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View Full Version : Move from SCO 3.1d -> VDF



David C. Moody
7-Oct-2005, 02:08 PM
Hey everyone,

Once again we are considering the move from Dataflex 3.1d on SCO UNIX
to VDF. I've talked with Fern B. at DataAccess on and off for the past
year or so.

I was wondering if someone that recently made the move, or in the past
made the move, would be willing to talk to me via email or by telephone
(I would call so as not to cost you), about problems or successes and
things of that nature that happened during the switch over.

We do want to move to a SQL server of some sort. But not exactly sure
how we would do some things.

This is no big hurry, the programming would not even start until
January. Just time to start looking at it again.

Thanks,
-David C. Moody
--

Bob Worsley
7-Oct-2005, 02:19 PM
David, it's not so much the move from SCO UNIX to Windoze, though you will
have an adjustment to make for that, as it is going from CM to VDF. In most
cases this entails a complete rewrite of your code, though any well written
back end routines may well be usable. If your code is proceural, then the
big difference is the change from that to event driven programs. If you're
already using OOP, then it won't be so bad. I've gone through this several
times, so if you want any help, let me know. Also, you might want to post
this in the VDF newsgroup since that's the environment you're going to.

Going to a SQL database does present some challanges but it's well
documented and many have done it, so that really isn't huge either,
depending on the size of your application, user base, etc. This whole thing
will simply require a lot of planning, including which SQL product and
driver to use. The good news is that VDF 11 is the best yet at
communicating with SQL.
Bob Worsley


"David C. Moody" <davidm@trustholiday.com> wrote in message
news:yJi8MK3yFHA.3612@dacmail.dataaccess.com...
>
> Hey everyone,
>
> Once again we are considering the move from Dataflex 3.1d on SCO UNIX
> to VDF. I've talked with Fern B. at DataAccess on and off for the past
> year or so.
>
> I was wondering if someone that recently made the move, or in the past
> made the move, would be willing to talk to me via email or by telephone
> (I would call so as not to cost you), about problems or successes and
> things of that nature that happened during the switch over.
>
> We do want to move to a SQL server of some sort. But not exactly sure
> how we would do some things.
>
> This is no big hurry, the programming would not even start until
> January. Just time to start looking at it again.
>
> Thanks,
> -David C. Moody
> --
>

David C. Moody
7-Oct-2005, 02:47 PM
Hey Bob,

Well that is a good thing to hear. I would say our "programs" are 85%
OOP, with only 15% of them still being procedural. But we have a TON
of report programs or programs that just do data analysis that run
nightly via cron jobs and probably 95% of these are procedural. That
was one of my questions about moving to VDF, is how are these type
programs implemented in VDF?

Thanks,
-David

Bob Worsley wrote:

> David, it's not so much the move from SCO UNIX to Windoze, though you
> will have an adjustment to make for that, as it is going from CM to
> VDF. In most cases this entails a complete rewrite of your code,
> though any well written back end routines may well be usable. If
> your code is proceural, then the big difference is the change from
> that to event driven programs. If you're already using OOP, then it
> won't be so bad. I've gone through this several times, so if you
> want any help, let me know. Also, you might want to post this in the
> VDF newsgroup since that's the environment you're going to.
>
> Going to a SQL database does present some challanges but it's well
> documented and many have done it, so that really isn't huge either,
> depending on the size of your application, user base, etc. This
> whole thing will simply require a lot of planning, including which
> SQL product and driver to use. The good news is that VDF 11 is the
> best yet at communicating with SQL.
> Bob Worsley
>
>



--

Bob Worsley
7-Oct-2005, 08:36 PM
It's relatively easy to run VDF programs under Windoze NT services. I use a
3rd party product called FireDaemon which is real inexpensive, and which
does a great job of running services. Others on the VDF newsgroup also use
it. Alternatives are to use the Windows offerings which are ok but not
great. In either case you'd need to write a scheduler program to kick the
VDF jobs off at the desired times, but that's not difficult. Reports could
be simple or difficult depending on how they're written. Understand that
Windows printing can sometimes be a pain, especially if you're using dot
matrix printers. If just reporting and not invoicing or other special paper
sizes, you would probably be ok. You'd need to add the workspace stuff to
each report or back end job for proper pathing, but that's not overly
difficult.

It's a nice step forward that you've got most of your programs already in
OOP, but they aren't directly convertible, at least the specific code and
events, you will still need to do a rewrite, but less in terms of a complete
paradigm change, more of establishing your business rules and general style
of operation for VDF.
Bob

"David C. Moody" <davidm@trustholiday.com> wrote in message
news:0YCqlf3yFHA.6080@dacmail.dataaccess.com...
> Hey Bob,
>
> Well that is a good thing to hear. I would say our "programs" are 85%
> OOP, with only 15% of them still being procedural. But we have a TON
> of report programs or programs that just do data analysis that run
> nightly via cron jobs and probably 95% of these are procedural. That
> was one of my questions about moving to VDF, is how are these type
> programs implemented in VDF?
>
> Thanks,
> -David
>
> Bob Worsley wrote:
>
> > David, it's not so much the move from SCO UNIX to Windoze, though you
> > will have an adjustment to make for that, as it is going from CM to
> > VDF. In most cases this entails a complete rewrite of your code,
> > though any well written back end routines may well be usable. If
> > your code is proceural, then the big difference is the change from
> > that to event driven programs. If you're already using OOP, then it
> > won't be so bad. I've gone through this several times, so if you
> > want any help, let me know. Also, you might want to post this in the
> > VDF newsgroup since that's the environment you're going to.
> >
> > Going to a SQL database does present some challanges but it's well
> > documented and many have done it, so that really isn't huge either,
> > depending on the size of your application, user base, etc. This
> > whole thing will simply require a lot of planning, including which
> > SQL product and driver to use. The good news is that VDF 11 is the
> > best yet at communicating with SQL.
> > Bob Worsley
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
>