On Wednesday, Servoy offered a preview webinar for the changes coming in version 4 — due for public beta in January, and aimed for release in late Q2 2008. The most high-profile change in this release is the move to Eclipse platform for an IDE, abandoning the somewhat limited proprietary IDE in current versions of Servoy.
This is an interesting move strategically for Servoy. Personally, I’m thrilled. I use Eclipse, it’s a top-notch IDE and will offer Servoy lots and lots of developer features that would otherwise likely not exist due to the resources it would require to develop them internally. I think for many Servoy developers, it’s a little intimidating — since many have come from Filemaker or 4GL environments where a lot of things are managed for you. I expect, however, that Servoy will do a good job of hiding the complexity from those who are not interested in it.
For developers who use SVN, add Java, XML or other to their Servoy solutions, it will be an incredible advantage. Need to use XML in your Servoy solution? Why not use Oxygen XML, right in your Eclipse installation to edit it? Good stuff.
Moving to file-based solutions will be great, too, and make it a lot easy to manage modules, and moving code around between solutions — which is quite burdensome to manage with the current SQL-based repository.
Overall, I’m excited about the possibilities — and look forward to getting my hands on the beta!
Hi Greg. Found your blog today – whilst trying to get more info on Servoy. I have come across some of the usual mud slinging between various camps (our tool is better than your tool blah blah blah). The time you have invested in Servoy development suggests it’s certainly worth us giving it serious consideration, some of what I have read was making it sound like it was only good for browsing a few tables rather than an environment for a comprehensive application.
Just thought you might like to know people do read this stuff and it can have an influence. cheers
Great, Harry…glad it was of some help. I enjoy Servoy…it’s an incredibly productive environment for database applications of any level of complexity, IMHO.
greg.
Coming from a .Net and C++ background, I love Servoy. It does have limitations, but overall it’s a great IDE for knocking up
business apps in a snap. And just like any IDE, you need to first eval the needs of the job and select the right tool.
Keep up the posts on Servoy Greg!