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What is the future of CA Visual-Object (CAVO)
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Hanz Schultz
Oct 7, 2015, 3:35:13 AM10/7/15
to
I'm really new to this company that i'm currently working. They gave me this assignments (CAVO) for my work. I would like to ask anyone with technical background to tell me if this has great future or something that is on a sinking ship. What's the current state of CAVO? What could I learn from this? If you don't mind, I would also like to hear about some history lesson. Googling this subject does not come up with too many results. Even troubleshooting is very difficult. Thank you.
Wolfgang Riedmann
Oct 7, 2015, 3:59:15 AM10/7/15
to
Hi Hanz,
I'll try to answer your question:
CA-VO is coming from Clipper, in MS-DOS times one of the most used
programming languages for business software.
The architects of VO (short for Visual Objects) took several ideas from
Clipper, like codeblocks, arrays and the garbage collector combined
with the internal macro compiler and ported them to the Windows
platform, initially Win16 (Windows 3.1), and then Win32 (starting with
Windows 95).
Personally, I'm working with VO since it is available, and IMHO it is
still the most productive development platform you can find for the
Win32 platform.
On the one side, you have high level libraries like the GUI, the RDD
and the SQL classes, combined with potent string and array functions,
codeblocks and a very clean language.
On the other side, you can go down like with C and make manual memory
allocations, pointer aritmetics and other low level functions.
The main problem of VO now is the problem of the platform itself: Win32
has its age, and will be replaced sometimes by the .NET platform.
Therefore GrafX, the distributor of VO, has created a new product,
Vulcan.NET, that is highly compatible to VO, and now another company
has plans to launch another compatible product, XSharp (that currently
is in development). Vulcan.NET actually ships in version 4.
VO applications are rock solid, as is the development environment. One
of the revolutions of VO (unfortunately missing in Vulcan.NET and
XSharp) is the repository and the entity based compile process.
If you have other questions, please ask.
HTH
Wolfgang
--
I'll try to answer your question:
CA-VO is coming from Clipper, in MS-DOS times one of the most used
programming languages for business software.
The architects of VO (short for Visual Objects) took several ideas from
Clipper, like codeblocks, arrays and the garbage collector combined
with the internal macro compiler and ported them to the Windows
platform, initially Win16 (Windows 3.1), and then Win32 (starting with
Windows 95).
Personally, I'm working with VO since it is available, and IMHO it is
still the most productive development platform you can find for the
Win32 platform.
On the one side, you have high level libraries like the GUI, the RDD
and the SQL classes, combined with potent string and array functions,
codeblocks and a very clean language.
On the other side, you can go down like with C and make manual memory
allocations, pointer aritmetics and other low level functions.
The main problem of VO now is the problem of the platform itself: Win32
has its age, and will be replaced sometimes by the .NET platform.
Therefore GrafX, the distributor of VO, has created a new product,
Vulcan.NET, that is highly compatible to VO, and now another company
has plans to launch another compatible product, XSharp (that currently
is in development). Vulcan.NET actually ships in version 4.
VO applications are rock solid, as is the development environment. One
of the revolutions of VO (unfortunately missing in Vulcan.NET and
XSharp) is the repository and the entity based compile process.
If you have other questions, please ask.
HTH
Wolfgang
Hans Schultz
Oct 7, 2015, 4:13:51 AM10/7/15
to
Wolfgang Riedmann
Oct 7, 2015, 5:01:10 AM10/7/15
to
Hi Hans,
> Thanks for the detail respond ! Very much appreciated. I would like
> to ask some more if you don't mind. Where do you see VO in the coming
> years? I mean I personally prefer to venture more towards smartphone
> languages (JAVA,IOS) or games in general but as a fresh grad student
> and getting this job, I just took the opportunity.
as I wrote: VO is an excellent tool for business applications, but as
the platform development has been ended, also the further development
for VO has been ended with version 2.8 SP4b.
Currently, I spend about 90% of my programming time in VO, and the
remaining 10% working in .NET projects, and I expect that the time in
VO decreases over the years and the time in .NET increases.
I have so many and large applications that need development (and I
think this is true also for you current company), that development in
VO will continue for the next 10 to 15 years, until the applications
are either dead (not more used by anyone) or replaced by moderner
applications (either .NET or web platforms).
VO is a fantastic platform to learn clean programming, and many of its
concepts were also used in the .NET platform - so most VO developers
when they saw the .NET specifications (when it was firstly presented)
were asking themselves: "what's new about this? We have used this
already for years in VO".
Other than this, VO is very source code oriented (I'm using painters
only for Windows), and for a long time it was the only development
environment that let you use own classes also in painters (in my
windows, every control is inherited from one of my own classes, and so
also the window itself).
Wolfgang
--
> Thanks for the detail respond ! Very much appreciated. I would like
> to ask some more if you don't mind. Where do you see VO in the coming
> years? I mean I personally prefer to venture more towards smartphone
> languages (JAVA,IOS) or games in general but as a fresh grad student
> and getting this job, I just took the opportunity.
the platform development has been ended, also the further development
for VO has been ended with version 2.8 SP4b.
Currently, I spend about 90% of my programming time in VO, and the
remaining 10% working in .NET projects, and I expect that the time in
VO decreases over the years and the time in .NET increases.
I have so many and large applications that need development (and I
think this is true also for you current company), that development in
VO will continue for the next 10 to 15 years, until the applications
are either dead (not more used by anyone) or replaced by moderner
applications (either .NET or web platforms).
VO is a fantastic platform to learn clean programming, and many of its
concepts were also used in the .NET platform - so most VO developers
when they saw the .NET specifications (when it was firstly presented)
were asking themselves: "what's new about this? We have used this
already for years in VO".
Other than this, VO is very source code oriented (I'm using painters
only for Windows), and for a long time it was the only development
environment that let you use own classes also in painters (in my
windows, every control is inherited from one of my own classes, and so
also the window itself).
Wolfgang
--
nickt...@googlemail.com
Oct 7, 2015, 6:35:30 AM10/7/15
to
Hi Hans,
In short, if you have a legacy application in VO that needs to be maintained, then obviously you don't have much choice (though you can extend a VO app using COM into NET assemblies for example, though it can be a bit clunky). VO is fine, like Wolfgang I've used it for years (and still do about 30-40% of the time), and it's a relatively productive environment.
However for anything new, do not use it as it's now a dead product and it has no future. If you have to target desktop, just go .NET and C#, for web, well there's loads of up-to-date choices.
My opinion....
Nick
In short, if you have a legacy application in VO that needs to be maintained, then obviously you don't have much choice (though you can extend a VO app using COM into NET assemblies for example, though it can be a bit clunky). VO is fine, like Wolfgang I've used it for years (and still do about 30-40% of the time), and it's a relatively productive environment.
However for anything new, do not use it as it's now a dead product and it has no future. If you have to target desktop, just go .NET and C#, for web, well there's loads of up-to-date choices.
My opinion....
Nick
Wolfgang Riedmann
Oct 7, 2015, 9:49:40 AM10/7/15
to
Hi Hans,
another very important thing (has nothing to do with VO):
> I mean I personally prefer to venture more towards smartphone
> languages (JAVA,IOS) or games in general but as a fresh grad student
> and getting this job, I just took the opportunity.
if you are a fresh grad student and you are coming to a new company, it
is ok to have new ideas.
I don't know if your company uses VO only internally or if it is a
software house.
In both cases, they had a cause to select VO as development
environment, and most probably they have several applications that need
maintenance and development, so you have only the choice to learn VO.
Normally, selecting a development environment is a decision not for a
week, and not for a month, but for years. It is a big investment not
for the spent money, but for the spent time to learn and to construct
the internal framework.
I'm working hard since a year and a half to porting the most important
things from VO to Vulcan.NET, and I think, it will take at least
another 3 years until I'm very productive in .NET - too big is my
investment in existent code.
And a well designed application is not constructed in a few hours - at
least my own applications need to remain maintenable for 15-20 years,
so it is worth the time invested.
Wolfgang
--
another very important thing (has nothing to do with VO):
> I mean I personally prefer to venture more towards smartphone
> languages (JAVA,IOS) or games in general but as a fresh grad student
> and getting this job, I just took the opportunity.
is ok to have new ideas.
I don't know if your company uses VO only internally or if it is a
software house.
In both cases, they had a cause to select VO as development
environment, and most probably they have several applications that need
maintenance and development, so you have only the choice to learn VO.
Normally, selecting a development environment is a decision not for a
week, and not for a month, but for years. It is a big investment not
for the spent money, but for the spent time to learn and to construct
the internal framework.
I'm working hard since a year and a half to porting the most important
things from VO to Vulcan.NET, and I think, it will take at least
another 3 years until I'm very productive in .NET - too big is my
investment in existent code.
And a well designed application is not constructed in a few hours - at
least my own applications need to remain maintenable for 15-20 years,
so it is worth the time invested.
Wolfgang
--
MK K d
Jan 5, 2023, 10:11:11 AM1/5/23
to
Op woensdag 7 oktober 2015 om 09:59:15 UTC+2 schreef Wolfgang Riedmann:
Dear Wolfgang,
are you still programming in VO? i need help with a program bud cant find anybody who can help me.
ma...@ko-ar.nl
are you still programming in VO? i need help with a program bud cant find anybody who can help me.
ma...@ko-ar.nl
Szepligeti Ferenc
Jan 6, 2023, 8:38:04 AM1/6/23
to
Could you be more specific about what you need help with?
Ferenc
Wolfgang Riedmann
Jan 10, 2023, 1:54:36 PM1/10/23
to
Hi Marco,
> are you still programming in VO? i need help with a program bud cant
> find anybody who can help me. ma...@ko-ar.nl
I'm still working in VO (but more and more in X#).
Dou you have the sources of your programm? If not, only the author of
your program can help you as VO builds compiled executables.
What do you need?
Wolfgang
--
> are you still programming in VO? i need help with a program bud cant
> find anybody who can help me. ma...@ko-ar.nl
Dou you have the sources of your programm? If not, only the author of
your program can help you as VO builds compiled executables.
What do you need?
Wolfgang
--
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