In the depths of the ocean there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It changes at will to a bird whose wings are like clouds filling the sky. When this bird moves across the land, its shadow covers all in its path as it brings a message from Headquarters. This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with the blue sky at its back, returns home.
The novice stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands it not. The entrenched dread its coming, for they fears its message. The master, however, continues his work, for he knows not that the bird has come and already gone...
Excerpted from "The Tao Of Programming" with some editorial license
--- SMR
FGL = Fifth Generation Language
Tell us about your latest FGL success story and maybe win some free software!
Why FGL?
"It wasn't like one day I woke up and decided that the world needed one more programming language.
"At the time, the love of my (programming) life was 'C', though I was intrigued by the object nature of C++. Even so, I severely missed the ease of use and integrated database functionality of dBase.
"Further, with the coming of networking in general and the internet specifically, I found most existing languages lacking in these areas.
"Additionally, my view of portability, and the compromises developers put up with in its pursuit, became fractured from mainstream thinking. To me, the true commercial market existed in only two places --- Windows and the Internet.
"Having said all of this, my search for a language having the power and flexibility of C, object nature of C++, ease of use and integrated data support of dBase, integration of the latest networking and internet technologies, and optimized portability as the market defined it yielded few candidates --- in fact none.
"FGL started its life as a scripting language in the era of desktop management. Its goal then was to provide the communications and control layer between users, workstation, and resources with emphasis on security, flexibility, extensibility, and administration. With this as its core, the recent past has seen FGL grow to be the only solution that fulfills the search I began so many years ago --- SMR
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West Coast Web Adventures is committed to the development community and technological excellence within the industry. As authors of the award-winning FGL programming environment, numerous commercial software products and web sites, West Coast strives to create powerful solutions for real-world needs. FGL has been refered to as dBase on steroids or a friendlier "C". Despite its power and ease of use, it integrates seamlessly with C, C++, Java, JavaScript, HTML, Perl, and a host of other languages.
With FGL, it is just as easy to create standalone DOS and Windows programs as it is to create web sites, Active Pages, and dynamic content delivery for local area networks, wide area networks, intranets and the internet.
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F U N C T I O N C A T E G O R I E S
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C A S E S T U D Y - I N S U R A N C E Q U O T E R
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Industry leader King Insurance of Orange County needed to update their legacy rating system to accommodate their growing agent base. Furthemore, their evolving marketplace introduced a new set of requirements including standalone and web-based versions, shared data, advanced security, and integrated administration functionality.
Basically, agents needed to be able to quickly provide accurate insurance quotes for their clients and convert the quotes to applications that were capable of being bound by underwriting if accepted. Any difficulting, complexity, or confusion in the process could jeapardize clients, agents and revenue.
The standalone application had to be relatively small and easily downloadable via the net in addition to being installable from a single floppy disk. In either case, the application had to be easy to install and operate by non-computer professionals.
The application that was being replaced was a customized MS ACCESS program that required 4 floppy disks, of which 2MB were the Access runtime engine and another 1MB was in relational data files.
A web-based version also needed to be developed that could be used on agent's local area networks and intranets, as well as accessed globally via the internet.
Both versions needed to share common design elements as well as data structures. As a result of these requirements, commonality between source code, object models, and class libraries became highly desireable.
West Coast Web Adventures' solution was to create shared function and class libraries for data storage and manipulation, and integrate a shared rules-engine for the processing of the quote. Only the interface components were unique to each platform with the standalone application utilizing popup windows and the web version operating through the browser.
An OEM version of WebSuite was also bundled with the web product to allow individual agents the option of installing the web version locally even if they did not have internet access.
The FGL programming environment was used along with the VM-SDK to create the final products. This resulted in a standalone application of less than 250k (15k EXE + 230k support library), a web version of less than 250k, and re-engineered data files of less than 100k. Data is stored in an FGL object database without limits to individual field sizes. The only exception is the fixed lengths used for the indexing key fields in order to optimize performance. All told, the end result easily fits on a single floppy disk even with the OEM version of WebSuite included!
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