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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Rudi showed me Erik Burke’s blog and in particular these images which say it much better than I could ever do.

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Here is a sneak preview of what we will be releasing later this month ListBox Demos

We’d love to hear what you think!

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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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Whether you’re a consultant looking for your next gig, an in-house developer, or a vertical market developer, there are potentially major business opportunities sitting at the lunch table over from you — but you will never find them unless you step out of your comfort zone and meet up with new people.

As Summit organizers, we haven’t been doing enough to foster networking as well as we could in past years. The team was challenged this year to promote business opportunity networking, and so far they’ve come up with some ideas, but I am sure there are many more.

One of the first ideas was to organize “birds of a feather” lunches, where we organize lunch tables around business topics such as medical, education, etc. We hope this will foster communication over some of Memphis’ world famous food.

Another one of the major ideas is to ensure that attendees come prepared and know exactly who they will meet at the Summit before they even get there. Rachel and the rest of the marketing team set up a networking site to help people get acquainted before they meet face to face.

While we have some other ideas germinating, I’m sure we could be doing even more.

So this is what I’m asking: What else can we do to foster business networking at the Summit?

Perhaps you’ve been at another conference that had some great ideas on how to do this. Perhaps you have some original ideas of your own. Either way, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Let us know - we’re not too proud to borrow.

Don’t forget though, if you’re coming to the Summit (or even just thinking about coming) please visit our new site, register and get networking!

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For that reason, a lot of our early design time was spent trying to create the foundation of a perfect data list view. One of the key features of version 1.1 of the 4D Ajax Framework is our Data Window, which we think is a fantastic composite object for displaying data in a list fashion.

Here’s some of what you can do with it:

• Live Data: Data is live and updated automatically from the backendData Binding: The Data Window can be bound to tables, views (Joined Tables) or a set of Arrays
• Live Scrolling: As the Data Window scrolls, data is pulled automatically from the backend. Only data that is visible is sent to the browser
• Sorting: Clicking on a column sorts that column, for the whole selection, not just the visible rows
• Column Resizing: Columns can be resized, and the resizing can be persistent across sessions
• Pre-Set Queries: Tabs can be pre-created based on static queries, dynamic queries or based on unique field values
• Client or Custom Web Pages: As with all 4D Ajax Framework objects, the Data Window can be used as part of the 4DAF browser client, or independently on any custom web page.

Now that we’ve come this far with implementing data list views, we are at the point where we want to add extra features to this object. We’ve already had a number of feature requests from the current user base, ranging from the easy to implement (alternate row coloring), to much more challenging features such as locking columns.

However, we would love to hear from all of you. What are the features that make you drool when it comes to data list views?

Don’t hold back! With our rapid-release model, we are looking at multiple product revs over the next few quarters, so there’s a lot of room for us to add your feature requests.

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Our initial release was on February 14th, and we followed that up on May 9th with the 1.1 release. Since then we’ve released a patch for 4D Live Window to fix an issue with “WEB_SetContent”. So right now we are on a 90 day release cycle, but we don’t want to remain in that cycle. Sometimes we will release sooner, and sometimes it will take longer to deliver the quality of release in terms of stability and features.

We’re more interested in getting things right than we are in meeting an arbitrary deadline. For example, another company in our business promised a quarterly release cycle and in a lot of cases their releases have been castigated by their users for being buggy and insufficient quality. Their promise of a release of every 90 days has locked them in to delivering a release even if it isn’t of the quality their users expect and demand. You wouldn’t want that from 4D, and we don’t want to be that company.

Having a rapid release cycle does pose some interesting opportunities for our development team. It necessitates very strong product planning so that we can add features in an incremental fashion, adding value with every release. Each feature gets built in steps and each step is validated and road tested before the next layer of functionality is added. This leads to a much higher quality of release than a “big bang” feature development approach.

Luckily, 4D Web 2.0 Pack is an ideal product for the rapid release model as so many new technologies are getting announced in this area of technology. For example, we are all very excited about the opportunities that the recent “Google Gears” announcement will offer Ajax applications. Our rapid release model ensures that we can look at these advancements in technologies and adopt those which will provide immediate benefit to you, the developer. This of course, ensures that our team needs to always be up to date and always on their toes.

It is exciting to be involved in a technology that is delivering on its promises so fast!

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Of course, 4D developers are now in a great position to be the leaders in getting their applications onto the iPhone. 4D Web 2.0 Pack, today, offers all of the tools to get your data onto the iPhone. We have already scheduled a session at the summit on iPhone applications, with their unique challenges and opportunities.

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One of the obstacles facing 4D Developers as they move into the new world of Web 2.0 Applications is the fear of not covering every feature before releasing a Web 2.0 module for their application. However, the opposite is true for most successful Web 2.0 Applications. These developers focused on the core features and released minimal releases.

For example, I am drafting this in Basecamp, a very successful project management application, which has very limited features but has enough that it has signed up millions of users. I know you will say, “but my current users expects these hundreds of features and won’t accept anything less than what they have currently.” Now if you are the market leader in your segment and have a majority percentage then this argument makes more sense. However in all other cases there are huge market segments, read not your current users, waiting for something simpler which will make their lives easier and more productive.

Stripping away your application to the core is not an easy job, however. We have to leave our egos at the door. We need to forget why we added a feature, but investigate its relevance to the majority of the target segment. Once we have this list pared, go talk to users in the target segment and do further refinement of the lists. Set a benchmark, say of 80% and if 80% of these users don’t agree a feature is essential, strip it. I repeat this is painful, it is like tearing our lives’ work apart. However, this is a critical step if you are to build a real Web 2.0 application.

The great news for you as a 4D developer is you can still provide customers who demand the sophisticated feature-rich solution as part of your client/server solution. On top of this solution, using the same codebase, you can provide a focused, targeted web 2.0 Ajax application which can appeal to all of those potential customers you are not reaching today.

We at 4D are here to help. Please contact us if you wish to take the next step to creating a focused, targeted web 2.0 application. Our team here will work with you to help you target those users who you are missing today.

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