SheerPower 4GL Home

General Questions

Q. What is SheerPower 4GL?
A. SheerPower 4GL is a next generation database language for Windows. It includes a Rapid Development Environment (SPDEV) and a fourth-generation Database Language (SP4GL).

Q. Who Benefits from using SheerPower 4GL?
A. Novices, hobbyists and professionals all benefit from using SheerPower 4GL!

Q. What operating systems does SheerPower 4GL support?
A. SheerPower 4GL runs on Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows NT.

Q. Does SheerPower run on Windows 95?
A. No.

Q. Why are you giving SheerPower 4GL away for free?
A. We give SheerPower 4GL to you for FREE as an exchange. We want your feedback, and we want SheerPower 4GL to be used by lots of people. We hope that over time people will use SheerPower 4GL for commercial or business purposes and will buy our SheerPower 4GL Licenses. Please send your feedback (negative or positive) to:

sheerpower@ttinet.com

Q. The SheerPower documentation states that SheerPower is much like structured BASIC, but that it is "beyond" basic. Does this mean if I know how to program in BASIC that the same syntax is usable by SheerPower? Based on the sample menu program I've gone through in the documentation I would guess the answer is no.
A. SheerPower 4GL is based on ANSI BASIC (this is also what TrueBASIC and Visual BASIC are based on). The ANSI standard did not include MENUS or fancy DIALOGBOX statements, so we enhanced SheerPower to include these as well. However, the statements for LOGIC FLOW and FUNCTIONS and such are all BASIC syntax driven. If you have used BASIC, SheerPower should be easy to pickup. If it is not, please tell us which things in the manual are confusing or even wrong. We will fix them!!

Q. Can SheerPower make .EXE files?
A. SheerPower 4GL is an "incremental compiler". This means that when given SOURCE CODE, SheerPower compiles it into BYTE CODE (just like the popular JAVA language does), and then runs the compiled code using the SP4GL VIRTUAL MACHINE. The virtual machine is free as is SheerPower 4GL.

If you wish to distribute SheerPower applications, but want to HIDE the source code, SheerPower has a DEPLOY option. The DEPLOY option generates a SPRUN file that:

• hides your source code
• can be password protected
• is in a format where it can be emailed as text

The DEPLOY option, that HIDES your source code and generates a SPRUN file.

In summary, SheerPower 4GL does not generate an .EXE file. Instead, SheerPower 4GL uses a Virtual Machine to run applications -- similar to Sun's popular JAVA language.

Q. Why are you not deploying source code to .EXE files?
A. We (TTI) gave a lot of thought on how we wanted our deployed images to be distributed, and we decided, just like Java (.jar files) which uses a virtual machine, that we would use a virtual machine with our .SPRUN files.

The advantage is that as virtual machines are developed for other operating systems, the same .sprun file will run on any operating system that the virtual machine can run on.

If instead we had deployed to a .exe file, this would require multiple .exe files to be created, one for each operating system! This causes maintenance problems for developers.

So it was our concious choice to go the virtual machine route which is much more versatile and easy to maintain.

We designed the .SPRUN files so they can be sent back and forth as pure text. You can send the text of an .SPRUN file to a user and they can save it as .SPRUN and it will run (with the Virtual Machine installed). This isn't true for .exe files... and therefore an existing .SPRUN file can never contain a virus. In fact, .SPRUN files cannot be altered in any way whatsoever because they contain a number of self-referential hash values.

.SPRUN files are easy to deploy, and are extremely secure as a result.

Q. What type of database does SheerPower use/support?
A. SheerPower comes bundled with ARS. SheerPower 4GL supports all ODBC compatible database engines such as Microsoft ACCESS and Oracle. ODBC stands for "Open Database Connectivity". ODBC is a universal database interface used to access a wide range of databases.

Q. Is there a tool that would allow a re-creation of source code having only the pre or post deployed compiled files? For example, if a developer experiences a loss of source code but does have a backup of the compiled code (.SPRUN), can he decompile the .SPRUN file to recover the source code?
A. No. The primary reason to DEPLOY code is to hide the source code from end users. So, no such tool exists and none is planned because in the WRONG HANDS this would allow people to illegally reverse-engineer deployed applications.

You have the option to provide end-users with the source code if you don't want to send them deployed code. SheerPower runs source code just fine -- it starts by internally compiling it at a rate in excess of a million lines of code per minute -- and then runs the internally compiled code at the same speed as DEPLOYED code.

Q. I am currently using a JK Microsystems 386 type SBC for a particular project and require that programs developed in BASIC be compiled to .exe files for downloading to the SBC's. Can similar programs developed in the Sheer Power environment be converted to .exe files for downloading? If so, how?
A. Currently, the SheerPower 4GL compiler generates P-codes. The P-code is then executed by the SheerPower runtime virtual machine. Also, the SheerPower 4GL virtual machine is currently only available for the Windows Environment. Just like Sun's JAVA language, SheerPower 4GL can only run if the virtual machine is available. We do have plans to make the virtual machine available on other platforms in the future. Probably LINUX will be next.

Q. Since SheerPower is so powerful, what prevents a hacker from writing a SheerPower program and attaching it to an email message to be run automatically?
A. SheerPower programs won't let themselves be run from any "Windows Temporary Folder". If you get an email with a SheerPower program attached, it will not automatically run! You must first COPY the program to another folder before you can run it.

Q. Is there a graphics package included with SheerPower 4GL?
A. The full 3D animation/graphics package we were working on has been delayed as we are focussed heavily in other areas at this time. It's not likely to be included anytime soon.

Q. How do I save the .PDF documentation to my PC hard drive?
A. On our documentation webpage, RIGHT-CLICK on the link that reads:

SheerPower 4GL Documentation - Downloadable and Printable version (.PDF file, approx. 3MB)

Or, you can LEFT-CLICK on the .PDF file link (mentioned above) and load the file in your browser. Then click on the "Save" icon inside the Adobe Acrobat Reader toolbar, and save the file to your local PC.

Q. How can I access all the documentation examples easily?
A. Check out the "Examples" link inside the Table of Contents in both the online version of the documentation, and the .PDF documentation:

  http://www.sp4gl.com/documentation.htmlx

All of the examples are listed as clickable links which go directly to the selected example.

Q. Are there any plans to port SheerPower to Linux or an O/S2 version?
A. Yes, eventually we will port SheerPower to run on Linux. We're not sure when there will be an OS/2 version. It depends on the demand for it.

Q. Who are you people, anyway?
A. We are Touch Technologies, Inc. We are a computer software research and development company, and we have been developing database technologies for over 20 years. You can find out more about us at our parent site.

We want YOUR feedback!

Tell us what YOU think about:

SheerPower 4GL the SheerPower 4GL Website the SheerPower 4GL Online Documentation

Email us at SheerPower@ttinet.com