Is Alpha v5 better than v7?

[georgefurnel]

I have read in another thread a comment by Thontlb that v5 is better than v7, the term bashing comes to mind. Would you please explain to my why this is the case? Even though I have already bought v7, should I rather be looking at v5 of wait for v8 before starting with new development?

Kind regards
George

[davej]

George,

Define the term 'better'. What one person likes, another dislikes - both for the same reason.

Dave

[Steve Wood]

George,

No you should not bother with any previous version, and besides you can't purchase version 5 unless someone out there wants to transfer license to you or has an unused license.

[Thontlb]

There are almost always more people viewing the V5 forum than V7 and fewer on V6 than V7. That should be some indication.

The intent of my previous posts were mainly to point out that V5 was faster, more stable, and used fewer resources than V7. Other than a few insignificant functions, bells and whistles versions 6 & 7 didn't add much of value for the desktop user that couldn't already be done in V5. The "shaky" claim for both is that it's the easiest database for non-programmers. That's debatable, but you will find that you need xbasic to create a decent application and xdialog to make a very sophisticated app. For those who have trouble learning xbasic, wait until you try xdialog. For a non-programmers database, it's advisable to learn two programming languages each with different syntaxes to make the most out of A5.

There are many features of Alpha that I love and I can't seem to give up on it. I buy every upgrade & most add-ins but always end up going back to Access. I find the syntax easier and code-reuse feasible. As I've said before, it's boils down to one's experience. Those who learned xbasic w/o having learned vba first feel that it's a simpler way to program, especially by using action scripting rather than coding. I happened to learn VBA first and find xbasic syntax to be bulk and the terminology not as logical. I've been told that the lack of add-ins for A5 is because it's so complete that it needs none. I have may of them for Access, each of which would be of great value to A5.

I'm sure that I'll buy Alpha V8 when it comes out. Maybe by then I'll be up to speed with the value of the webserver, although there's not much action in those forums either. It was pointed out to me than A5 it may be a great platform for an intranet app. I hadn't considered that before and imagine that it would do so, overcoming issues of speed with apps over the net.

I tend to bash v7 out of frustration when the real issue for me is that all of the versions fail to perform a task or two that can easily be done in Access without resorting to using two languages. I was disappointed in the "upgades" finding that very little changed for the desktop user except slowing the applications down.

That was the long answer to some questions that ween't asked.
Steve had it right. If you want patches and support, buy V7. I imagine that user support in the forums will be around for quite a while since many users haven't found the need to upgrade past v5. I have them all but use v5 for distibutables since I have the 3 user runtime. That's one upgrade I don't plan on spending good money after bad.

[Steve Wood]

I should have added that its just my opinion and I never used v5. Its more that I always expect better things out of each upgrade, and I ignore, some would say wrongly, the downsides.

I tend to stay right out front on patches and upgrades (my faithful Paint Shop Pro v3, circa 1993, is a notable exception). But I also sometimes pay a small price in terms of new bugs, etc. I also have to shell out the cash for the upgrade sooner rather than later. That style isn't for everyone.

[whanigsberg]

Version seven is an improvement over five. Even if you were able to purchase five you would be ill-advised to develop in it.

I work at a large institution. We maintain the functioning applications created in V5 in V5. Messing with something that works properly wastes time and human resources. This backlog of functioning applications rather than nostalgia explains the continued traffic on the V5 forum.

When I write something new I use the current version.

Errors in five are no longer being corrected. Version seven has many new features and an enriched programming language. It is more (not less) stable than version five.

It is true that seven loads slower. At the recent conference Selwyn said this was being addressed, perhaps in version eight.

[CALocklin]

Another 2 cents....

While I a get some complaints about the speed of v7 from users who've been upgraded from a v5 application, I still much prefer the v7 development environment. (And, as Bill suggested, I don't upgrade them to v7 unless there is a reason and that reason usually has something to do with the web.) As I've stated in another thread, those users who start in v7 seldom complain other than about the initial load speed and even that is rare.

I don't believe that I've ever heard anyone say they prefer the v5 development environment over the v7 environment. And, I agree with Bill that v7 is more stable - although maybe only slightly.

In my opinion, there is really no choice when you are starting a new application - do it in v7. (And, in case you are wondering, I've used every version since A4v2.)

[Bob Houle]

The real answer is and always has been "hardware".

I've got an AMD FX-55 and went to Tom's Hardware Guide (web site) and compared the latest FX-60 against my FX-55 on the multi-tasking tests and guess what? The new CPU will do the job twice as fast as mine, and mine's only 18 months old.... Moore's Law is bang on.

I've attached a sample..

--Bob

[Doug Page]

Start now with v7

George,

Don't wait! If you are really interested in learning about Alpha, in the words of Nike - Just do it. And do it with v7.

My experience has been from Alpha4v2 (DOS based) to present. Only until the last year have I really started to "look" at the programming side. And despite what some others have said, I have created some pretty sophisticated projects. And these projects are also "real" applicatons as they are used by others, look professional, do error checking and above all do what they were intended to do being developed in a much shorter time than I ever could have done in any other system. I have used many different progamming languages over the last 25+ years and several other different database programs (Oracle, dBase, Foxpro and Access). There are certainly pros and cons to each. The speed of development is what got me hooked with Alpha. Although v7 does take a little longer to initially start up, the functionality that it provides is quite amazing. Some of the apps that I had written in v5 did feel very much slower in startup when switiching to v6 and v7 only to find that I had not been setting things up efficiently. Once I made changes to my startup routines, you hardly noticed the difference.

A word of caution if you have used other database packages before - Alpha is different. Spend time with the tutorials and get to know the Alpha way because if you don't you will struggle. I tried for a long time to do it the way I knew and things were very difficult. Once I spent time with the tutorials and learned more about Action Scripting things came much easier. The whole development environment is much better in v7 than previous versions for the beginner as it is so much easier to "peak" at the code and if necessary make some small changes to it without having to convert it all to XBasic and leave the hand-holding Action Scripting environment. Terry mentioned XDialog above and how difficult it is. XDialog allows you to create very sophisticated dialogs which is a Windows (not Alpha) term for things like File Open boxes, etc. I just started using this form of dialog and was blown away with how easy it was to create them from a genie and then if you really want to adjust them, in v7 you can actually edit the code with ease and still not have to leave the Action Scripting environment. The Tutorial for XDialog is very good and for me I found it very easy to follow. A new project that I am working on now has dialogs that incorporate progressive lookups to aid the user in selecting correct entries - all without any programming. But do note that although you are not really writing the underlying code, you still need to understand programming terms and logic and database terms and logic. Like everything else in life, you can get by with a little but the more you know the better and easier it gets.

So as you can see I'm very happy with Alpha 5 v7. Whether you will be as happy is dependant on you. You will need to take some time to learn your way around the development environment and start to learn the basics. Who knows, by the time you get the basics down, v8 may be out and the slightly slower startup could be all but a moot point. As for stability issues, I have much fewer problems in v7 than any previous version. I attribute most of this to the fact that I am learning more efficient ways of creating my programs. There have been messages on the board though that do point out that some strange things can occur on some systems - some hardware problems, some poorly written code by the user, etc. You will find that the Alpha developers are very quick to respond to bugs and you will see them frequent this message board.

You mentioned "bashing" in your message and rather than saying bashing I think it is more just a fact of some people prefer one thing and others prefer something else. You will find that alot of the people that have problems with Alpha usually come from another development environment and are finding it difficult to change as they already now how to do it one way and find it very difficult doing it another. I remember how difficult I found it when switching from my old DOS file managers and editors to the newer Windows versions.

Welcome to the Alpha community. Enjoy your time with v7.

Doug

[georgefurnel]

Thanx

The feedback has been very insightful, thanks to everyone for contributing.