| Title: | DECWINDOWS 26-JAN-89 to 29-NOV-90 |
| Notice: | See 1639.0 for VMS V5.3 kit; 2043.0 for 5.4 IFT kit |
| Moderator: | STAR::VATNE |
| Created: | Mon Oct 30 1989 |
| Last Modified: | Mon Dec 31 1990 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 3726 |
| Total number of notes: | 19516 |
A customer is about to add DW to its applications' interface building tool. Before jumping into using DW they had a question about the maintenance costs of a DW interface compared with something like FMS or even direct screen access by applications. Is there any data about that or even semi-quantified gut feel? The same question came about the development time using DW compared classical methods. Thanks, Michel.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3325.1 | DSSDEV::BIBEAULT | Grizzly Bear | Tue Sep 11 1990 09:47 | 26 | |
I don't believe that there are any formal quantified studies in this area, but have asked the forms product manager if he's heard of any. Firstly, be aware that you are asking for a comparison of oranges and lemons (at least they're both citrus). FMS and the like are user interface tools for character-cell terminals only -- DECwindows is a graphical user interface tool. What kind of interface does your customer need? The type that can be built with the toolkit would be very different from the type built using FMS. Given that, I'd suspect that the amount of maintanence work that would need to be done with a Toolkit application versus an FMS application would be pretty much the same as both systems are fairly low level and require the application program to get involved in all but setting up the appearance of the UI, and both require data conversions for numeric data prior to sending such data to the display. A higher level system, like DECforms, will require less maintanence since there's a lot less application code and no data conversions necessary, but a DECwindows version of DECforms, although a high priority, may still be a little ways off. The character-cell version is shipping and doing very well. -mike | |||||
| 3325.2 | The customer needs both | MQOS01::CHEVRIER | Michel A. Chevrier 632-3560 Montr�al | Tue Sep 11 1990 17:15 | 21 |
The customer has already a large FMS expertise and will continue to use FMS for a long time(I guess). The question was not to decide which is best. They will continie to use FMS for their character cell terminals applications and maybe choose DW for the workstations applications. Because they are FMS users they have a good feel for the costs of maintenance and exploitation for FMS applications. The question is now that they plan to use DW for some of their aplications will that new interface software see the same maintenance and exploitation cost that their FMS software or a reduction/increase. >What kind of interface does your customer need? The type that can be built >with the toolkit would be very different from the type built using FMS. Yes in appearance and interface actions. Right now they have an application that runs all on character cell term and they want a part of it to be transformed into a DW interface (more sexy and reduced operation errors). Thanks for taking time to volunteer your opinion. It is appreciated. Michel. | |||||