A year or so ago, a developer lamented to me about the lack of 4D learning opportunities. Over the last few months we have tasked a team led by Chris V and Carin T to develop and manage the roll out of various training sessions. I believe they have made a tremendous start, there is still a long way to go or to paraphrase Churchill, it is not the beginning of the end but rather the end of the beginning. So far they have rolled out seven new online sessions , announced this year’s 4D Summit and today announced a series of seven roadshows across the country. There’s that number seven again, I must check which of them is superstitious

While developing curriculum is one part of their role, their other role is to ensure that 4D is recognized for delivering quality and value for money learning opportunities. Of course we are the 4D vendor but we want to be seen to be delivering the highest quality of trainings whether they be for trainings where there is a lot of competition in the Javascript or Flex areas or topics where being the vendor gives us a credibility lead such as in depth training on the new ‘4D v11 SQL Indexing schemes.

Another challenge is to get the mixture of classroom and online trainings correct. In some cases this is an easy decision as some trainings lend themselves to a short format ideal for web based learning but for other trainings that take eight or so hours it will be interesting to see if 4D developers like the opportunity for learning on the web or prefer traditional classroom formats. So as in most things this will also be a learning opportunity for us on how to deliver training that developers value.

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I am sitting here today, just hours before the launch of 4D v11 SQL, and my mind goes back to the many meetings we had internally about this project. It was a massive undertaking and I’m not too proud to admit that at times, in my weaker moments, doubt may have crept in as to our ability to execute. I am so proud today to say not only we have executed what we originally set out to do, but I feel very strongly that what the engineering team has pulled off is nothing short of an engineering miracle.

There’s an old Silicon Valley saying that the reason God could invent the world in six days was that he had no existing customer base to worry about. Here at 4D, we are famous for providing an easy upgrade path for our existing customers, so the six day option wasn’t available to us. Our engineers had to design a path from the existing database design to a new 21st Century database engine while still maintaining close to 100% compatibility with existing applications and code. It is no wonder that companies like Oracle have shied away from such an engineering effort, preferring to stay away from such a huge challenge and instead to add layer after layer to their existing database engine code, because it’s not even close to being easy to do. And yet, we at 4D have done it.

Today, you, the 4D developer, can look ahead, proud that you are working with the latest database engine technology, running on a clean, all-new 21st Century open SQL platform, designed from the ground up to tackle the challenges that 21st century business face. On top of this, you can also take advantage of your investment in your existing applications and frameworks knowing that the 4D Engineering team have delivered again. So my hat goes off to our team, and I salute their incredible abilities, their dedication, but most of all their constant commitment to an ideal, that 4D always provides a transparent path to the latest technologies!

It was a long wait for 4D v11 SQL, but I think you’ll find it was worth it. Try it out and let me know what you think.

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