Among the highlights:
R:Base 7.5 is pretty much ready for "prime time," even if it is still in beta testing. The new features in forms, reports, user interface, languages, and other aspects of the program have most developers planning to upgrade their customers or companies as soon as possible. The content was dense and thorough, including hundreds of examples of productive uses of new features.
There will soon be a time-limited free evaluation copy of R:BASE available for download on the rbase.com web site.
There is also a fantastic R:BASE tutorial. (That's the free gift that Gunnar was hinting about). The PDF version of the tutorial is 505 pages long, and walks a new user (or someone returning to R:Base after a long hiatus) through everything from planning and designing a database, to creating it, building forms and reports, and tying the whole thing together through menus, as well as a table of contents and index. This also will be made available on the web site.
Marketing plans are in the works for making a lot of people aware of the re-emergence of R:BASE as a top-flight database environment, in a cooperative effort among the Authorized R:BASE Developers and RBTI.
Aleksey Chuyasov, as always, worked quietly and efficiently in the back of the room, adding features and fixing little problems as people pointed them out.
Donna, Rafee, and Razzak hosted a marvelous multi-ethnic buffet dinner Saturday night.
And we had the great privilege of being surrounded all weekend by hundreds of young people dressed to look like various heroes, heroines, and villains of every anime comic or cartoon known to humankind, as the Radisson was also hosting a gathering of anime fans.
