Can anyone give a cause, why to use Softvelocity's Clarion as Coding-Language?

Hi aikimark, long not seen :)

Good point, but it covers not the question, cause it is no Benifit, it is like more a Handicap (cause there is no handy Migration to another Coding-Language)

any further suggestions?

meikl :-)

meikl

I didn't pay any attention to the author name when I posted.  Good to see you again.  Hope all is well with you.

I'm not a fan of the language, so I'm probably on your side with this issue.  My comment was meant to address the 'why stay with this language' part of your question.

Can you functionally stabilize the application and do new work with a different language?

Hi aikimark,

sorry for delay, was absent on weekend.

>Can you functionally stabilize
sure

>do new work with a different language?
sure

best i would reverseengeneer and port this app to another coding-language, but i am not the decider :(

meikl :-)

What would be your target (desired) language?

You might get some feel for the size of the project by contacting some of the top experts in the target language that have enabled their Hire Me link.  There's an outside chance that one of the top experts knows, or worked in, Clarion.

One would hope that there is a semi-automated solution, where statements can be translated by machine and a human expert needs to go through and clean up, tweak, and test.

It has been 20 years since I've seen Clarion used by a developer.

hi aikimark,

>What would be your target (desired) language?
i would have no problem to port it to delphi, c#, java, etc.
also i wouldn't not do with an automatism, cause clarion is a language of workarounds,
which are not needed by another coding-language. i would guess the source will be reduced to 25%.

>It has been 20 years since I've seen Clarion used by a developer.
there may not much changed since....

well as stated i'm not the owner nor the decider. i have just to keep it running...

meikl :-)

well closing this thread now,

as thought there is no benefit compared to other "modern" coding-languages.
in my opinion its more a handicap, and my experience about clarion is, that this is a language
where you have already to be prepared to do more a workaround in coding
than a straight forward coding.

a list of handicaps:
- no real treeview
- limited controls
- no real control-container
- no real oo-coding possible (even not with ABC)
- latest version is a .NET-derivat (better code than with C#)
- no control about screen-drawing (which lacks by screenrefreshing on long ops)
- no effectiv windows message-handling
- no community
- expensive third-party-tools, which mostly do not work as expected (most are only wrappers wrapped around commercial service DLLs)
- ugly helpfile with not working (wrong) samples and missing topics, rare help about abc (the clarion oo-concept)
- no real exception-handling
- ugly puffer-logic for data-record-handling (most coders having problems with this)
- only one connection to an sql-db possible, which must initiated at app-start and kept alive until app-end
(if connection lost, a reconnect is no more possible (you have to restart the whole app))
- could continue this list endless ....

meikl :-)

the only point to keep clarion alive ... but better to port asap

Good luck with the port.

The list of Clarion 'down-sides' is impressively bad.

if i could port, thanks, aikimark, but i'm not the owner of the app.
the owner will keep clarion because of the accepted answer.

meikl  :-)