You're never out of control(s) with Clarion.NET!

Hi gang! It's been a few weeks since my last blog here. Suffice to say that I have been very busy testing and documenting both Clarion 7 and the Clarion.NET. Lately I've been busy documenting our Clarion.Net controls and those found in the .Net Framework, so I thought I'd share a few observations.

You may recall Bob Zaunere's blog titled: "Five Designers for 4 Platforms" If you missed it, you can click here:

Bob's Designers Blog

In the Clarion.Net product, there is a "WinForms" Designer for building Windows desktop applications, a "Web Forms" Designer for building web applications (ASP.NET), and a "Compact Framework" Designer that is used for creating Windows Mobile applications.

The Designers all work in a similar fashion regarding the population of controls. The Clarion 7 IDE has a Toolbox from which all controls available for the target structure are listed.

Let's start with the WinForms Designer.

The first thing you will notice is that we have .Net versions of the two most important controls that you can't live without; the LIST and ENTRY controls. There are other custom controls provided by Clarion, but I can't overemphasize the significance of these two controls, the functionality they provide is unmatched by any standard .Net control!

The ENTRY control provides support for all of the Clarion picture tokens, and easy data binding to any data element.

Can you imagine life without the ENTRY? I know I can't.

The LIST control is just incredible. Expanding on the functionality in our Win32 LIST control, our Clarion.Net LIST control provides a ton of additional options that will bring the power of the Clarion LIST to the .NET world.

These two controls are the bread and butter of Clarion applications, and are truly indispensable.

The next thing you will notice is that you are no longer limited to just Clarion controls. In fact, all of the controls that are available in the .NET Framework are available in the Clarion IDE. As I was documenting the WinForms controls, I quickly counted 48 controls.

The documentation for each of these new controls is pretty good. One thing I really liked was the grouping by function. I won't list all of the controls here, as they are all documented in the Clarion Help, but here is a quick listing by functionality:

1 audio control
4 controls that execute commands
2 data binding and navigation controls
1 data display control
2 date setting controls
7 dialog box controls
1 graphics display control
1 graphics storage control
6 controls that allow grouping of other controls
4 information display (read-only) controls
2 menu controls
7 controls that allow selection from a list
3 text editing controls
2 user help controls
4 value setting controls
1 web page display control

In addition there are over 800 controls available from the official MS WinForms site, and you can make use of any of them.

Check them out here: WinForms Control Gallery

Next, I turned my attention to the Web Forms Designer, and the list of default controls available. I counted 51 different controls! But this was the tip of the iceberg.

As you begin your first ASP.NET project with Clarion.NET, you will soon discover that you are now part of a massive group of developers who have contributed over 900 different controls. This can be viewed and downloaded from the Gallery of Controls found here.

Web Forms Control Gallery

My final documentation journey brought me to the Compact Framework Designer. Due to natural restrictions on Mobile Devices, there are only 9 standard controls, but the functions are there for graphics display, text display and editing, date selection, phone operations, and general program commands. With the proliferation of hand-held devices in the world today, I anticipate that this will be a welcome addition to many of you.

In summary, the tools that will be at your disposal in the Clarion.NET are deep. Putting on my developer hat, I am excited at the opportunities ahead doing programming in Clarion.NET.

As we get closer to our release date, we will be posting some cool examples that showcase many of these controls. Looking forward to sharing a lot more with all of you soon!

What does Clarion.NET really offer over C#?

What does Clarion.Net *really* offer over C# or put another way I might ask how do you go about choosing which .Net language to develop in? If I were to compare two languages to decide which one is better, the most important factor for me is the runtime libraries delivered with the language. To be really productive with a language means mastering the supporting libraries and classes, and that mastery is the result of experience. Learning the syntax of any language is not much of a problem. But knowing the functions and classes that exist in the runtime library is more important then syntax because that knowledge can save you hours (or even days) of coding. And having a runtime library suited for a specific task (creating database applications) is equally important.

Now consider the .Net libraries and classes. All .Net languages use the same .Net Framework Class Library (FCL). For us developers this means whether you develop in Clarion.Net, C# or VB.Net, when you display a window or a dialog box you are getting a Winform created from the System.Windows.Forms.Form namespace of the .NET framework class library (FCL). And a Winform has the same methods, properties and events available regardless of the language used to create it.

So does it matter which language you choose for your .NET development? Yes, it definitely matters. Why? Because two different languages that both support the .NET framework are just that, different. The important difference is the runtime libraries. Clarion.Net has full support for the .NET FCL, just as any first-class .NET language must, but it also has the .NET version of the Clarion runtime library (RTL), which means it has the familiar built-in data access methods, the Clarion database Drivers, the View Engine, the Report engine, Queues, Groups, and everything else that defines Clarion.

So what does Clarion.Net really offer over C# or VB.Net? Here’s my answer to that question.

1) A Runtime library that you already know (and one that’s been designed for building database applications).

Clarion knowledge and experience transfer quite nicely to Clarion.Net. So much so, that even if you learned Clarion back in the days of DOS, dropped out of development and just came back recently, your knowledge of the Clarion RTL would make you immediately comfortable and productive in the .Net world.

2) A language designed for Database Applications

Clarion was designed from day one to build business applications, the same can’t be said about general purpose languages. And using Clarion.Net you have complete flexibility to code it your way, using PROCEDURES and ROUTINES, or completely Class-based code, or a mix of the two.

But I’d guess that at this point many of you are raising your hand and shouting “wait you forgot the most important thing!” And you’re right, because I haven’t mentioned Clarion’s ace-in-the-hole, its legacy and trademark feature; Code Generation.

Even if all other things are equal, the productivity gains that the Application Generator and the Templates deliver tip the scales heavily in favor of the Clarion language and IDE. Take a Clarion developer familiar with the Win32 version of the RTL, add just a little bit of new knowledge on the .Net changes in the RTL, and point at a spec for any database application. The Clarion developer will complete the .Net application significantly faster, and with much less custom code than any VB.Net or C# developer. And did I mention ongoing maintenance of the application? I'll leave that subject for another post.

One final comment, there are other code gen products out there today, and still others coming that will do their very best to mimic Clarion. But don't be fooled, twenty years experience in Code Gen technology is not something you pickup at the local grocer. If you look at any of those other products you’ll find they don’t support round-trip code generation, you generate and use it, or you re-generate and start making your changes all over again. And they also don’t integrate with a Data Dictionary. The Templates, if they even exist, are a watered down imitation of what you’re accustomed to. They don't have the concept of .App and .Dct files, and most important from where I sit, they don’t do the Clarion language!

What do you think? You can post a comment right here, or sound off over in the Clarion.Net forum.

Miscellaneous

You're never out of control(s) with Clarion.NET!

What does Clarion.NET *really* offer over C#?

2) A language designed for Database Applications

What does Clarion.NET really offer over C#?