New competition for WinDev?

Hi Piet, yes, some new features in Wx products can cause lots of headaches. One has to decide about how much time (and how much struggle with Tech Support) one wants to invest before reaching a solution or giving it up.

On the other hand, many new features work just fine right out of the box. Not all new controls or features are broken ..

Anyway, new features need testing. I have hundreds of small test-projects to prove function / non-function of certain features, controls, code etc.

In some cases I exchange lots of mails with Tech Support and I do insist on a fix - sometimes we even get one. Example: Making a Setup and WDSetup.

Sometimes we don't get a fix, examples are WeekNumber(..) and USBFind(..) or TableInputSearch(..) which doesn't fully work since version 9 *grin*. In order to get fixes and save others from investing their precious time, don't hesitate to make annotations to online Help system and mention those annotations in the forum. This is very important! The visibility of annotations probably guarantees for some 'heads up!' at PCS HQ.

Kind regards, Guenter

Oh Guenter, why you are getting personal?
You know very well, it's not about the programming skills in WINDEV, but for the many big bugs that were even after many years of PCSOFT NOT fixed! It is not a personal issue but a purely technical! Why I am now stuck with WINDEV? Because I still hope that fixes PCSOFT his big bugs at last!

It is clear to me after years of WINDEV found that PCSOFT sloppy programming (more runs after the sexy girls) and not the programmer. I do not see one that I have to constantly tinker to get a stable program. This is a hundred times slower than VS with third-party tools.
For a year I play in parallel with VS without third-party and getting good results already.

But it is already clear that you must write it because you WINDEV sell, and want to get good discounts from PCSOFT.

Hey Thomas,

it seems very interesting to me to have a look at that "big" bugs list.
Do you have such list? Many developer could save a lot of time when knowing those bugs.

Regards,
Xavier

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Xavier
Hey Thomas,

it seems very interesting to me to have a look at that "big" bugs list.
Do you have such list? Many developer could save a lot of time when knowing those bugs.

Regards,
Xavier

Hi Xavier, this forum has a few parts, one of them is a 'bug list'. Navigate to it by using the combo in this forum's header and select the last forum in the combo list.
Kind regards, Guenter

Xavier, I have reason so many bugs because I WINDEV to exploiting to border.

By that I mean NOT a normal programming language but I use very extensively the "addons with the internal functions (5GL)" by WINDEV. Unfortunately, these useful features(only reason I bought WINDEV!). implemented only sloppy and have a lot of bugs. Thus I have programmed a different path and the speed advantage is lost. On the contrary, do I need more time!

Someone who WINDEV basis "only" used with tables and forms, only little notice of the error.

Hi Thomas,

if you can prove an error then please,

- notify PC Soft Tech Support
- put the detailed description of the error into the 'bugs' forum
- if you have a test project, please put a link to that project into the forum

with crying 'error' alone you just make a bad (inproductive!) atmosphere but nothing will change. Please, report your problems! Maybe, these errors can be solved here ..

Regards, Guenter

Guenter, what I do well all the time? I cry because the errors are not fixed.
e.g. Please read this note
(A Note! A fatal error was to "note" and not explained by dissolved):

[doc.windev.com]
"When creating an appointment with reminder in Outlook, the reminder is immediately displayed regardless of the appointment date"
Thus an important function is now a joke

When I cry I've tried everything. And as you can see I post a little, because I fix the error itself
So for me this discussion is finished. My decision has been made.

Tomas at some extend I agree with you

I used a table with a table break. Cool 5gl feature. Looks nice , worked fine. Well when doing a test with lots of data it got verry slow.
It was all because I programmed the tablebreak to collapsed ( intead of expanded witch is the default)

Took me quite some time to find that out. Changed the window used a tree control and a seperate table. Wow even with massive amout of data it was lightnong vast.

So I guess you have to know what to use for what purpose. If you want a table break because you want to strucutre a table with lots of data don't. Instead use a tree and a table or the tabletreeview control

I wanted to use a java applet on a webpage. It all works fine as long as you donnot want to connect to a database. It works when connecting to a mail server or ftp server but it isnot able to connect to a database. If you try it it generates an applet that needs some dll's and files to be on the desktop of the user who wants to use the applet !!!! Hello of cource this is not acceptible I want to use an applet so I can display it on a website so website users can use it without downloading any software.
I asked pc soft if I was doning something wrong and I asked it it where at all possible. I got no answer

I gess they left out this feature for else you could make a webapp and for webdevelopment they want to sell webdev. Ok so be it . But it would be nice if they put it in the help file so i didnot spend several days to try to get it to work!!



I must say all things considered I will stay with windev. It has bugs and it sometimes isnot 10 times faster but I can make great software with it.. If it works it runs great on the users computer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2011 09:03PM by Allard.

Hi,

In a nutshell:

PCSoft sell a new version of Windev each year. Each year promises XXX new features. Some work as they should and some don't. The ones that don't create lots of headaches and people get annoyed and PCSoft *may* fix some of them, although these fixes are often only given it would appear to the individuals who have the willpower to spend several weeks going over it with Tech Support. The ones that don't get fixed people either give up or try something like VS and sometimes a third party tool. Some users find that this actually is faster than WinDev and carry on using. Because of this, some users carry on using WinDev to support existing clients whilst using VS & third party tools to create programs for new clients. In the meantime PCSoft give grandiose announcements such as 'support for Windows Phone 7' , whilst actually only giving about 4 controls, all of which are pretty useless in a business environment or half finished controls such as the Scheduler control. In all cases expect error messages to be in French.
In a business environment , tell your potential clients you are using WinDev, wait for them to say, 'what?', and then watch your potential client go to a company using .NET.
In the meantime, lose any programmers using WinDev to another software company using .NET and then have fun and games trying to recruit anyone who actually has using WinDev, whilst your competitors surge ahead having recruited all those .NET developers out there.

Yep, I think that's about it!

Regards
John

Hello,

I think its about time we ended this thread. The rants are getting out of hand. We are all mature @#$%& who know how to evaluate things. Most of us did not even start with Windev, but chose it because we at that time had problems with whatever we were using and it turned out to have the best mix of features and options we could find. The truth is, every product has its pluses and minuses and we are at all times re-evaluating the choices we have made in the past as well as new choices we have to make now and in the future. If you are not satisfied with Windev in any way or you were in the past but would like to try something new, please do so.

We don't need your complaints to decide what we are going to do. This is a support forum so lets leave it at that. Every software mentioned here; VS, Alpha 5, 4D, Arev, Clarion etc all have their pros and cons, adherents and detractors. Its up to us individually to determine what we will use.

In short, if you don't like Windev, leave. You do not need our approval to leave, neither do we need your consent to stay with windev.

Everyone decides his own future. "Sufficient unto the day, the evils of it thereof".

regards

issah

Issah,

I don't believe anyone is 'ranting', the topic of the thread was about competition for WinDev and the reasons why such competition may or may not be sucessful. In such a conversation the reasons why such competition may be sucessful may cause some people, such as myself as well as others here, to verbalise on the causes of such. Some of these causes can be due to failings on the part of PCSoft and, again, some people may feel that there isn't a case to answer for that and some may do.

I can't see anyone here saying that they are going to stop using WinDev outright or jump ship to another platform immediately. Indeed, I'm sure many people who have contributed to this thread are like myself, in that they own several versions of WinDev, have produced robust products with it, but are annoyed with the seemingly poor quality control that PCSoft excercise with each new update and their failings to tackle bugs that have been knocking around for ages. I'll continue to use WinDev for the foreseeable future, in fact I've just bought V16 Mobile, as I have clients who are using V14 and V15, but that doesn't stop me from being critical about the product, considering I've paid my hard earned money out for it I'd say I have every right!

Nor can I see anyone telling anyone to stop using WinDev? I'm not sure where you got that from? And yes, I do have the right to complain if I feel that the product isn't meeting the standard that has been advertised. If you don't like that, then don't read my posts, no one is making you. This IS a support forum, but I've always thought of it to be a place where general views can be aired too, for the good or bad of WinDev, especially considering the lack of other places on the web to discuss PCSoft products. If the product cannot stand up to some critiscism then something is very wrong indeed !

Ummm....your quote seems very bizarre ! Not quite sure where that was going.....

Issah, are you serious?

Stop using it if you don't like it? I wish it was that easy: you just transfer the work you have done so far to another development environment and go on... Would't that be nice, and wouldn't that bring some real pressure on PCSoft's production department to work as hard as their marketing department:-)

The main problem with Windev is that their marketing department is 10 times faster and "more productive" than their production department. And I have blue eyes. In practice, PCSoft lies 10 times faster than most software producers I have seen so far:sneg:. Therefore I find myself many times banging my head against a brick wall while trying to use some of their fancy bells and whistles (where is the "banging my head to a wall" smiley:confused). When the bump in my forehead is big enough, I stop and skip the feature or bypass the problem somehow. This slows the development time so badly down that I do not have the time to do their alpha-testing for them.

I like the parts of Windev that work as advertized and documented, and at the same time I look down at PCSoft, because, simply put, they are the biggest liars and cheaters among any suppliers I have met so far.

The two "killer" features that made me "upgrade" to 16 were the scheduler control and the block editing possibility in code editor. Both are crappy. And the "improved" possibility to import web services; haven't really dug into that yet, but I am afraid of the worst...

Perhaps a little bit of honesty would do their marketing manager good and earn some respect for their coders? And perhaps some more good, working code samples in the help -- but maybe that is too much asked for? Quite too often there is none!

And about introducing and discussing about the competition: I think it's good. For us windevers the best place to do that is this forum. It may help somebody who is still not buried too deep in Windev. I found Windev in a similar discussion in Clarion for Windows forum a long time ago, and now I am stuck with it and will finish my project with it no matter what. I know I can do it, but it takes more than 10 times more time than with my previous, bug-free tool.

And we do have the right to criticize it whenever we feel like it, at least if we have paid for it. I have the understanding that is not a church and PCSoft very obviously is not a god.

best regards
Ola

Hello John & Ola,

I am sorry that you feel I am trying to deny you your right to free expression, far from it, and besides, its not in my power to do so.

A quick glance at the topic for this thread reads, "New competition for WinDev?" and it was great and technically relevant to know what new things were coming up, after all almost all of us used other products before using Windev and many are still using multiple products, depending on the job etc..

After a while however, this thread in my opinion, started getting too personal and off topic. Some of the threads would start with phrases like "Just for clarification, I love windev...", as if you had to pledge allegiance before making a statement.

I try and read every posting and help out to the best of my ability when I can (and that goes for most of us); and even though other specialized fora exist, all postings tend to come here to the Windev forum. (Guenter does not enforce a strict rule of WB or WM postings going to their respective forums - maybe he should) So it would be very difficult to decide not to read your posts (it would also be very unwise of me). I am not some eastern mystic, but it just feels like we shed too much negative energy, bad karma, " negative feng shui", bad vibes, call it what you like. Instead of working to find solutions and work a rounds.

What does bad karma have to do with "re: new competition for windev?", nothing which shows just how far we have strayed. Let there be peace man!!![[3]]

Guenter, give us a "Windev Frustrations Forum" so we have a place to vent our spleen.

Thanks and regards

issah

Plus 1 to this - a voice of reason

+ 1 to this also.

This would allow gripes about PCsoft to be separated from technical assistance offered here.

It would also allow prospective users (& PCsoft?) to get a concise feeling for the current state of WD/WB software and the satisfaction (or lack thereof) of english speaking customers. Perhaps it might also encourage PCsoft to fix some of the more major problems that users report there, if they are more glaringly visible.

I like WD/WB, but lobbying for important fixes can only be a good thing.

Michael

Issah, you have my vote too :cheers:
However, I have my doubts about a separate "complaints" forum.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2011 01:41PM by Piet van Zanten.

Hello Issah, Derek, Piet, Michael .. a 'Ranting Corner' is being prepared .. and first thing I'll do: move this thread to where it belongs .. regards, Guenter

Hi Guenter,

I think that a Complaints Corner is an excellent idea......best make sure you set aside a fair bit of disk space for it though ;-)

Regards

John

Now that Xamarin is now Micrsoft and integrated into Visual Studio, PC Soft now has solid serious competition...

Stanley

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StanleyBarnett
Now that Xamarin is now Micrsoft and integrated into Visual Studio, PC Soft now has solid serious competition...
Stanley

No, it has not. With WINDEV Mobile (990,- Euro list price) alone you can develop not only for iOS and Android but for Windows CE, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows UWP applications too, you can use a bunch of different database systems at no additional cost at all.

Cheapest version of Visual Studio is 641,- Euro, another 641,- buys a server for teamwork but integrating two developers into teamwork is another 641,- for each developer. Visual Studio Enterprise is 3300,- Euro. PC Soft includes SCM at no extra cost. MS SQL Server 2016 Standard Edition is 4090,- Euro, HFSQL (for Windows and Linux servers!) is free and can be distributed at no extra cost! MS doesn't offer upgrade prices - you have to pay full price if you want to upgrade to the next version.

Btw, WINDEV develops for LINUX too, the WEBDEV deployment server runs on Windows and Linux.

Wx products contain lots of add-ons out of the box, if you need additional functionality for VS you have to buy controls and supporting programs from 3rd parties which gives you the well knownproblems with different versions.

Hi Guenter,

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No, it has not. With WINDEV Mobile (990,- Euro list price) alone you can develop not only for iOS and Android but for Windows CE, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows UWP applications too,

With Visual Studion 2015 Community Edition, the cost is FREE allowing you to build any all the listed apps. The only limiting factor is it does not support Microsoft's Team Foundation Server. SCM is also supported via other means, and again at zero cost.

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you can use a bunch of different database systems at no additional cost at all.

Wonder why I spent $$$ for PCSoft's MSSQL native driver? So it looks like there is a cost for PCSoft here. SQL Server is also available for FREE (express edition) that supports databases in production up to 10gb. If you need larger, then standard is next and supports sizes the same as the enterprise.

You surely are not suggesting that HFSQL is as mature, stable, robust and feature rich as SQL Server are you? I've read much here on this forum where HFSQL is lacking many of SQL Server's features.

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Cheapest version of Visual Studio is 641,- Euro, another 641,- buys a server for teamwork but integrating two developers into teamwork is another 641,- for each developer. Visual Studio Enterprise is 3300,- Euro. PC Soft includes SCM at no extra cost. MS SQL Server 2016 Standard Edition is 4090,- Euro, HFSQL (for Windows and Linux servers!) is free and can be distributed at no extra cost!

Wrong again, Community Edition of Visual Studio 2015 is feature rich including Xamarin integrated into it all for FREE. You are not comparing apples to apples when comparing enterprise versions of Microsoft's products to PC Soft's lineup. This forum has lots to say about that. Reported bugs not getting fixed is just one that comes to mind.

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MS doesn't offer upgrade prices - you have to pay full price if you want to upgrade to the next version.

As far as I know, upgrades are not free with PCSoft, whereas I have paid nothing to Microsoft for their SQL and Visual Studio products including Xamarin. To me, PCSoft is much more expensive, but also I'm not concerned with the costs. I need productivity, and PCSoft is falling short to us English speaking developers... Where is the English support, training, conferences, seminars and etc. The group that has taken over in the USA is not putting out anything either, no conferences, meetings, seminars, and only a couple of videos. Heck, I read that PCSOFT has sold 10000 copies to US developers. If that was true, then PCSoft would be well known. EVERY developer I've talked with over the past year since spending 3400.00usd with PCSoft, NONE has ever heard of it. Google has little to say regarding PCSoft's products in the USA.

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Wx products contain lots of add-ons out of the box, if you need additional functionality for VS you have to buy controls and supporting programs from 3rd parties which gives you the well known problems with different versions.

Having this super large add-on 3rd party eco-system is where Visual Studio really shines over PCSoft simply because they lack 3rd party vendor support. PCSoft is too proprietary in this area which has discouraged the 3rd party marketplace.


For me, all I want is...
1. a stable rock solid modern IDE for developing apps for today's world that is stable, works as advertised with lots of support via books, videos, seminars, conferences, and training camps,
2. large eco-system, like 3rd party vendors that extends the core functionality, and training similar to Pluralsight and Lynda to name a few...
3. widely accepted tools and practices,
4. timely bug fixes and fully baked solutions,
5. single code base for developing mobile (ios, android, winCE, universal),
6. ability to develop and deploy with no costs, and when it scales beyond what free buys us, then we can pay to play...

As it stands now I have a $3400 door stop named PCSoft, that I would really like to use, but where the paradigm is so different from Microsoft's and literally no support here in the US, it was time to take a hard look at Xamarin when it became part of Microsoft completely as open source back in March.

Anyway, enough for now, and thanks for your response,
Stanley

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StanleyBarnett

Quote

Wx products contain lots of add-ons out of the box, if you need additional functionality for VS you have to buy controls and supporting programs from 3rd parties which gives you the well known problems with different versions.

Having this super large add-on 3rd party eco-system is where Visual Studio really shines over PCSoft simply because they lack 3rd party vendor support. PCSoft is too proprietary in this area which has discouraged the 3rd party marketplace.

This will never happen. I mean PCSoft will never open up for third party development because if they do then they will not be able to sell their new version easily every year as what they are offering will be (may be) available from third party at a throw away price or free!

Regards,

Yogi Yang

LIGHTSWITCH WHAT?

Hi,
just to tell you how it goes: Lightswitch has been discontinued by Microsoft, the recommendation is not use Lightswitch for any new projects!

The problem with Microsoft is that they are not able to / interested in supporting something labeled "4GL". There are patents and there is a vast number of 3rd party software makers who are - at least partially - engaged in making things which would be useless if a true 4GL came from Microsoft.