Mark:
I nominate you for the Nobel Prize in literature...err. short story...err..
"Best email of the millennium praising the 4GL...".
Serious stuff and I imagine we will raise the hackles of some of the whiz
bang people out there. If they can read the lists!
Congratulations on a finely articulated, clearly expressed piece of work. I
agree with every word and my first experience with PH was in 1980 with the
Government of the Northwest Territories in Yellowknife, NWT on a 3000 Series
III.
JP in Sacto
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Stewart [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 6:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Migrate off PowerHouse? Why?
I first learned PowerHouse back in 1994 when it was
offered as a 4GL language in my last year of college.
The students were well trained in C++, COBOL, DBase,
Clipper, MS Access and PowerBuilder 1.0 at the time in
a CIPS certified college curriculum. I had the
highest average in the C++ development classes. C++
was the most cryptic language of those offered at the
time.
Further back, when I was maybe 12 or something I
remember getting my first Hayes 1200 Baud Smart modem
for about $200 in the K-Mart tech department. This
meant my online games on my 15 user BBS (with
dedicated phone line!) would get a boost in
performance - up from 300 baud. I remember coding in
hundreds of cryptic lines of Assembler like code from
magazines to create BBS door environments for early
80s online gaming.
So I was exposed to cryptic languages and complex
syntax nightmares early on in life. I remember
thinking that only an extremely intelligent individual
could be a real heavy hitting programmer. When I
first saw PowerHouse back it 94' it looked a bit odd.
Was it a language or a tool? That was the big
question? What ever that really means? A data
dictionary and self generating procedures - say what?
What was the challenge in that? It can't be that
simple. The real challenge was learning how not to go
against the grain of PowerHouse. PowerHouse was
designed to take the challenge out of it and to do the
work for you. I first thought this can't be. Once
you realized it the full potential of PowerHouse was
yours for the taking.
I have worked in IT departments throughout Canada and
the USA and with many C++/Java types, scripting gurus,
etc, etc. Manuals are located from one end of their
desks to the other. These are supposedly the
extremely intelligent individuals that most make IT
people out to be. You know those guys that can talk
for an hour about nothing and make most believe they
were given a gift from above.
PowerHouse guys are lucky if they share a set of old
manuals on a back shelf. After 10 years most guys
know PowerHouse inside out if they've had a real IT
education to go along with it. They can create
complex systems with over 400 screens, 300 reports,
150 transaction processes with portable and rewritable
files, and required relational tables inside of 18
months. These systems are tied together with ease.
These guys often do the database design and SQL
programming on top of it all. The same project would
take an army of C++/Java guys 5 years to complete and
then most likely crash on the first day after
production release. Leaving the so called extremely
intelligent individuals running home crying to their
mommies.
I once heard a supervisor tell a PowerHouse guy he
wasn't a real programmer. Also, he'd be lost if he
had to program for real with a real programming
language. 'Those guys are the ones with the real
brains.', he said.
I picked up C++ back in college. I was really good
with it. I could have stuck with C++ 8-16 hrs/day
since. Higher rates, yeah maybe. Why not? C++ and
Java for that matter give me a headache. I thought 10
years ago I'll give this PowerHouse thing a try. I
made a real good living with it for nearly 10 years
along with Oracle and Cognos BI stuff too. PowerHouse
is a cool 4GL that's nice to work with.
The problem is business applications are not supposed
to be easy. That's what most people think. Heaven
forbid trying to make it easier. Companies spend
millions to develop business applications that no one
is really sure how they work or if they even do. They
keep their fingers crossed that they won't break.
How can you convince companies that simplicity is
better then complexity? There is a better way! A lot
of developers think that if no one knows how the
system they developed works then they must be really
smart. Actually, if they'd been paying attention in
Computer Science the object is to make business
applications easy to understand for everyone. Cognos
I think gets that. Impromptu and PowerPlay are very
easy to use too. Other companies I'm not so sure try
to make things as simple.
My youngest son will turn seven years old on July 1st.
We make frequent trips to blockbuster to rent
Nintendo Game Cube games nowadays. After a few hours
or so he loses interest with most of them. I even
have a hard time with some of them. Most of these
games are just not fun. The manuals are 50-60 pages
long on a good day! Remember the Atari 2600 system
that came out in 1979 (when I was 7). Those Atari
games were simple but really fun.
PowerHouse is simple, powerful, and sometimes just
like the Atari 2600...kind of fun. Why rent one of
those new blockbuster games and read the manuals for
hours when you can just dust off the old Atari 2600
just jump right in? Has anyone seen what some of
those old Atari 2600s are selling for on EBay? Maybe
some people are beginning to realize that simplicity
is really better then complexity? Maybe, just maybe,
the most intelligent individuals are those that look
for a more simple solution.
Great article Bob! I fully agree.
Mark Stewart
Senior Analyst
Consultants Club Corp.
Windsor, Ontario
http://www.consultantsclub.biz
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