Clarion Folk

I’m never sure what to do when Bob Z drops a bit of info in to me. Whether to blog it, hit the newsgroups, jump on skype.

See, I get a little nervous. Why? Because I can hear the cries of angst and trouble.

“Why aren’t they concentrating on bugs?”

“When is the AppGen done?”

“What is GTA IV doing in the SV office?”

Here goes.

Support for Linq (MS Site, and Wikipedia) is being added to Clarion#.

I like this. Means we’ve got another enticement to grow the community, and another facet that strengthens our competitive advantage.

At least, that’s how I see it.

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Clarion is part of a massive huge list of Hello World programs.

Here’s the list, and here’s the Clarion entry.

There’s a lot of programs and languages (including human ones) in the list. It would seem we have a lot of ways to say the same thing. To make the same thing.

I wonder if there was a “Tower of Babel” for programming? Like did everyone get together one day, intent on building “The One” language? It might have gone something like this:

Mr. X - “Compiler is everything.”

Mr. Y - “Un-Typed vars!”

Mrs. S - “Restrictive variable names.”

Miss Y - “As we speak it!”

Suddenly the room erupts in a vicious nerd argument. As we know, these are the worst. Name calling and scratching and plotting revenge with a twenty-three sided dice.

Alas, due to hubris and other plant-sounding words, “The One” language was never built. To this day, it’s ruins can be seen scattered throughout the various “lesser” languages.

True story.

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Three cheers! Huzzah!

Geoff just sent an email out, and check this out. What a fantastic show of support from the 3rd Party Clarion Community.

Kudos to you all!

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Steve Ryan is a shining light. When most other people are either disparaging the new Clarion (newsgroups) or not doing much with it at all (me), he’s toiling away. Sure, he’s struck a few hurdles, but it hasn’t slowed progress.

Steve and his crew are nearing the end of a big product. They are completing the end user GUI for the stand alone development report designer and runtime.

Steve has kindly sent me some screenshots+words, as follows:

Picture 1. The Report Listing Application.

Picture 2. The Report Designer.

The report layout editor supports multiple report breaks all with separate database access. Full range limit support and filters plus embed points at runtime for customised report statements using over 1000 commands supported by the runtime.

Picture 3. The Report Designer Database drop and drop tree control.

Drag database properties to the Report Layout and the layout will get it’s setting from the primary key its uses to report breaks, it’s all automatic. The simple ribbon toolbar expands to display the options on the tabs. This design approach splits the window into two parts. The Layout design and the ribbon (toolbar) options plus Report Layout Options which are shown in Pic4.

Picture 4.

The report setting mode allows the report designer to switch back and forth between layout design and report settings by simply pressing the view buttons
on the left. Report Design mode, Next, Previous and Back switch the user between modes so that all options are displayed on the one window without the need for toolbars or floating windows that clutter up the appearance design window. This makes it very easy for end users to master the report layout designer. Its all pretty easy.

Kudos to Steve and his Crew!

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