Re: Anyone know about 4D Web applications?

On Apr 1, 2007, at 10:13 PM, Ashley Aitken wrote:
>
> Howdy All,
>
> I've used a number of Web frameworks besides WebObjects but never a  
> 4th Dimension application that a client currently uses (4D database  
> with desktop client) and wants to develop (4D database with Web  
> client).
>
> I'm wondering if anyone has experience with 4D in the Web space and  
> knows how appropriate it's architecture is for a small to medium  
> sized Web application (i.e. not complex) with anticipated medium- 
> level use.
>
> I would assume they would generally have only (low) tens of users  
> concurrently accessing the system, so scaling very large is not a  
> concern.  My feeling is it will be something like the Web side of  
> FileMaker?
>
> If 4D Web applications are a nightmare solution (i.e. they  
> shouldn't go there) for this type of problem then I may recommend  
> something else (although they have a long history and large  
> investment in 4D).

I tried it recently and ran up against a brick wall: the version of  
4D the client used had critical bugs in its JDBC implementation.   
There was supposedly an upgrade available, but they couldn't upgrade  
for some reason, and that was pretty much the death of the project.   
I don't know why upgrading was a problem, but it's worth  
investigating the possibility that 4D upgrades are difficult or  
expensive.

So for that reason I don't have any experience actually *writing* a  
web app with 4D, but I'd suggest making sure that the baseline  
technology the database must support is available.  Structure the  
project such that you start with a pilot app that tests whatever  
subset of JDBC functionality you'll need, preferably from more than  
once client at once, since concurrence is the sort of thing these  
sorts of databases fall down on.  (By "these sorts", I just mean  
databases that weren't originally designed for Web access... 4D is  
fine, in my experience, for its designed use with their provided  
client.)

HTH,
-Patrick