Re: Your experience with JAM (re-post)

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

>Debbie, our DBA, has extensive background in Oracle and Oracle tools
>including SQL*Forms.

My sympathy goes out to you :->>.

>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.
 

>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?

Since JAM can provide you with access to all widgets and data at all times, this should be no problem. The next release due out in a few months will have built in DDE support. You should be able to get your data from about anywhere if you dont want to code something up.

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

There are apparently over 10,000 developers using JAM products. I would like to see a JAM newsgroup, an archive site for routines etc.. But I dont know of any.

>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?

I think that the JPL language is great. It is easy to use and all but you cant really compare it with any other language (clipper) because it can be added to with such little development time. If I would like to a new JPL command, just code it in 'C', prototype it and recompile. The 'command' is now accessible from anywhere in my application just like it was part of the 'stock' JPL language.

It is also very fast. I have some very large routines that run as fast as my compiled 'C' code.

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

There has been block mode support for many years, but I havent tried any new products.

>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]?

I have had good luck with their support people. They really go out of their way to help you with whatever you may need. I would like to see a support BBS. You can also mail questions to the tech support organization at techsupt_at_jyacc.com.

Todd Young Todd.Young_at_St.Paul.NCR.com NCR Corp.
612-638-7582
"What, Me Worry ?" Received on Mon Mar 15 1993 - 20:03:06 CET