April 2011
Summary of Synergy 2011
The Synergy 2011 conference delivered its usual blend of great training and informative presentations, including Mike Peat’s JavaScript Object Notation and Visual DataFlex presentation. There was also the opportunity to hear what’s new and a roadmap of future plans for the products.
Although Mike was too busy to take many photos and didn’t think there were any of him, we have found a few in the Data Access Synergy 2011 Highlights album.
Our Pick of the Presentations
Among our favourite presentations were John Tuohy’s “Rethinking User Interfaces” which provided an excellent ’back to basics’ demonstration of good and bad design and its impact on users. This presentation also served as a great reminder of how not to punish users for using software incorrectly! Also by John Tuohy, “The XML Mini-Symposium” was a highly informative tour of XML, covering everything you needed to know in just the right amount of depth.
Another of our favourites was “Consuming Web Services” by Emil Stojanov, which was aimed fully at developers, giving real insight into tackling the problems that arise when things go wrong.
Our final pick is “Deploying Registration Free COM Controls” by Dan Levene, which was quite simply, in Mike’s words ” a great presentation and demonstration about using COM controls without registration “.
Product Roadmap
John Tuohy presented a roadmap outlining key decisions that will impact the products in the future.
One of the main decisions is to improve the process and support for developing Web applications from Visual DataFlex. As a result, the Ajax library will be integrated into the product, rather than remaining as a standalone library and Ajax will be used more extensively. Strides will be made towards making Visual DataFlex easier to install and use, with the old samples being removed, new wizards and greater UI support for developers to write Ajax. There will be a Preview facility, allowing developers to see what their web pages will look like and an improved security system encompassing users, roles, access rights, etc. A key area is to improve support for developing for mobile applications (e.g., iPad, mobiles, etc.).
There was also discussion about the pricing and packaging of Web Application server to better support mid range organisations. The final decisions on this will be published soon.
If you did attend Synergy 2011 we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, if you didn’t get the opportunity this time, we hope to see you next time..
Visual DataFlex 2010/16.1 Release Imminent
With the final phase of testing taking place, Data Access have announced that Visual DataFlex 2010/16.1 is soon to be released.
In this revision, along with implementing the suggestions from developers and general bug fixes, particular attention has been made to enhancing the grid classes first available in 16.0. The grid improvements include visual optimizations, new interfaces, a new, non-data aware prompt list class and numerous bug fixes. In addition, a number of enhancements have been made to the Studio to provide for an even better, more productive user experience.
Pervasive PSQL v10 Discontinued
Pervasive Software have announced that Pervasive PSQL v10 has reached its End of General Availability and is no longer available for purchase.
- PSQL v10 will be fully supported by Pervasive until September 2011, at which time the product will enter Transition Support.
- PSQL v10 becomes unsupported in March 2012.