Conference ilbbak::ibi_focus

221.0. "FOCUS USER GROUP (FUSE) NETHERLANDS: 1-day workshop 21-Jun-89 " by DEVWS2::LEE () Mon Jun 19 1989 08:59

Report on the FUSE (FOCUS user group) Gebruikersdag ("Users' Day") - 
====================================================================
                   Eindhoven, Netherlands, 14-Jun-89.
                   =================================

As some of you may know I recently attended the FUSE Nederland Users' Day. 
About 120 people present, mostly from the Netherlands, approx 10 from 
Belgium. I was the only Digital employee present. 

The main points of interest for me were:

   A) insight into IBI internationally and on the European level.
   B) preview of FOCUS 6.0 for the VAX (alpha-test begins July 89).
   C) setting into motion the (re)formation of the VAX SIG.
   D) discovery of the FOCUS Systems Journal.
   E) investigating training courses run by IBI in the Netherlands.


A. IBI:
   ---

Various presenters (vice-president Melissa Webster and Benelux director Norman
Manly) gave an overview of FOCUS and IBI. Main points:

   1) Growth of (mainframe/mini computer) installed copies from 1980-88

         1980     250   +- interestingly, another presentation gave a table
         1982     750   |  (using TABLE?) of IBM, UNIX, VAX and WANG sites
         1984    1500   |  worldwide and t-h-a-t total came to 1295. Surely 
         1986    2450   |  the remaining 3100+ are not on the other vendors. 
         1988    4400 <-+   
                           I'll give to table at the end for those who might 
                           be interested in the European details by country.

   2) Growth of (IBM) PC installed copies - 1983 (2000 copies) to 1988 
      (92000 copies).

   3) In order of revenue, IBI is the 15th highest proprietary software company
      (after Computer Associates,Lotus,Microsoft,Ashton-Tate,MSA,Cullinet,
      D&B,Oracle,SoftwareAG,SAS,Cincon,Pansophic,McDonnellDouglas,Ask).

      It is the 3rd in order of revenue if publicly owned companies are
      excluded - the 3 being SAS, Cincom, IBI.

   4) Employees/offices Mar-89

                     USA    Canada   Europe   Total

      Employees      886        30      170    1086

      Offices         22         3        8      33

   5) Organisational structure. The most interesting things here were that
      a sub-section had been created for Apple, and that it was closely tied
      to DEC. Also, IBM forms one section, but the model AS/400 has its very
      own section as well.

   6) Multiple Platforms: IBI was committed to the concept of providing the
      (basically) same product on many vendor platforms. This still meant 
      taking advantage of each vendor's specific advantages, tailoring to
      the vendor's 'feel', but keeping functional compatibility across all
      vendors. 

      The list as it stands:

      (past)            IBM, VAX, 
      (recent/coming)   HP, Wang, UNIX (all flavours and colours -
                                        including ULTRIX),
      (future)          Tandem, Honeywell.

   7) Acknowledgement that graphics workstation environments are the direction 
      of the future, and a statement that DECWINDOWS compatibility was one of 
      IBI's aims. In the meantime however, 6.0 has some upgrades to their 
      WINDOW environment.


B. FOCUS 6.0 VAX:
   -------------

Alpha testing starts only in July 89. Shipping expected 'later in the year'.

At our site, we restrict use of FOCUS to only reporting on external (non-FOCUS)
databases. Hence much of the upgrade/new functionality/efficiency improvement
has little impact on us. In particular, upgrades to SU, MODIFY, SQL-
compatibility, IBM-to-VAX transfer, PC-to-VAX transfer (though KERMIT) 
appeared to be major areas. eg. 'bundling' MODIFY transactions together so that
the system guarantees that either all or none of the set are performed (the
standard protection against crashes during a series of interdependent
transactions) etc. 

For us, the main improvements were:

   1) A new WHERE clause:

      Version 5                          Version 6

      DEFINE FILE x
      SELECT / A1 = IF P GT Q * 2        no longer needs
                    THEN 'Y'             a DEFINE FILE
                    ELSE 'N';
      END

      TABLE FILE x                       TABLE FILE x                       
      PRINT ...                          PRINT ...
      IF SELECT EQ 'Y'                   WHERE P GT Q * 2
      END                                END

   2) A new WHEN clause: allows specific action when a test on a break field 
      is satisfied. eg SUBHEAD "..." WHEN product = 'zdva'

   3) Better 'panelling'. ie. when a report goes wider than one page (thereby
      creating pages 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc), all BY-fields in the PRINT command
      will be repeated on each page - pretty common feature of report 
      presentation in other applications.

   4) RECALL of last 20 commands (with up-arrow ?).

   5) Long file names, directory names, version numbers (no automatic append
      to output report files ?).

   6) Long field names - 66 chars ! Hooray !! Apparently motivated by the 
      autoconversions that many VAX users do from VAX COBOL record 
      descriptions, CDD and RDB definitions etc.

   7) VMS command can be disabled from within FOCUS prompt for greater 
      security in captive systems.

   8) FOCSTACK will now live in main memory as opposed to a file, supposedly
      increasing performance. This is probably true for applications where
      there are many frequent invocations of multiple FEX's, performing
      transactions. For us, batch processing at night, one FEX at a time,
      relatively simple lines of FEX-code, it's difficult to see how FOCSTACK
      in memory will help much. 

   9) Bug fix of record limit on TABLE (must have been quite large, we have not
      come across it).

  10) Compiled COMPUTE's. I didn't really understand this item - perhaps
      also only relevant to FOCUS databases.


C. VAX SIG:
   -------

There has been 1 attempted VAX SIG meeting in the past, for which 1 person 
turned up. This could have been a problem with the mailing of notifications.
The SIG chairperson will attempt to schedule another meeting sometime in
September 89. Given that there were about 30 people at the FOCUS 6.0 VAX 
session, there should be more interest in the SIG this time.


D. FOCUS Systems Journal:
   ---------------------

   The copy I got was Vol.1, No.2. Not extremely technical, more a 'cookbook'
   and interviews style, but some interesting material all the same. A length
   of 80 pages. Contents page looks like this:

      3 Debugging FOCUS Code.         52 Tutorial: LEVEL5 Reporting.
     13 Plexus File Structures        60 Reducing Paging in MODIFY.
           used in FOCUS.             67 Techniques: Using Alternate
     20 CASE for FOCUS.                     Database Keys.
     27 Interview: Ken Orr.           72 Techniques: Simulating Boolean Logic
     35 Exploring FOCUS                     for Report Screening.
           programming styles.        74 Techniques: Hierarchical HOLD Files.
     43 Tutorial: CRTFORM Internals.  78 Techniques: Concatenating with Spaces.

   Apparently it's a bi-monthly, Subs: US$ 60.00 per calendar year (single
   copies $12.00).


F. Training Courses:
   ----------------

   IBI Netherlands run quite a number of 2-day courses ranging from beginners 
   to intermediate to advanced. The beginners and intermediate courses cost 
   Nfl. 1,200 (approx US$ 550). Beginners is quite basic - "Concepts", 
   "TABLETALK" (course T01), "JOIN", "DEFINE" "FILETALK", "LET", "TED" 
   (course T02). Intermediate is "Queries using FOCUS: Retrieving, Selecting, 
   Sorting, Printing", "(SUB)HEAD", "(SUB)FOOT", "What are Master File
   Descriptions" (course B01), "Creating and Maintaining simple FOCUS
   databases", "Creating and modifying Master File Descriptions" (course B02).
   The more advanced courses cost Nfl. 2K - 4K and cover the rest of the 
   ground from MATCH, MISSING, FRL etc all the way to SU, SQL etc.


Summary:
-------

All in all quite a profitable day. It didn't seem as useful at the time, but
when writing up what I learnt it does seem to have been worth the effort. Hope
to see other Digital employees at future such meetings.


Appendix: Installations as of 31/12/88
--------

                                IBM    UNIX     VAX   WANG


IB (INT)    UK                  194       1     110      4
            Belgium              15       1      24      2
            France               73       1      17      0
            Ireland               2       0       2      0
            Luxembourg            1       0       0      0
            Netherlands          25      11      64      2
            Spain                14       8      23      2
            Switzerland          16       0       4      0
           
            TOTAL               340      22     244     10        
           
Europe      Austria               4       0       3      0
            W. Germany           62       0      22      2
            Italy                67       1      29      0
            Sweden               47       0      13      3
            Norway               23       0      10      1
            Finland              15       1      23      0
            Denmark               2       1       5      3 
                                                                         
            TOTAL               220       3     105      9
                                                                         
TOTAL       Europe              560      25     349     19
                                                                         
           
TOTAL       Asia/Pacific        228       4      27      0
            Latin America        28       0       3      0
            Mid. East/Africa     31       2      19      0
           
           
Grand TOTAL International       847      31     398     19    =    1295


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