Re: Your opinions on JAM

In article <1nts0jINNfjd_at_shelley.u.washington.edu> jimh_at_carson.u.washington.edu (James Hogan) writes:

>Subject: Your experience with JAM
 

>Posted to: comp.databases
> comp.client-server
> comp.databases.oracle
> comp.databases.sybase
 

>We haved been evaluating potential front-end development tools for a new client/server
>medical records application being developed using the Oracle RDBMS.
 

>Today I attended a sales presentation on JAM from JYACC, Inc. along with our project's
>DBA. While we'll share responsibility for client application programming, we have very
>different backgrounds in this area. Debbie, our DBA, has extensive background in Oracle and
>Oracle tools including SQL*Forms. My programming experience has been in non-SQL
>DBMSs including Clipper, which I've really appreciated for its flexibility, extensibility,
>and wealth of 3rd-party add-ons (including interfaces to Oracle).
 

>I think it's fair to say that each of us was impressed by the demonstration, albeit from
>different perspectives. The JYACC sales rep was pretty knowledgable and fielded a
>wide variety of questions well. The product looks extremely flexible, both in terms of
>the platforms supported and in the ability to move applications between them. Prototyping
>on the fly, strong data type extensions and dictionary capabilities, etc.
 

>I've seen a few posts on Usenet regarding JAM, but would *REALLY* appreciate
>obtaining additional comments and opinions on some specific questions/topics.
>If you'd reply by E-Mail, I could abstract/summarize and re-post to the above
>newsgroups (or others you might suggest).
 

>The areas/questions of interest include:
 

>1) It would be great to be able to develop for SQL and non-SQL applications
>with a single tool, but JAM does not offer an interface to xBASE (or other file
>server-based) file formats and indexes. Does any 3rd party vendor offer this?
>Would it be feasible to hack a C product like CodeBase to achieve this?
 

>2) Is there a 3rd party or significant public domain activity related to JAM?
 

>3) JAM is extensible in C, but includes its own procedural language (which
>I assume is pre-processed to C). What do you think of the JAM procedural
>language as compared to other high/low-level tools like Clipper?
 

>4) JAM supposedly has a new add-on that allows interfacing with 3270 emulation.
>Anyone worked with this or rolled their own SNA capabilities?
 

>5) When developing, can you run multiple instances of JAM on one machine?
>Say, the Windows version under OS/2. We'd like to move to the OS/2 PM
>version when/if released. Meanwhile, can anyone offer their experience in running
>the Windows version (and the MS C compiler) under OS/2 2.x?
 

>Any other general comments on JAM? Support? Their track record in delivering
>promised upgrades (such as the Mac/PM/NT versions promised for late '93]?
 

>How easy is it to maintain complex applications and maintain version control in
>multi-developer situations? How does JAM compare to other tools you've used?
>What were they?

>Will JAM support BC++ for OS/2?

We've recently pushed JAM to a higher level of usage with its new version and the recent version of MS SQL Server 4.2a. We're quite pleased. It's not terribly easy to learn or install, but once done, very easy to develop with, flexible, versatile, fast, and cheap. Technical support is slow to respond (about 24 hours), but of very high quality once you get to them.

We were suprised to find the JAM custom 4GL very fast and usable for complex programming, even if the syntax seems a bit inelegant. We are using it on the DOS platform, and have gotten close to the memory limitation for some applications; we are about to test it under windows.

Please call me if you'd like any more specific information at 301 496-2194.

• David Scheim

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