In message <[log in to unmask]>, Tom 
Lang <[log in to unmask]> writing at 17:03:40 
in his/her local time opines:-
>It is very interesting that you have taken up this task.
>
>I read your article and have a gripe, in-as-much-as you use the term 
>"Fourth Generation Language".
>(e.g. "Several Fourth Generation Language products (Powerhouse, 
>Transact, Speedware, Protos) became available from third party 
>vendors".)

Transact, of course, though third party written, was taken on by HP as 
part of the Rapid suite.

As it is resolutely procedural, in large part, but deals with 
'molecules' where 3GLs like COBOL deal with 'atoms', assemblers with 
'protons, neutrons and electrons' and machine code with 'quarks', we 
have always called it a 3-and-a-half GL.

I guess on this basis, 4GLs deal with 'compounds', and SPL is a 
2-and-a-half GL dealing with 'ions' :-)

HP did have a 4GL called Allbase 4GL; at one HP Conference, they called 
it 'strategic', and at the next one, a year later, it was dead, and 
there was some new thing they were calling 'strategic'.

When I asked them how long this new 'strategic' product was going to be 
around, given what had happened to last year's 'strategic' one, the 
question was not well received :-)


Transact, of course, lives on to this day, largely in the form of 
ScreenJet's Transaction which with their EZV VPlus replacement, Michael 
Marxmeier's Eloquence, and a choice of MPE-alikes, allows a 
lift-and-shift of this surprisingly compact, and therefore surprisingly 
hard to replace, code to more modern (or at least more modish) 
platforms.

Roy
-- 
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris

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