On Oct 27, 2017, at 8:11 PM, David Adams wrote: > Plug-ins can yield time (in two flavors) to the scheduler, so they don't > *have* to be completely blocking. The original PDM code was not re-entrant > and that's legacy seems to have been haunting us for the 25 years since 4D > took it on.
Rumor has it that 4D is building a replacement for the 4D Internet Command plugin that will be implemented as native 4D commands. It will be like the new 4D Write Pro implementation. Not a plugin. (Heard it at a 4D Summit from 4D people.) Unknown if it will be thread-safe, but I would guess it will be. For sure it will not be blocking like the current plugin. They only patch the current plugin so that we can “get by” until this new work is done. They know the current plugin is not a long term solution. But to implement a good, long term solution takes time. Why do you think they bought the PDM plugin many years ago and did not just write their own or build it from scratch inside 4D? Because it is not easy. It is hard work to implement all the capabilities in that plugin and do a great job. Remember that 4D builds things that will last for decades. Think about that. We are using work that they released decades ago. So any new work needs to be done with the same care and forward thinking. It has to last for decades without the need for constant maintenance or rewrites. That has got to be hard to accomplish. 4D, Inc. does not have an unlimited budget. There are only so many engineers that can get work done. Decisions have to be made. Priorities have to be set. We may not all agree with their decisions or priorities, but we can understand them. And I forgot to mention that all these decisions have to result in a profit year after year after year. So far that has happened. For decades. They are still here and going strong. None of us are C++ programmers that have built a code base that runs on macOS and Windows — which is a constant moving target — and that must have backward compatibility with 4D code we have written decades ago. An interpreter for a language and a compiler that makes binaries for both operating systems. It has got to be a very hard task. Much harder than the kind of work we do with the results of all that work. Just to give it some perspective. We have a great platform here folks. Of course it can always get better. And I’m sure it will. Nobody can have everything immediately. It all takes time and money. I started making my living using 4D in 1990. 27 years with this great product. Literally millions of dollars in billable hours over all these years. I’m glad I got on board this ship and it’s really been a pretty good ride when I look back. I’m looking forward to 4D Summit in 2018 and all the new stuff they will announce. Looking forward to another 20 years. Thanks to Laurent Ribardière for making this all possible. I think we all owe him, at least I certainly do. Here is something fun. Google “4D creator”. See what the first item is. :) Tim Sent from my iPad ********************************************************************** 4D Internet Users Group (4D iNUG) FAQ: http://lists.4d.com/faqnug.html Archive: http://lists.4d.com/archives.html Options: http://lists.4d.com/mailman/options/4d_tech Unsub: mailto:[email protected] **********************************************************************
