Closed 7 years ago.Recently I found out that the company a friend of mine co-owns uses 4D, which I've never heard of before. They swear by it, but they're non-technical and what they say about it sounds like memorized marketing blurb. Unfortunately the also seems devoid of any actual information and is filled with words like 'comprehensive', 'solution', 'platform' and 'integrated' instead.Since that thing is rather expensive and uses a custom language that I don't have much inclination to learn just for one project, I'm cautious about it and I'm wondering if anyone had any experience with it? Would you recommend it? What is it good for? What competitive advantage would I gain by learning it as a programmer, or using it as a company?
4D has been around for a long time (25 years), so it's much older than e.g. Think of it as a professional version of Microsoft Access: It has its own Pascal-inspired host language, its own relational database engine, a very mature IDE for rapid GUI development and a custom runtime which allows for true 'write once, run anywhere' (anywhere being Mac OS (X) and Windows, that is). Nowadays, it also understands SQL, there's a server version and even an integrated web server. It's fairly powerful, so the comparison to Access probably does not do it justice.Today, I believe it's mostly used for legacy apps which are as old as 4D is. I don't think I would learn it again today, much less start new projects with it, since you can get the same functionality and then some by stacking up open source components. I used to do some very serious 4D work, is still in use as an enterprise system about 16 years later. I got frustrated because they were taking years to come out with the new object-oriented version of the language and I was writing thousands of lines of code to use a third-party table control.4D delivers cross-platform, very high-performance client-server systems using a proprietary server.
The database model is much more set-oriented than SQL and pulls the sets all the way into the core language. It does a nice job of delivering code to the clients because it compiles all procedures to native code which is cached locally and updated on-demand when it is out of date.The language and GUI environment have their quirks but the flip-side is that there will probably be a good living to be made from supporting it as a legacy platform. If you can get someone else to pick up the tab for the tools, it may be a useful addition to your consulting toolbox. You have to consider how much business-specific code is gonna be out there for a unique product with that long a history!An engineer for whom I have huge respect was recently hired by 4D which says a lot about their commitment to the future, hiring this kind of guy.I've been working a lot with legacy systems recently, doing a port from old Mac stuff to WPF and the contrast between the mostly-unused complexity of Visual Studio and old Mac tools reminded me of 4D. I'm also - the OOFILE set-oriented operations came directly from what I loved about 4D and this too made me think I was too harsh in this answer originally.The thing to remember about 4D is that it was set-oriented from the beginning (written by a mathematician) and much easier to use for many things than SQL. The deployment model of 4D Server is a superb combination of desktop app and network provision - compiled components are cached on the server and automatically sent to a client when needed. There's no need to shutdown or actively push or deploy updates.
4d Tools
The GUI model of 4D was frustrating but looking at the site today, they have solved most of the issues that I had to use third party solutions for years ago. In my opinion, there is no reason to begin learning 4D unless you want a simple database app and are unable or unwilling to learn how to create GUIs in a bigger language. The main advantage that 4D has is that the built in functionality between the UI and the database can handle most of what is needed. If you want something quick, small, and inhouse, you can get by with 4D but if you need to develop a powerful commercial application you will run into a few walls. If you need something that 4D doesn't provide automatically it will be very difficult to get it working.I consider the language completely archaic.
It works for what it does but our product has become limited by the language and database itself. We keep running into weird quirks and have to code our way around them.I have experience in 4D 2003 and 2004 but we haven't upgraded to the latest version because of the costs. It is extremely expensive. Each customer needs to buy licenses for each computer that needs to run the software. Our product costs over $1000 for a new office because of the licenses. When a new version of 4D is released every single customer has to pay to upgrade their licenses.
I think more than half the replies over here are inaccurate. I know of more than 20 companies with over 1000 users.
Sql And Other Databases
And I believe there are a lot more.With 4D v12.1 (www.4d.com) you can easily deploy at the click of a button for single-user, client server, Mac, Win. And there are easy to setup plugins for integration with Flex, iPhone and Android OS. Their KB and documentation is very neat and comprehensive.They have a great engineering team and the support from 4D and the online community is just fabulous. I have been using 4D for several years and I have no complaints.4D as someone else pointed out gives you a fully integrated backend database and frontend. The client server connections are stateful so you dont need to worry about record handling and client server session handling.At less than $1000 per year it is not expensive and you can deploy unlimited single user apps.
Which other propreitory development platform gives you that?I am sure Real Software has its Pros and Cons too. There are many choices nowadays and there are many ways to skin a cat.
The Oracle Database Product FamilyOracle Database is available in five editions, each suitable for different development and deployment scenarios. Oracle also offers several database options, packs, and other products that enhance the capabilities of Oracle Database for specific application purposes. This section describes the Oracle Database editions. The database enhancement products are described in.Oracle Database Standard Edition One Oracle Database Standard Edition One delivers unprecedented ease of use, power, and performance for workgroup, department-level, and Web applications.
From single-server environments for small business to highly distributed branch environments, Oracle Database Standard Edition One includes all the facilities necessary to build business-critical applications.Oracle Database Standard Edition Oracle Database Standard Edition delivers the unprecedented ease of use, power, and performance of Standard Edition One, with support for larger machines and clustering of services with Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC). Oracle RAC is not included in the Standard Edition of releases prior to Oracle Database 10g, nor is it an available option with those earlier releases.Oracle Database Enterprise Edition Oracle Database Enterprise Edition provides the performance, availability, scalability, and security required for mission-critical applications such as high-volume online transaction processing (OLTP) applications, query-intensive data warehouses, and demanding Internet applications. Oracle Database Enterprise Edition contains all of the components of Oracle Database, and can be further enhanced with the purchase of the options and packs described in.Oracle Database Express EditionOracle Database Express Edition (Oracle Database XE) is an entry-level edition of Oracle Database that is quick to download, simple to install and manage, and is free to develop, deploy, and distribute. Oracle Database XE makes it easy to upgrade to the other editions of Oracle without costly and complex migrations. Oracle Database XE can be installed on any size machine with any number of CPUs, stores up to 4GB of user data, using up to 1GB of memory, and using only one CPU on the host machine. Support is provided by an online forum.Oracle Database Personal Edition Oracle Database Personal Edition supports single-user development and deployment environments that require full compatibility with Oracle Database Standard Edition One, Oracle Database Standard Edition, and Oracle Database Enterprise Edition.Personal Edition includes all of the components that are included with Enterprise Edition, as well as all of the options that are available with Enterprise Edition, with the exception of the Oracle Real Application Clusters option, which cannot be used with Personal Edition.
Personal Edition is available on Windows platforms only. The Management Packs are not included in Personal Edition. Feature Availability by Editionlists feature availability for Oracle Database Standard Edition One (SE1), Standard Edition (SE), and Enterprise Edition (EE).
The Y value in a column means that the feature is available in the specified release; N means that it is unavailable. This table can help you understand the difference between the editions and determine whether you require Enterprise Edition (or Personal Edition for a single-user environment).Note that Oracle Database XE is a separate product from the rest of the Oracle Database product family. The features available with Oracle Database XE are documented in Oracle Database Express Edition Licensing Information, which is installed along with the product itself.
Table 1-1 Feature Availability for Oracle Database Editions Feature/OptionSE1SEEENotesHigh AvailabilityOracle Fail SafeYYYWindows onlyOracle Data Guard—Redo ApplyNNYOracle Data Guard—SQL ApplyNNYOracle Data Guard—Snapshot StandbyNNYOracle Active Data GuardNNYExtra cost optionRolling Upgrades—Patch Set, Database, and Operating SystemNNYOnline index rebuildNNYOnline index-organized table organizationNNYALTER TABLE. Special-Use LicensingOracle Database Express Edition Oracle Database Express Edition may be used for free, for the purposes of developing, prototyping and running applications. It can also be used for free to provide demonstrations and training. It may also be distributed for free with any applications.
Changes in Product LicensingOracle Warehouse Builder Enterprise ETL OptionThe following features, previously licensed with the Oracle Warehouse Builder ETL Option, are no longer licensed with the Oracle Database.