...and he (BCM) is still around and, unless he changes jobs, will be using his so hated Progress for quite a while longer...
Here's my prediction for the future (if anyone cares to add to this, please do):
*stares into his crystal ball*
- First he quietly realises that converting his application to M$ will take him and an army of M$ programmers several years to complete;
- Then when he is done he will find out that he has 4 to 10 times as much code to manage for the same application/functionality, which will be so much fun when trying to add new functionality, make changes or to debug the thing (will be fun to explain to the people that make the budget);
- Then someone will find out how to hack into his beloved SQL Server database or some new worm will sneak into the system and steal, delete or change all the data in the database (oh, won't it be a heap of fun and try to explain THAT to your auditors). And of course, M$ will fix the problem *after* the fact and throw their hands in the air and innocently say "we are sooo sorry, it is not our fault, we didn't know"
- Then the application will start to throw nice inexplicable error messages (good luck trying to remember those) to web browsers when there is a little misconfiguration in some server, or after someone has applied the next patch level of Windoze or SQL Server. Of course, M$ support will be ever so much fun to get hold of and deal with
- Then M$ will introduce .Net version xyz and, wanting to stay up-to-date, he will have to bend himself (and maybe even another army of programmers) backwards to get his application converted to the latest and greatest ideas of M$ who decide to toss the components used throughout the application out the door and replace them with completely different ones that not only look different, but also work completely different as well (internally)
*sighs and stops staring in his crystal ball*
Like we (bar you) are all saying we all love/like Progress for what it is and what it does, the speed of development it offers, the performance it gets you, the ease of upgrades, etc. If you have your mind set on going M$ and your boss wants to invest his $$ in it, then please do.
If you have good and honest questions, feel free to ask them; if you want to help out others on this forum - yes, please do... that's what this forum is for.
But can you please stop being a serial complainer about Progress, simply because you appear to have no idea how to manage and use it properly (hey, you cannot even remember the error message you say you keep getting). From what I hear, the application you are using is just a heap of *put appropriate word here* from day one, or has been made so by inexperienced people making modifications to it. And, just so you know - and I hope for your sake you do - you can screw up your app just as bad (or worse) when you write it with M$
And that my friends is the last thing I will have to add to this little discussion *places thread on ignore list*