never had our server crash with v11, it is tons faster. I have only
restarted it for apple upgrades, I think at one point it had run 8 weeks. It
is rock solid for us.

I now can connect over a vpn, from home, on a cable modem on one end, and a
slow dsl (384k) on the other. I made no changes to the code, it barely would
connect in 2004, it now is very usable in v11.

I did have one major problem, with data not saved, it turned out 1 client
was 11.3, and everything else was 11.4. The 11.3 client would connect to the
11.4 server, run fine, but would not save any data. That is the only "show
stopper" we have had, I wish there was some fail safe way to not let this
happen.

The speed increase on our Macs is awesome, everything seems 2 to 10 times
faster, I haven't done any testing to prove anything, just our user
reactions.

I would not hesitate to recommend v11 to anyone, especially on Intel Macs !,
we have one G-5 client, it really does not perform much better than 2004
did, no one in our shop likes to use it after using the Intel machine.

I have found v11 to be less tolerant of things that shouldn't have worked in
the first place, however, I don't feel that is a fault of 4D. I think
complete testing is more critical then ever, after upgrading to v11.

One great thing about 4d, there isn't anything I have wanted to add to our
database, and not been able to figure out some way to do it. It is a great
way to solve problems for us !

I also want to thank all of you , who over many years have shared there
expertise with the rest of us not so experienced developers. It is a great
community here.

I hope this helps !

--
Ken Reinecke
Pro Audio Inc
ken@...


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[Lahav Wolach]

We have intsalled a converted application that started its life in v3 and
updated through the years to 2004 and now v11.  Application size about 24Mb
with data file around the 7gb with several tables holding more than a
million records each.  There are over 40 users pushing this system rather
hard, and while not a true 24/7, this is a mission critical system that
cannot fail.

Based on reports here, I booked 10 days for implementation to make sure I'm
on location if anything goes wrong (It's a four hour flight to get back on
location), I spent 1 day installing (including wait time for WS2003 64bit OS
to be installed by their IT), another half a day chasing a problem (more on
that below), and another 6.5 days twiddling my thumbs (well, working, but
nothing to do with the installation or working of that v11 system)

Overall, this was the smoothest conversion/update we have ever experienced
in this location, and that is qouting the client.

The problem I was chasing was a crashing client at sporadic points.  We
narrowed it down and realized that the common thing to all of the crashing
clients was that they were installed from a different location than the ones
that didn't crash.  Once we re-installed the clients, all was well.

The configuration we went with:

2 x Quad Xeon 3.1Mhz
12Gb Ram
3 separate raid subsystems with hardware Raid controller:
 Drive C (holds the OS, swap file and programs) - 10K RPM SAS in Raid 10
 Drive D (holds the data file only) - 15K RPM SAS in raid 10
 Drive G (holds backups and log files) - 10K RPM SAS in raid 10
2 x 1000BaseT network cards

Runing WS2003 64bit OS

4D memory settings:

Memory reserved for other - 256mb
% of available memory - 50
Max cache Size 716mb
Min cache Size 64mb
flush buffers every 1 minute

I really don't know if this is the rule or the exception, but this system
works, in production, without stability or performance issues.

We do have another, smaller production system that was written in v11, and
other than one (non-fatal) issue that we are still chasing, is working very
well and has been stable for at least 4 months.


Lahav

-----Original Message-----
From: 4d_tech-bounces@... [mailto:4d_tech-bounces@...] On
Behalf Of Walt Nelson
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 6:20 PM
To: 4D iNug Technical
Subject: Re: Most pertinent on v11.4 converting question

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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[Jack des Bouillons]

Thanks for sharing this...

One or two questions...

Did you do anything with the data file other than let 4D run it's
conversion? Did you run 4D Tools or compact the system in 2004 prior to
conversion?  Export/import records?

Also, did you decide to run the new v11 in Unicode mode?

Jack des Bouillons


On 6/29/09 9:28 PM, "Lahav Wolach" <lahav@...> wrote:

>
> We have intsalled a converted application that started its life in v3 and
> updated through the years to 2004 and now v11.  Application size about 24Mb
> with data file around the 7gb with several tables holding more than a
> million records each.  There are over 40 users pushing this system rather
> hard, and while not a true 24/7, this is a mission critical system that
> cannot fail.
>
> Based on reports here, I booked 10 days for implementation to make sure I'm
> on location if anything goes wrong (It's a four hour flight to get back on
> location), I spent 1 day installing (including wait time for WS2003 64bit OS
> to be installed by their IT), another half a day chasing a problem (more on
> that below), and another 6.5 days twiddling my thumbs (well, working, but
> nothing to do with the installation or working of that v11 system)
>
> Overall, this was the smoothest conversion/update we have ever experienced
> in this location, and that is qouting the client.
>
> The problem I was chasing was a crashing client at sporadic points.  We
> narrowed it down and realized that the common thing to all of the crashing
> clients was that they were installed from a different location than the ones
> that didn't crash.  Once we re-installed the clients, all was well.
>
> The configuration we went with:
>
> 2 x Quad Xeon 3.1Mhz
> 12Gb Ram
> 3 separate raid subsystems with hardware Raid controller:
>  Drive C (holds the OS, swap file and programs) - 10K RPM SAS in Raid 10
>  Drive D (holds the data file only) - 15K RPM SAS in raid 10
>  Drive G (holds backups and log files) - 10K RPM SAS in raid 10
> 2 x 1000BaseT network cards
>
> Runing WS2003 64bit OS
>
> 4D memory settings:
>
> Memory reserved for other - 256mb
> % of available memory - 50
> Max cache Size 716mb
> Min cache Size 64mb
> flush buffers every 1 minute
>
> I really don't know if this is the rule or the exception, but this system
> works, in production, without stability or performance issues.
>
> We do have another, smaller production system that was written in v11, and
> other than one (non-fatal) issue that we are still chasing, is working very
> well and has been stable for at least 4 months.
>
>
> Lahav
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: 4d_tech-bounces@... [mailto:4d_tech-bounces@...] On
> Behalf Of Walt Nelson
> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 6:20 PM
> To: 4D iNug Technical
> Subject: Re: Most pertinent on v11.4 converting question
>
> 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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[Walt Nelson-4]

Lahav,

Many Thanks for that info; it is the kind of real-world information that we
all need, in order to feel comfortable deploying v11.4

Regards,

Walt Nelson - Guam

Lahav Wolach wrote:

> Overall, this was the smoothest conversion/update we have ever experienced
> in this location, and that is qouting the client.
>
> The problem I was chasing was a crashing client at sporadic points.  We
> narrowed it down and realized that the common thing to all of the crashing
> clients was that they were installed from a different location than the
> ones
> that didn't crash.  Once we re-installed the clients, all was well.
>

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[psmith-3]

As I said on a previous thread...

We upgraded a customer who has a legacy application which was migrated  
from v3 through 6, 6.5 and 2003. Several different developers were  
involved, with varying degrees of competence (sic). Thee customer uses  
it on two seperate servers (Mac OS only). We first ran it on the  
smaller configuration for a couple of months. +/- 600mb of data and 15  
connected users - some over WAN. They experienced a couple of server  
freezes (previous discussions on the list) which seemed fixed after  
installing 11.4 HF2.

After a long period of stability with the smaller installation, the  
same structure was installed on the customer's second server. This one  
has a datafile with around 6GB and about 72 simultaneous connected  
clients, also lso on Mac OSX with OSX clients. Many of the connections  
are over the WAN.

Speed is excellent. However, the server froze twice in the first week  
of activity. In both case, the server automatically restored the  
backup and ran the transaction log, with no apparent data loss (except  
what was in open windows at the time, of course).

But the biggest problem is that users are frequently losing their  
connections. On average, a user can stay connected one or two hours  
before getting bumped. The disconnections can occur when there is  
little or no activity on the client side but they can also occur right  
in the middle of data entry or a batch process. There seems to be no  
common thread on the disconnections. They happen in any and every part  
of the code, even during 4D's logon screen, during Quick Reports,  
Query Editor... anywhere.

The customer and I have spent many hours testing the machines, network  
and the 4D code without being able to identify any common threads  
which could be causing the disconnection problem.

Some of the clients access both of the servers (small database and  
large database). They do not report problems being disconnected from  
the smaller database - just the big one. They are all on the same VPN,  
so it's hard to blame the network per se. Could the size of the second  
database and the number of concurrent users be causing the problems?

As I said, they've done extensive testing of the hardware. However, we  
can't yet rule out hardware or network problems. The customer will  
change some network devices tonight to try to isolate the potential  
trouble areas. We haven't tried to swap out the server hardware yet  
(xServe Nehalem 8 cores, 12GB RAM). If the network changes don't solve  
the problem, we'll try that next.

The database uses Internet Commands, Area List and 4D Write plugins.  
Area List is used in a legacy part of the database associated with  
emailing and Internet Commands. The code associated with emailing runs  
much much slower than in the 4D 2003. However, this does not appear to  
be the source of disconnections, as users who don't access this part  
of the database get disconnected all the same.

As soon as we identify the source of the disconnections, I'll post the  
results.

...

As for the aspects of converting the code, this legacy database was  
designed with some circular references in the links. Many of the links  
are manual, to try to avoid problems. However, v11 is more strict with  
regards to this. Many areas in the database with related records in  
forms that worked in the past stopped working (parent record absent  
when editing child record, etc). The fixes were simple once  
identified. As a rule, our company doesn't like to code in such a way  
that we rely on related records being loaded by 4D. For that reason,  
the commercial VAR applications we've written tend to convert more  
easily than this legacy database.

All-in-all, I find that moving to v11 was certainly no bigger than the  
move to v6 - perhaps even less difficult (above-mentionned problems  
notwithstanding).

hth

Paul Smith

TSE International




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[Jody Bevan]

Ken:

Thank you for sharing your story. I believe you cover so many of the  
areas where 4D has always shined over the years.

1. no rewrite - upgrade the code from version 2 through to v11
2. don't need to be a computer scientist to create very usable real  
world solutions
3. What ever you needed over the years, you could accomplish with 4D

I keep hearing stories where people confirm what we experienced and  
presented at the 2008 Summit.
        - Speed and lots more speed
        - Speed over a WAN
        - no code changes

Thank you for sharing your experience. Fantastic testimonial. Like  
Walt says - it gives us all confidence moving forward.

========================================================
Developers of JonokeMed™, FaxButler™, ImageButler™, WebButler™, J-
Forms™, and J-Jump™
Jody Bevan                            Jonoke Software Dev. Inc.


On Jun 29, 2009, at 9:29 PM, Ken Reinecke wrote:

>
> Ken Reinecke
> Pro Audio Inc
> ken@...
>



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[Lahav Wolach]

We let 4D do the conversion after compacting with 4D Tools.  We left the
system in a non-Unicode mode for now, with plans to change that later.

Lahav

-----Original Message-----
From: 4d_tech-bounces@... [mailto:4d_tech-bounces@...] On
Behalf Of Jack des Bouillons
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 12:09 AM
To: 4D iNug Technical
Subject: Re: Most pertinent on v11.4 converting question

Thanks for sharing this...

One or two questions...

Did you do anything with the data file other than let 4D run it's
conversion? Did you run 4D Tools or compact the system in 2004 prior to
conversion?  Export/import records?

Also, did you decide to run the new v11 in Unicode mode?

Jack des Bouillons


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[Peter Jakobsson-2]

Just a point of interest re. Import/Export records as part of the  
upgrading process.

As far as I can remember, previous upgrades have always "morphed" the  
existing data file as opposed to creating a new one. The v11 upgrade  
does seem more radical in that it creates a brand new data file and  
transfers all the old data too it, so maybe import/export is not to  
necessary with the v11 upgrade.

Despite this, a lot of people swear by import/export because you  
really can be sure of leaving everything behind and as far as 4D is  
concerned it's brand new data.

(b.t.w., in 6.7 -> 2004, the XML routine didn't work for me - it was  
slow and kept hanging after about 4 hours so I created automatic  
forms for every single table and used EXPORT TEXT and IMPORT TEXT  
which was about 8 times faster and was great. Had to do the subfiles  
separately though).

Peter

On 30 Jun 2009, at 08:09, Jack des Bouillons wrote:
> Export/import records?

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[Chip Scheide]

Paul -
I have a few questions regarding the circular relations :

in many (all?) databases that are not trivial, circular relations are
unavoidable.

The issue(s) you saw were they specific too automatic 4D relations
(auto one or auto many, or both)?
Or were the issue(s) related to the simple *existence* of the circular
relation?

In either case, did the length of the path(s) which created the
circular relation make any difference?
ie :
A -> B -> C ->
vs
A -> B -> C -> D -> E -> F -> A


Thanks
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:29:05 +0200, psmith wrote:

>
> As for the aspects of converting the code, this legacy database was
> designed with some circular references in the links. Many of the
> links are manual, to try to avoid problems. However, v11 is more
> strict with regards to this. Many areas in the database with related
> records in forms that worked in the past stopped working (parent
> record absent when editing child record, etc). The fixes were simple
> once identified. As a rule, our company doesn't like to code in such
> a way that we rely on related records being loaded by 4D. For that
> reason, the commercial VAR applications we've written tend to convert
> more easily than this legacy database.

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[Alan Chan]

In fact, Ken did say a little code rewrite to fix some issues. Why change
it to "no code change"?

I think most developers are willing to do some works for upgrading to
improve their apps., we simply need to know deployment stability.

Marketing slogans like a single click conversion, no change of single line
of code, ....etc is not required.

A few months ago, a local French company contact us to see if we could
help upgrading their in-house developed application to v11 that we turned
down. We were told later that their in-house IT guy took 4D words (no code
change!!!) and converted the application (v11.2?) then, put it on live
production. One month after, the IT guy was sacked. This is a true story.

Alan Chan

4D iNug Technical <4d_tech@...> writes:
>- no code changes

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[Jody Bevan]

Alan:

I take a different approach to the conversion of our application from  
one version to another. I do my own due diligence to prove to myself  
that our application (which is code we write - and thus effects how it  
runs), will convert to the newer version of 4D, and the hundreds of  
very different data files out there.

This is the professional approach to Information Technology, and  
specifically application development. Most people (end users) don't  
understand the complexities involved. They don't understand that there  
are:

- OSes from one set of companies (Microsoft & Apple)
- Hardware from another set of companies with their own drivers and  
software (i.e. Dymo, HP, Fujitsu)
- Other applications that change the behavior of the computer and  
applications.
- 4D which we use to develop with
- Our own code which effects behavior, performance etc.
- Different data at each site which effects the behavior of our code  
and 4D's code and....

This is the fact of life of an IT professional. To blame any single  
one of the above for the final result is not the reality, but rather  
redirecting away from us, our final responsibility as an IT  
professional when we deliver a product. Absolutely each of the vendors  
above have a responsibility and may be the 'cause' of a problem. In  
the end though, our end users are looking to us (at least in our  
business model) to deliver a stable, usable product.

This is no different than many professions and the complexities that  
they live in.

A doctor is responsible for the medications they prescribe. Just  
because a drug indicates that it helps with insomnia does not mean the  
doctor can give it out without regard for many other issues  
(allergies, other drugs the patient is taking, past experience etc).

The sales person in the store selling software can often get away with  
just selling something off the shelf. It is buyer beware, and as you  
read the software license - the whole risk and responsibility is with  
the buyer. Typically with professional software developers, IT staff  
etc they are hired and paid better than the retail sales person  
because they are expected to investigate, test, and due appropriate  
due diligence.

Certainly forums like this are extremely valuable to professional  
developers to gauge* product readiness, learn better ways to do things  
(hundreds of times I have been helped by this list), learn of  
pitfalls, read of success stories that give us confidence and caution  
as we each need.


* Gauge is only an indication and does not remove my professional  
responsibility to perform my own testing and analysis.

========================================================
Developers of JonokeMed™, FaxButler™, ImageButler™, WebButler™, J-
Forms™, and J-Jump™
Jody Bevan                            Jonoke Software Dev. Inc.


On Jun 30, 2009, at 10:25 AM, Alan Chan wrote:

> A few months ago, a local French company contact us to see if we could
> help upgrading their in-house developed application to v11 that we  
> turned
> down. We were told later that their in-house IT guy took 4D words  
> (no code
> change!!!) and converted the application (v11.2?) then, put it on live
> production. One month after, the IT guy was sacked. This is a true  
> story.
>




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[Alan Chan]

Hi Jody,

What you said is known to all IT professionals regardless it is for 4D or
Oracle, I don't understand why you said that as reply.

No one blame anything. We just want to know how stable current v11 for
deployment. We have been planning to upgrade for v11 for quite sometimes
as we NEED to due to limitation of 2003/2004. One of our clients is
approaching 4D 2003/2004 limit - 14 million records in its audit trail
table. Gathering information from other developers during deployment of
v11 is part of homeworks we need to do regardless their experience is good
or bad.

However, you always try to jump in to make comment if someone encountered
bumps. Bad experience from other developers is also important information
for 4D fellows and for those who plan to upgrade like us. Keep telling
other developers that 4D is one click convert or no line change won't do
this thread any good. Many of developers in this forum have more than 20
years of 4D experience and know what they're doing and also know well what
4D good at and its weakness.

Please, let us learn faithfully from those who "actually" deployed v11
instead of jumping in and keep telling how good v11 is and how to be IT
professionals.

Yes, my previous said story is about an ignorant IT non-professional
trusted other IT professionals about "no single line of code to be
changed" and got sacked.

I apologize for my blunted wording.

Cheers,

Alan Chan


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[Charles Miller-4]

Chip,

In all databases circular relations should be avoided like the plague. In
SQL dbs, you do implicit or explcict joins to get from table a to table b.
It is only in a db that allows you to have auto relations where this is
pertinent.

In a 4D db if you turn aut relations on and do queries with circular
relations, you will get different results for the same query or you will get
incorrect results for a query.

In SQL server, ORACLE, Sybase, I do not think this is ever an issue becaues
you write code that looks like

select blah from blah, blah1, blah3
where
blah3.id=blah2.id and
blah.step = blah1.step

Chuck
On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Chip Scheide <4d_Only@...>wrote:

> Paul -
> I have a few questions regarding the circular relations :
>
> in many (all?) databases that are not trivial, circular relations are
> unavoidable.
>
> The issue(s) you saw were they specific too automatic 4D relations
> (auto one or auto many, or both)?
> Or were the issue(s) related to the simple *existence* of the circular
> relation?
>
> In either case, did the length of the path(s) which created the
> circular relation make any difference?
> ie :
> A -> B -> C ->
> vs
> A -> B -> C -> D -> E -> F -> A
>
>

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[psmith-3]

Chuck,

I agree with you. This database was inherited from someone how didn't  
know what they were doing. They dragged those little arrows all over  
the place. Makes for impressive diagrams to show your friends.  It's  
almost impossible to know which relationships will apply at any given  
time. I don't even want to try.

In my own products relations are pretty much only to allow users to  
make ad hoc queries and quick reports. I very rarely have code which  
depends on relations working.

Paul Smith

TSE International

On 30 juin 2009, at 20:44, Charles Miller <miller.cjay@...> wrote:

> Chip,
>
> In all databases circular relations should be avoided like the  
> plague. In
> SQL dbs, you do implicit or explcict joins to get from table a to  
> table b.
> It is only in a db that allows you to have auto relations where this  
> is
> pertinent.
>
> In a 4D db if you turn aut relations on and do queries with circular
> relations, you will get different results for the same query or you  
> will get
> incorrect results for a query.
>
> In SQL server, ORACLE, Sybase, I do not think this is ever an issue  
> becaues
> you write code that looks like
>
> select blah from blah, blah1, blah3
> where
> blah3.id=blah2.id and
> blah.step = blah1.step
>
> Chuck
> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Chip Scheide <4d_Only@...
> >wrote:
>
>> Paul -
>> I have a few questions regarding the circular relations :
>>
>> in many (all?) databases that are not trivial, circular relations are
>> unavoidable.
>>
>> The issue(s) you saw were they specific too automatic 4D relations
>> (auto one or auto many, or both)?
>> Or were the issue(s) related to the simple *existence* of the  
>> circular
>> relation?
>>
>> In either case, did the length of the path(s) which created the
>> circular relation make any difference?
>> ie :
>> A -> B -> C ->
>> vs
>> A -> B -> C -> D -> E -> F -> A
>>
>>
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[Jack des Bouillons]

You don't have to have CIRCULAR relations to create problems.  When I took
over the system on which I'm working now, two of the key tables were the
OFFICE table and the CONTACT table.  The CONTACT table was related to the
OFFICE table THREE (3) ways:  via a Primary Key on the office table (good),
via a PHONE NUMBER (bad) and via a NAME field (even worse)...

Users reported "inconsistencies" when loading office and contact records...

Wonder why!?

Jack des Bouillons


On 6/30/09 11:58 AM, "psmith" <psmith@...> wrote:

>
> I agree with you. This database was inherited from someone how didn't
> know what they were doing. They dragged those little arrows all over
> the place. Makes for impressive diagrams to show your friends.  It's
> almost impossible to know which relationships will apply at any given
> time. I don't even want to try.



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[Peter Jakobsson-2]

Jack -

This used to happen quite a lot in the old days because people used  
relations when they needed to support wildcard lookups, however, most  
of the time manual relations were sufficient for this purpose so it  
wouldn't cause 4D Server an ambiguity problem when choosing which one  
to use.

On 30 Jun 2009, at 21:03, Jack des Bouillons wrote:

> The CONTACT table was related to the
> OFFICE table THREE (3) ways:  via a Primary Key on the office table  
> (good),
> via a PHONE NUMBER (bad) and via a NAME field (even worse)...

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[Dan Babcock-3]

I agree with both points being made here.  Of course, we have to have  
good conversion methodology.  I also MUST know of issues others have  
with the latest version of 4D, whether they can be coded around or not.

A good example is the issue some are having with client disconnects in  
v11.  We had the same issue with early versions of 2004.  Eventually,  
4D got it figured out, the problem went away and we converted  
production to 2004.  I have no need to be on the bleeding edge with my  
4D apps.  I'll go when all the major issues are resolved and not before.

Dan

On Jun 30, 2009, at 1:52 PM, Alan Chan wrote:

> Please, let us learn faithfully from those who "actually" deployed v11
> instead of jumping in and keep telling how good v11 is and how to be  
> IT
> professionals.

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[Chip Scheide]

On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:44:06 -0400, Charles Miller wrote:
>
> In all databases circular relations should be avoided like the plague. In
> SQL dbs, you do implicit or explcict joins to get from table a to table b.
> It is only in a db that allows you to have auto relations where this is
> pertinent.

maybe there is a definition issue here - to me :
a circular relation - is any pathway through relations which can lead
back to the originating table.

Relation, in 4D - arrows drawn between a primary key, and a foreign
key, usually in two separate tables.
These may be fully automatic (1 -> Many and Many -> 1), partially
automatic (1 -> Many, OR, Many -> 1), or completely manual.
 
So...The relations do not have to be automatic to create a circular
pathway, and hence a circular relation.



Hence my initial question regarding Paul's original post, Paul said
(clipped and *ed)

"As for the aspects of converting the code, this legacy database was
designed with some ** circular references ** in the links. Many of the
links are manual, to try to avoid problems. However, v11 is more
strict with regards to this. Many areas in the database with related
records in forms that worked in the past stopped working (parent
record absent when editing child record, etc)."


my initial question (clipped) :

"The issue(s) you saw were they specific too (sic) automatic 4D
relations
(auto one or auto many, or both)?
Or were the issue(s) related to the simple *existence* of the circular
relation?"  <-- implying a pathway of completely manual relations




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[MIYAKO]

Hi,

whether the DB works on 2004 may provide some clue;
automatic relations typically depend on a current record that is loaded.
prior to 2004, this was synonymous to a selected/highlighted/clicked  
record on a subform,
since only a single record could be selected at any time and the  
redraw was independent of the current record mechanism.
since 2004, list forms work like "selection to array" and the concept of
"current record pointer", "current record that is not loaded", etc.  
became relevant.
I suspect the command LOAD RECORD saw a dramatic rise in popularity.

back to you point, if a previously working
automatic relation appear to be dysfunctional after upgrade,
maybe its because the current record is not loaded under the same  
circumstance.

miyako

On 2009/07/01, at 7:09, Chip Scheide wrote:

> "The issue(s) you saw were they specific too (sic) automatic 4D
> relations (auto one or auto many, or both)?



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