Newsletter January 2010

The past year has certainly had its challenges and required some deft footwork at times. Nonetheless, we look forward to 2010 and take this opportunity to thank all our customers for their support over the past year and success and good fortune in the year to come.

amazing increase in speed.

Most of the migration work has involved data conversion from the original RMS structures, a general UNIX learning exercise and some specific code changes to support the differences in user interface and printing services. Most importantly there has been no requirement to recode our precious program logic or change our business procedures and as a result, no need to retrain our users.

Throughout the migration we have received excellent support from Rapidgen Software. Most of our questions have simply related to our learning curve of both RPL syntax and UNIX, however we have had a small number of issues related to our specific requirements (some to do with our version of Linux and some to do with specifics in our Filetab code that did not convert) and Rapidgen Software always quickly came up with a neat and simple solution that enabled us to proceed with the migration uninterrupted.

For 21 years Duncan Rogers Engineering have been using a stock control and order processing system written in Filetab-D and operating on an Open VMS VAX system. It's a good system and does the job that we want. Over the past couple of years we have been looking to move this application away from the ageing hardware and have experimented with a number of software vendor solutions which have not worked or been too costly. We could not find a package to replace our bespoke application and are not the size of company that could afford a full SAP "makeover".

We contacted Rapidgen Software who claimed that they could breath new life into our Filetab code and have it run on a Windows or Unix server with minimal code changes or effort. Just 12 months after our initial contact with Rapidgen Software and with the help of a specific Filetab/RPL syntax converter, our new application is live and running on a Linux server. Our users have hardly noticed the difference apart from the

via a Language called XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) which is itself a variety of XML. RapidGen Software can advise on this process or create transformation scripts on a consultancy basis.

The generated XML contains a reference to a default XSL transform to render the file as HTML when viewed with an XSL-enabled Web browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. This provides a convenient way to inspect the content of the DDS in a human-readable form. (Note that GDE already contains a limited save-to-XML facility which is incompatible with the new schema; if required, an additional transform is available to convert back to this deprecated format.)

A future version of GDE will include the ability to import XML also, to support save/restore operations. It is intended to extend this to other utilities too (e.g. the RFL Forms Editor and the GPE Profile Editor) so that in time XML will replace "serial format" altogether.

Data Dictionary Output to XML

One of the most useful IT innovations of recent times is XML (eXtensible Markup Language), a generalization of HTML which allows hierarchical data structures to be stored in a self-describing text format known as a schema. Because one XML schema can easily be transformed automatically into another, or into other formats such as HTML, PDF etc., XML is now the medium of choice for transporting structured data between applications and for separating content from presentation in Web pages.

In the next release of Genius, GDE includes a facility to dump the Data Dictionary (DDS) in XML format instead of the traditional "serial" format, making it possible to import Genius data definitions into other XML-compatible packages. An example command is

RCM> GDE SAVE=RSRDDS.XML XML

Usually the XML must first be converted into whatever schema the receiving program requires, typically

Genius Runs on Windows 7

Windows 7 is now out and has been generally well received. Windows Vista was not widely adopted, being heavy on resources and constantly nagging users with security warnings. Windows 7 refines the Vista codebase and runs much more efficiently - unlike Vista, it will even run on a netbook.

Genius users will not be surprised to hear that Genius runs quite happily on Windows 7 with no changes to the code or installation process - and with its tiny footprint is quite at home on a netbook.

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Now that our migration is complete and we are live, we are ready to start implementing some of the system development that we have, over the past couple of year, put on hold. We are delighted with the speed and success of the migration process and are excited about the opportunities that now lie ahead.

Thank you to all at Rapidgen Software.

Andrew Rogers

Duncan Rogers (Engineering) Ltd

There are no separate language kits for the product but the program modules dynamically determine the LOCALE being used for each process and set the reserved system variable *SYSTEM_LANGUAGE accordingly. This allows any RapidGen program to select which help text files are used.

However when it comes to displaying text strings and messages in programs using GUI panels or DISPLAY verbs, the prospect of having to add code to allow each panel or text display to operate in multi-lingual mode is rather daunting.

To simplify the procedure and to enable existing programs to be converted to operate in any language, a utility program has been supplied with the Genius kit product that will identify all text items within program sources and replace these with variables.

The program works semi-interactively and allows you to determine which text strings are static and which are language/locale dependent. When selection is complete, it replaces the strings with variables throughout the source code and creates a separate copy file containing the variable definitions. This copy file can then be duplicated and translated for each locale that you wish to support.

A couple of further manual changes are required to the source to ensure the correct locale strings are loaded at the start of the program and "job done".

We owe him a huge debt of gratitude for it was Richard who maintained support for our customers and kept the Genius codebase secure in the period 2003 - 2005.

When RapidGen Software took over in 2006 and many of the team returned, Richard was responsible for getting the technical effort up and running again.

He will be remembered with great affection by all his colleagues as a brilliant scholar, technical wizard and man of strong ethical principles.

Month) providing ISAM-based data views containing data formatted appropriately (codes expanded, descriptions added, etc.).

They have installed the Genius Client on over 90 PCs, running various versions of Windows. This allows access to these extract files either directly from their OpenVMS servers or via the network.

Key personnel can now use the Executive Information tools within Genius to drill down through data in various ways allowing trends to be identified, anomalies to be located and, in general, to access the information held within the application. Users can apply existing routines, or write new ones, to perform their own analysis without affecting or altering the core application.

This has allowed the client to meet their users' need of looking at their information, in their own way, in an effective manner without compromising applications that are core to the business.

Many organisations have legacy systems that started life on Digital (DEC) hardware, running core business applications effectively in terms of both cost and operation. Frequently these store data efficiently but in a format and structure that best suits the core application. It is not in a flexible or convenient form for ad hoc analysis or data drilling which would release the information that is vital in tuning a business operation.

One of our US based clients has addressed this typical mismatch of primary application purpose and management information needs, by bringing in the Genius Client and using the Genius Executive tools.

This client has been using the Genius Suite for over 18 years and has core applications on OpenVMS VAX platforms. Programs to produce Genius Executive extracts have been developed and are run on a regular basis (typically overnight or once a

range of products and services offered to IBM's clients, and those of the partners/affiliates.

This year Rapidgen joined IBM PartnerWorld to hear about new IBM product offerings, their R & D and market research.

Because IBM provide their PartnerWorld affiliates with access to IBM's own internal technical resources, we believe this can benefit RapidGen Software and our Genius Users. We look forward to demonstrating this during 2010.

Over the decades, IBM has built a strong relationship with a vast customer base. Their range of products and services continues to grow and today their global reach is supported by some 400,000 members of staff.

But IBM has come to realise that they cannot anticipate or solve every challenge in today's rapidly evolving IT universe. PartnerWorld seeks to address this by collaborating with independent enterprises to extend the