BUSINESS BASIC....

I have been a business basic programmer for almost fourteen years, "cutting my teeth" on BB4 (MAI/Basic Four) and evolving through the BBx/Progression (Basis, International) series of interpreters. From my earliest exposure to business basic, I was fascinated at the prospect of learning to program. I would take the BB4 Language Reference manual (which made the grand assumption that you knew something about programming---which I didn't) home at night to study. During the day, I would break out into a program and study its construction. Yes, those were the "good old days": where 8k programs meant you were pushing the memory envelope, and variable names were limited to two characters. Remember when?

I can still remember the anticipation and the excitement I felt the day my wife called the office to tell me that my package had arrived from Basis, International. You see, I had ordered the new BBx/Progression 2 interpreter. I can still remember trying to eat my dinner and read the new user reference manual at the same time. My wife, of course, could not understand my excitement. At the time, I was not even employed as a programmer. But for me, the contents of that box contained the equivalent of a shiny, new, red bicycle. In my mind, business basic had arrived!

Over the years that followed, each time Basis released a new interpreter, I faithfully bought the upgrade: first, Progression/3, and then Progression/4. I was determined that my skills as a programmer should evolve along with the product. Each new release of an interpreter seemed to me to bring with it more power and more opportunity for the programmer. Nevertheless, I was little more than a part-time, in-house programmer for the local rental firm which employed me.

But, that all changed for me in 1991 when I took a job as a programmer for Business Computer Systems, a Master Developer for State of the Art. Now, for the last five years, as I have worked in and with State of the Art's M·A·S 90 Evolution/2© accounting package, I have witnessed my own evolution into a more accomplished programmer. And at the same time, I have had to ask myself whether all of my sacrificing has been worth the efforts. You see, within that same period of time, I have also witnessed Microsoft, Windows, and Visual Basic become a dominant presence in the PC marketplace.

So, like T-Rex, who must have felt like a fairly accomplished hunter in his day, as a character-based business basic programmer, I began to feel somewhat of a dinosaur. I came to the realization that at some point in the not-so-distant future a time would come that would find little or no need for my programming services--that I would, as had T-Rex before me, simply become extinct.

What was I going to do? My answer was to begin collecting a library of works devoted to Visual Basic, object-oriented programming, and graphical user interfaces. I purchased a copy of Visual Basic and was determined--albeit half-heartedly--to begin the pain-staking process of learning an entirely new language. Though I devoted countless nights to reading in order to grasp concepts considered "foreign" to character-based programmers, family demands and workload precluded me from anything more than a cursory introduction to coding in Visual Basic. So, it seemed inevitable to me that I would wake up one morning with no job and, unfortunately, only marginally prepared to seek another.

Today, however, I am here to tell you that the future doesn't seem as bleak to this business basic programmer as it once appeared. For in April of this year, State of the Art made a major pronouncement: M·A·S 90© was going GUI, with the initial release of core modules to begin in June. For those of us in the Developer channel who had heard this all before, our initial response was: "Yeah, right!" State of the Art's previous attempts at taking M·A·S 90 GUI (Momentum and M·A·S 90/G) were either never completed or never released from beta. So, there was some initial skepticism, at least on my part.

But, as the June deadline approached, so too did a preview CD of the new M·A·S 90 for Windows product. And, I must admit, I was impressed with what I saw: not only had State of the Art succeeded in converting its core modules (A/R, A/P, G/L, & B/R) into GUI applications, but they looked like real windows applications, not some hollow imitations! But how did they do it? And so quickly, too?

As I was to find out a short time later, State of the Art's decision to take M·A·S 90 GUI involved nothing short of moving its flagship product to a completely new business basic interpreter: Providex (Sybex/BBICON). Wait a minute! Everybody knows that business basic doesn't do windows! Right?

Wrong, as I was to discover! I persuaded my boss to purchase a copy of Providex as soon as we confirmed that this was to be the language of choice for State of the Art. This time, we weren't going to be left on the bottom of the pile as the "upgrade" push began. We wanted to get a head start on the "ramp-up" for this new language. But guess what I discovered as I read through the language reference manual--I already knew 90% of the Providex language! Sure, there were a bunch of new directives to learn regarding the GUI interface, and there was the NOMADS screen designer which had to be learned. But, at least I wasn't going to have to learn a new language wholesale! What a relief!

So, from my perspective as a field programmer, I applaud State of the Art for their bold move. Not that my opinion counts for very much out in Irvine; it's just that what I do for a living is very much associated with what they do with their accounting package. For me, their decision to move to Providex has breathed new life into my career as a programmer and given me hope for a much longer future in the business. And the more I work with Providex, the more confident I am in making such an assertion.

Keep in mind, however, that I have only been actively working with Providex for a little short of one month, though I have been studying the language for several months prior to this. The initial conversion of our flagship M·A·S 90 product (Automated Rental Management) from the character-based BBx/4 to the character-based Providex interpreter took only a day-and-a-half, and it was a relatively painless process as conversions go. Now, again, it took only a day-and-a-half to completely convert 384 program files, make some manual adjustments to a handful of those, and then to test the success of the conversion. To me, this was nothing short of remarkable!

But, it gets even better. From what I have experienced, the beauty of a language like Providex is that the character-based and GUI programs are completely interoperable. So, much as I would like nothing better than to be able to release a completely GUI version of our software, I don't have to suffer a loss of sales while the GUI conversion is in progress. I can release the GUI programs as they become available--in stages, if necessary. Eventually, the entire module will be GUI-enabled and my client base upgraded as necessary.

While my choice of a GUI business basic was dependent upon others, you may find that Providex might not be suitable as your language of choice when it comes to GUI-enabling your applications. There are, of course, other GUI business basics on the market. The important thing to consider is whether or not you will choose, as applications designers, to bring your products into the 21st century. Let's face it: Windows, and Windows-based applications are here to stay--and for a very long time! So, if the choice you make is for the ultimate survival of your application, then start looking for a GUI business basic to make it happen! It's important that we, as programmers, move to support those forward thinking developers determined to lift business basic out of the Jurassic basement.

No matter which business basic you finally choose to GUI-enable your applications, there is something that you should keep in mind: as programmers, we're moving into a world of event-based programming. For the character-based programmer, this represents a fundamental change in our traditional liner way of thinking. In the past, we have designed programs that flowed in a particular sequence, paused on occasion for input from the user, evaluated the results of that input, and then continued on in a predetermined manner. In the event-based world of programming, the end user is pretty much in the driver's seat when it comes to determining the sequence of events. So, if we find terms such as "object-oriented" and "event-based programming" to be foreign to our vocabularies, then it's time to invest in a good book on these subjects. A study of these concepts will prepare us for the work which lies ahead.

As for myself--I'm having more fun at programming now than I ever have at any point in my fourteen years. Each day is filled with new and exciting challenges in this GUI world of programming. And, best of all, I'm doing it with business basic! No longer do I see myself as sharing anything in common with old T-Rex. You see, to my way of thinking business basic----well, it's not just for dinosaurs anymore!

Terry Bauer is employed by Business Computer Systems, San Antonio, Texas, as Senior Programmer and Director of Product Development. His e-mail address is buscom!terry@attmail.com.

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