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An Omnis-greybeard’s comments
Greetings to all you folks just getting started with this great language! So glad to see it is still alive and kicking.
I began working with Omnis 3 in 1985. Was new to database design and applications software in general. Was building a sales management system for a family owned bridal business in Pennsylvania, US. We started with one Mac (no hard drives – floppy only). After a couple years ( working alone) the system grew to about 10 Macs in 3 buildings all connected with… APPLESHARE! We had a MacII as the “server” for the database and I think it had a SLOW 20 MEG HD attached to it.
Went on to do a number of contract jobs over the following years, and then build a complete sales management system with accounting, inventory, sales and the whole magilla. I really think it was the amazing capabilities of Omnis (V7 by then) that allowed one person to tackle such a complex project.
Omnis may seem a bit obscure to new users, but once you get the ‘hang’ of the style it is SOOOO powerful and capable of nearly anything. I think the early days it was very poorly marketed and managed, and many inferior languages prevailed (Where is PowerBuilder today?). And there was so little documentation – David Swain, a VERY sage and knowledgeable developer produced the first of any sort of manual/training for the language.
All the best wishes to you all and I really hope Omnis “rises from the ashes” and get the recognition and use it deserves.
=Alan Reinhart -
2 Replies
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Hi Alan,
…when I started, ( on a Video Genie,…) there were no floppies only cassette tape. And the task was, get some memory and write a complete sw package. In my office is still a CBM ….
Also development was different, and compared to today the users understood sw development takes time….
With all the PowerBuilders and NoCode stuff, the job of sw development changed a lot. As everybody can do it… and everything..
I hope with the story now happening all over the world, a lot things are changeing as the people see what can be done online.. And I really hope this will also boost tools like Omnis…
How about a booking system for a small comunity, where u can book your schedules for a hair cut, date in a restaurant.. And as everybody is connected, you could think of adding benefits..
I know there a such systems now… but why not make one with Omnis, maybe as a community project, to show more people the benefit of Omnis and the flexibility of the team around.
Stay healthy
BR Rainer -
…Update one of the good things about lockdown and homeoffice is: I have now more times to do things like reading old books of my archive, getting into retro computing of my past..
And now ( 40 years later ) I understood why Im always the 2nd with what Im doing or the hardware I have used…
Examples :
I had a TI 99/4A, and they wanted to build a pc with this chipset. But the winner was Intel
I had a Sinclair QL : a cool machine but : it was the PC who made it. I wrote my 1st solutions in the included package ( Archive) ..
At the end I also had a IBM PC XT : with harddrive, used Turbo Basic, Turbo Pascal, Clipper, DBASE, OpenAccess and later C with DBU.
I started programming in COBOL , but the world wanted VB and other stuff.
But the cool thing on it, you still get emulators, OpenCobol is cool and Clipper / Visual Object is now X# and used C#.
But I still love Omnis and Mac, even its hard. The people in my company want C++, C#, Python.. and for sure .. everything is open source…
BR Rainer
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