Goodby C6

[Tuko_G]

Вот Чо от Bruce а получил по почте.

Hi Giorgi,

This email serves as a reminder that we will be dropping support for Clarion 6 at the end of this year. After that all the products will be available for download for C6 from the archive but we won't be making updates available for Clarion 6.

A few people have asked me for the reasoning behind this decision, so I thought I'd share some of the thinking that has lead us to this point.

Unfortunately Clarion 6 has limitations that are holding back the development in some areas. While these limitations may not be obvious to the average C6 user, we have to do a lot of work behind the scenes to keep it that way. In some cases we're not able to implement things at all, in other cases there are conditional compiles in the code which make some functionality different in C6, and in some other cases we've had to compromise on a design slightly just to make it work at all in C6.

It's also increasingly difficult to run Clarion 6, especially on new computers. If a 64 bit OS is installed then Clarion 6 requires either a Virtual Machine, or other similar approach to running it at all. This incurs a lot of extra work for us and ultimately that work has to be paid for somehow.

Lastly, working in Clarion 6 to do testing, or build examples, is really ugly work
now having gotten used to the new IDE it's a big pain to go back to the old one. While we were exceptionally happy with C6 for many years, C9 is light-years ahead in terms of usability and it's really unproductive when we have to step back into Clarion 6, either for testing or for creating examples.

At this stage we feel it is unfair to penalize people who have moved forward (including ourselves in our commercial apps) for the sake of supporting the few people who aren't intending to upgrade. Clarion 6 is 10 years old now, and as with all things it's time to move on. Clarion 8, and better yet Clarion 9, are vastly superior to Clarion 6 in every way and make a more-than-adequate replacement.

Our recommendation at this point is to move to Clarion 9. In order to make this process smoother, and as painless as possible, I did a webinar on ClarionLive (#211) which you can get from http://www.clarionlive.com/. Since that time I've had to the opportunity to talk to many programmers (both online, and in-the-flesh at devcon) who have either begun, or completed this process and all of them have been glad they did it.

A few people have asked me what new functionality they can expect in their programs when they upgrade. There are actually a lot of little things that your program will get, and there are several nice cosmetic enhancements as well making programs look a lot nicer overall but in my opinion this is the least important factor to consider when upgrading. It's less important for two reasons, firstly because there is lots of new functionality being generated for programs all the time (by the 3rd party suppliers) for all versions of Clarion, and because this is the part of your program that you already have the most control over.

A more important aspect to consider is your own productivity and "enjoyment" of programming. If you are like me you probably spend a significant portion of your day using the Clarion IDE to get your job done. Using the best tool available for the job is not only personally satisfying, it makes good business sense. Every day you spend on Clarion 6 is time wasted, you are ultimately less productive, and ultimately that translates into lost potential revenues.

Perhaps the most important aspect to consider is the business liability of relying on an old technology that is no longer supported. I've noticed a trend among older programmers to get left behind the curve a bit, and then unfortunately discover the cost of that when they wish to retire, or sell the business. Any prospective purchaser (or the source code, or business as a whole) will be rightly concerned if the product, or internal processes, are dependent on an old compiler and old IDE. They will need to invest resources to bring that up to date, and ultimately those resources are directly subtracted from the purchasing price. I've been disheartened recently to see the number of people who have built great products, and successful businesses, but who are eroding that value daily by depending on Clarion 6, or in some cases Clarion 5.5 and earlier as a critical part of that business.

While pondering the above point it has occurred to me that we are certainly partially guilty in this regard, by enabling people to hang on to old versions long after they should have been retired. While we'll always be supporting older versions, there also comes a time when tough-love must prevail.

Some folk have asked whether they can update to Clarion 9 if they have a Legacy program. The answer is most certainly yes. The Clarion template chain (also known as Legacy) is alive and well in Clarion 9 and all our accessories will continue to support programs based on this code. Nothing changes there, it's just like every upgrade since Clarion 2 (for windows).

Another point often raised is the need to make some other big change to the system, and so "if I'm doing one I might as well do the other". TPS to SQL, or Legacy to ABC are both examples of what people are thinking of here. In some cases I've heard people say "If I'm going to upgrade to C9, I might as well just rewrite". To all of these thoughts I say "forget it". You can upgrade from TPS to SQL at any time, and with any Clarion version. It's not a difficult job, although it can be somewhat tedious. But there's no relationship between upgrading an app from C6 to C9, and changing from TPS to SQL. That's like saying you can't change the carpet in the living room until you get a new car.

At this point just upgrade the app as-is to C9. All other conversions can be done after that. Each conversion is a different task and lumping them all together into one task serves no purpose other than justifying doing nothing at all.

If you have not yet converted to Clarion 8 or 9 then I recommend you strongly consider doing it over the next few months. As time passes doing a conversion gets harder, not easier. The safest place to be is in the middle of the herd, and the herd is currently moving forward. Over time the institutional memory of how to do an upgrade passes and the support of the community passes as well.

To finish up, let me reassure people who are not convinced by any of the above arguments. Your compiler, and your code will not self-destruct on Jan 1 2014. Our "final" builds for C6 will be available from the archive for some time to come. The compiler itself will continue to run as long as you can keep the machines it needs running.

Cheers


Bruce

[kreator]

Сказал какие-то совсем очевидные вещи, ИМХО. А что значит поддержка С6 от них? Что, выходят новые версии? Или народ требует заплатки, чтобы скомпилированные в С6 программы работали в Win7, Win8?

[Игорь Столяров]

Я думаю, что это скорее общий ответ на вопрос "Зачем мы столько лет трахались со средой C7-8-9 (которая все равно работает через попу) не развивая сам язык".
По существу - ответ на этот вопрос все равно остался тайной, ибо разумного ответа на него не существует ...

Была прикольная история. В фирме друга, много лет тому назад потеряли исходники крупной программы, по которой был договор с одной известной газовой компанией.
Тем не менее - им удавалось несколько лет пудрить заказчику мозги, получаю весьма солидные средства на обслуживание пакета прикладного ПО.
Так как фактически работы были в принципе не возможны - из команды ушли все более или менее стоящие разработчики.
А небольшая группа функционеров весьма успешно создавала видимость кипучей деятельности - создавались системы аудита потребностей заказчика,
система обработки заявок заказчика, большие доклады для руководства заказчика на тему развития продукта и покорения новых высот в автоматизации бизнеса.
Правда, надо отдать должное - созданная в свое время система много лет работала весьма неплохо.

Я вот чем больше смотрю на кипучую деятельность SV - тем чаще вспоминаю эту историю ...

[FinSoft]

С позицией CapeSoft все понятно. Всегда сложно поддерживать одновременно продукты для нескольких платформ. Как минимум, увеличивает затраты на тестирование. На все остальное, что написал Брюс, можно не обращать внимания, это его субъективное мнение.

[olegnabclw]

Читаю вот: http://forum.pcsoft.fr/fr-FR/pcsoft.us. ... 6/read.awp

[FinSoft]

Читаю вот: http://forum.pcsoft.fr/fr-FR/pcsoft.us. ... 6/read.awp

Старый тред. У продуктов несколько разный подход. В виндеве принято все брать в готовом виде у производителя, это довольно закрытая система, напоминающая скорее 1с-предприятие. В кларионе можно либо самостоятельно сделать недостающее, либо купить у третьих фирм. На мой взгляд, имея достаточный опыт в разработке на кларионе и находящиеся в эксплуатации приложения, особого смысла переводить все на виндев нет. Ценность имеет не кларион или виндев, а приложения, которые на них написаны. Мне было бы интересно поставить рядом приложения, написанные на кларионе и виндеве, и сравнить по ряду позиций. Но, судя по всему, получить и покрутить приложение на виндеве не так просто, может хотя бы кто-нибудь выложит скриншоты, демонстрирующие его сильные стороны.

[kreator]

Действительно, поделился бы народ, если толк от WinDev. И ветка соответствующая ведь есть. Конкурента хотя бы 1С написать можно?

[ABBASoft]

Просим уважаемого Римаса поделиться опытом разработки в WinDev. Кажется, что у него есть, ну небогатый, но достаточный опыт в этом направлении. Римас, мы тебя очень уважаем как Clarion-менеджера, поэтому просим возглавить и WinDev направление.
С уважением, ABBASoft, ну и все, кто заинтересован в этом проекте.

[Admin]

ну и все, кто заинтересован в этом проекте.

Сюда пожалуйста пишите друзья http://forum.clarionlife.net/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=26