From Where I Sit: Tractors and Graphical Development Tools

By Larry Eiss

Nineteen sixty-six was a memorable year for me. It was the year of the blizzard in Central New York. It had snowed four feet over a couple of days. I remember the morning after the storm had subsided. My father decided to begin the process of digging out. He and I went into the garage and got snow shovels. Then we opened the garage door and all we could see was a small open space a few inches wide at the top-left corner. The entire opening was filled with snow. We decided that discretion was the better part of valor and shut the garage door before the whole thing fell in on us.

Going out the front door proved easier since the porch roof protected that door better. We dug our way down to the driveway and saw that the car, which was parked beside the house, was completely invisible – hardly a bump in the white landscape.

I watched in awe as my father dug rectangular blocks of snow as wide and deep as the shovel. Undercutting them, he’d lift as much as the shovel could hold and throw it into an enormous pile he was creating. We (mostly he) shoveled snow for a very long time, but it was a lot of work for no real return, since the first plow didn’t come through for three days.

This year there was a respectable storm where I live on the first weekend in January. Two feet of snow fell on about a foot that was left over from Christmas. Unlike my father, I would have a heart attack if I shoveled snow all day, so I got on my trusty Ford 2000 tractor and pushed it out of the way.

Since I live on a private road, I am responsible for a total of a half-mile of plowing divided roughly equally between the road and my driveway. When I was finished, the driveway looked a lot like a bobsled run. Snow was piled high on both sides and the overhanging snow-laden trees brought a sense of enclosure, like a glistening tunnel.

There have been times in my life when I have lamented the winter cold and snow and eschewed the "unmanly" use of power equipment. Now that I am a middle-aged desk jockey, I think power equipment is the best thing since the automatic bread slicer, and I have come to love the cooler temperatures of winter and relish the spectacular beauty of snow.

In similar fashion, there was a time when I was a real code hound. I thought that graphical tools were for wimps and amateurs. Like my opinion about winter and power equipment however, my view on hand-written code has changed.

Late in 2002 I traveled to Portugal where I had the pleasure of demonstrating some of the new features in WebFOCUS Developer Studio Release 5 to our International WebFOCUS Advisory Council members. The theme of my presentation was the one about which I wrote in the last issue – hybrid development tools.

Following the presentation I demonstrated the capabilities of the Resource Layout Painter and the Report Painter working in concert to create a sophisticated HTML form. The form was replete with dynamically populated drop-down lists and buttons that called related reports in a variety of formats. By placing a hidden iFrame on the form, those reports were completely innocuous until called for by a click. The variable I created in the Report Painter that allowed me to filter my request was placed on the form automatically when the report was linked to it.

A style sheet, complete with background colors that matched my report and font assignments for the various buttons and other controls made the form look professional. I included an animated GIF image, some text and a logo. The effect was crisp, clean and professional. The most amazing part was that it took me less than five minutes from beginning to end!

From where I sit, that’s a pretty compelling reason to use graphical development tools. To see what they can do for your applications, contact your Information Builders Account Representative and ask for a demonstration.

I’m looking forward to a great 2003 and I wish peace and health for you as well.