🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2653@lindy.Stanford.EDU> liemandt@lindy.Stanford.EDU
(Joe Liemandt) writes:
>In article <1505@ccnysci.UUCP> alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) writes:
>> [I quote someone criticizing 4D and the manuals]
>>That's not all. Often the manual is right and the program's wrong. Like
>>when it crashes. Which it does frequently, especially in multi-user.
>>Also, you're wrong. Even experts can go nuts trying to piece together
>>the crazily implemented input loop.
>
>	This is wrong.  4D is a solid program.  I have built over 20
>	multi-user apps in 4D.  Everyday over 100 people use these apps
>	and they do not crash.  

First of all, let me say that I've seen Joe's postings in the past. Generally
levelheaded, and I've got no quarrel with his knowledge of databases in
general. Despite this, I disagree VERY STRONGLY with what he says here.
>	A 4D app is completely reliable.

No, it's not! I don't know what you consider reliable, but my experience is
that university people put up with crashes (albeit with poor grace) that would
cause the typical business user to abandon the application (and maybe file suit
in court against the developer).

I consider 4D to be unreliable because it crashes for no reason whatsoever
anywhere from once a week (barely tolerable) with a user-code-bug-free single-
user application, to several times a day in some large multi-user applications.
Even worse (and subject to objective verification), it is absolutely awash
in a sea of bugs, large- small- and medium-sized. I've posted partial lists
in the past, and in the dim and distant era gone by when I was an enthusiastic
4D Beta tester (yes, believe it or not :-) I sent then a twelve page typed
bug report listing over 100 bugs, NONE of which have been resolved in almost
two years. Fortunately, I've managed to forget most of that crap by now.

If you think I sound bitter, you're right. I poured blood into that program,
and now I see what it could have been like. I don't remeber the last time I
saw FoxBase+/Mac crash. It must have been months and months ago. And that
was on my developement machine.

IN SIX MONTHS I HAVE NEVER SEEN FOXBASE CRASH ON A CLIENT'S MACHINE!!!!!
And, neither have my clients.

>	It is possible to cause 4D to crash if you call an illegal
>	command that changes the current record pointer while entering
>	a record.  It is a bug that 4D crashes, but once you
>	remove the illegal command, everything is fine. This is fixed in
>	the new version.
>
>Joe Liemandt
>liemandt@jessica.stanford.edu

If this is the only crash you know about, you're the luckiest man alive. You
should give up on computers and just win lotteries for a living. Anyway,
nothing is fixed in the new version because there is no new version.

Wake me up when they actually ship 2.0. Or will it be V5.8, in 1993?

Sorry. Sarcasm mode off. I actually expect them to ship soon (like I have
for the past year) but so what? To a greater and greater extent, the world
is passing them by. Foxbase probably outsells them by better than 4-1, and
no surprise there...

I've seen 2.0 and played with it quite a bit. It doesn't excite me. It would
have made me drool in 1988. Even June 1988. Now it's too late. (How do you
like. My Doug Clapp sentences. ?. :-)

Anyway, I think we've covered this ground several times over. I offer the
following deal: I won't write another word on this subject (4D vs. Fox)
until Fox 2.0 ships shrinkwrapped. And Joe does the same for 4D (I guess
he deserves some sort of last word, since I've said a lot on this and he's
been pretty silent recently.)

It would sure save on net bandwidth...

---
Alexis Rosen
alexis@ccnysci.{uucp,bitnet}