Lenn Thompson - CA :
Welcome to this month's CA Plex office hours. What questions do you have for our Plex team?
Lorenz Alder :
Do we have a roadmap for the incremental 7.2 releases ?
george jeffcock :
Now we have got the conference over and done with I would like to discuss last office hours for plex
george jeffcock :
Simon Cockayne (CA) :
@Michael: Since Plex r7.2 IR1, we are in a hiatus on Plex sprinting.
george jeffcock :
Hiatus? Do we have a roadmap for the incremental 7.2 releases ?
Michael Weber :
please tell me more details :-)
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, as a byproduct of the recent Users Conference, we're re-evaluating 7.2.
Michael Weber :
Welcome Chris
george jeffcock :
Michael said last :We have 99,9% of cusomers not willing to move to C#: They are not really getting many features in the last 10 years, but paying the maintenance ....
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, I believe the current plan, always subject to change/revision, is to get past issues into 7,2, call it complete, and work on supporting a newer compiler
Michael Weber :
As Lorenz and George are on this chat, we may get more details on Testautomation and Java support of unique ids?
george jeffcock :
i would like to acheieve this in plex https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/features/testing-tools-vs.aspx . how am to achieve this today
Lorenz Alder :
There is no support for unique ids in the Java generator, but you could use control names ...
Michael Weber :
In the last weeks I had several calls with our German customers. They are still using Plex 6.1 WinC client ... Working >15 years on their applications
Michael Weber :
It is a must to have a newer compiler / feature request or maintenance issue number one!
george jeffcock :
@Michael Same here https://communities.ca.com/thread/241735261?sr=stream&ru=1334334 Is WPF dead: the present and future of WPF
Lorenz Alder :
@Michael: What is the reason not to change to WPF ?
george jeffcock :
@short what is being re-evaluated ? Items but what items?
george jeffcock :
@short why is plex`spronting on hiatus?
george jeffcock :
sprinting
Michael Weber :
They do not understand as MFC is still supported by Microsoft, why CA is not updating the compiler - some reasons reasons are time to market/extra effords / new evaluation of controls, no C# knowledge ....
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, there were some other items planned and approved for 7.2. As Simon mentioned, there were some reorgs, and revisions to the plan need to be reviewed with management again. So we're in the process of doing that.
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, sprinting is mostly on haitus as we work through fixing some issues and migrating them to the supported releases.
Daniel Short :
@weber, until very recently, there wasn't a lot of demand for updating the compiler. That's changed, and as I mentioned we're looking into doing just that.
george jeffcock :
@short errrrrr compiler is 2005, YOU CANT BUY IT
Michael Weber :
Is there a timeline available ? I am very interested in testing the sprint results
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, I'm aware of that
Michael Weber :
Ian McWilton & Daniel Leigh where looking into it in the past - do you have their approaches?
george jeffcock :
@short, then why would you say until very recently
Rob McBride :
@ Short - What is the timeline for Plex support for Windows 10 which is due at the end of the month?
george jeffcock :
@weber, websydian been asking for 8 years asked @Weber mentioned last offcie hours
george jeffcock :
@Chris Who are the Plex experts on this offcie hours? I see some guys support where are arhitects of plex?
george jeffcock :
@short "Is there a timeline available ? I am very interested in testing the sprint results" I was accepted on the 7.2 beta program but nothing has happend just emails saying login and then saying it does not exsits.
Daniel Short :
@McBride, it's in the plan to support Windows 10, hopefully by the end of this year.
Lorenz Alder :
@short: one of our large customers will move to Win 10 by January 2016. Please replace "hopefully" by "certainly" !
Michael Weber :
@Daniel Short: What is the goal you want to reach in the first 100 days?
Michael Weber :
May you introduce yourself a bit?
george jeffcock :
@short is that deployment to windows10 but what about usiing the Plex IDE on windows10 as the development PC
Daniel Short :
@weber, to make it to 101 days
Lorenz Alder :
The collaboration forum for 7.2 has been quiet for 6 months now. Are you planning to continue collaboration, or just focus on the new compiler and then do a beta ?
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, the plan would be to support Windows 10 for both the tool and the runtime environment
Daniel Short :
@alder, I believe there will be some collaboration around the compiler upgrade
george jeffcock :
@short What complier upgrade?
george jeffcock :
@ What version of visual studio?
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, 2013 or 2015, not sure yet
george jeffcock :
@short what features the olast 10 years of viusla studios are going to be supported, it can just be visual studio2005 features
Lorenz Alder :
I don't expect any new features. There's a lot of work to do to replace the current Winc build process (has to be rewritten)
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, initially it will be to just make sure existing features work, and later build on that.
george jeffcock :
@alder all due respect 'There's a lot of work to do to replace the current Winc build process" is none of our business...Technical debit has been created and CA could have replaced the comipler over the last 10 years, it was their decision to leave it this late.
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, it could have been replaced several times over the past several years, but until recently there wasn't that much customer demand. I guess they liked not having to recompile everything.
george jeffcock :
@short "I guess they liked not having to recompile everything" so you are going to offer them a recomplie with NIO new features, do think that we go down well?
Rob McBride :
@Short - VS upgrade should be to 2015 and not 2013. No reason to do an upgrade and allready be a couple years in the whole.
Lorenz Alder :
@george: CA could have done a lot of things (generating for the web etc). But they didn't. This is the reason we have so many workarounds, and spent a lot of time to keep up with industy standards etc. Unless there is major investment in CA Plex, we will see customers moving to other technologies.
george jeffcock :
@alder dont disagree at all.
Daniel Short :
@McBride, I'd prefer 2015 myself. Unless there was some overriding reason why we couldn't do that, I think it will be 2015.
george jeffcock :
@McBride completely agree
george jeffcock :
@Chris any Plex architects around then to discuss merits of 2013 vs 2015
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, I've already spoken to them.
Michael Weber :
@short it would make sense to support the same Visual Studio for C++ and C#
george jeffcock :
@short why so shy ask them to join us on their product discussion
Michael Weber :
reusing the msbuild based compilation would be fine
Michael Weber :
also string tables for multilanguage support ....
Lorenz Alder :
Is the VS 2015 upgrade the only item currently planned ?
george jeffcock :
@short what is planned for IBMi ?
Rob McBride :
@short - Yes what is planned for IBMi? Its been neglected for far too long.
Daniel Short :
@weber, initially it may not, but that will be a goal
Lorenz Alder :
What time frames are we talking about ? VS 2015 in Q1 2016 ?
george jeffcock :
@short Plex help 'The initial RPGIV phase I offering includes limited ILE functionality. RPGIV phase II considerations include Generation of EVAL statements
Modules
Subprocedures
Binding directory support
Compiler overrides '
Daniel Short :
@alder, it seems to be the biggest concern at the moment
george jeffcock :
@short initial RPGIV phase was 2002 when is the next phase planned?
Lorenz Alder :
What about dropping C++ and use C# client ? and make sure all the C++ features are supported ?
Daniel Short :
@mcbride, we will re-evaluate the backlog again as we begin working/collaborating on the compiler upgrade.
Michael Weber :
@alder, we have customers with more than 2000 panels
george jeffcock :
@CA ok enough about compiler and backlog - what is the blue ribband releasae news for the next reelase of CA Plex
Michael Weber :
it will take a long time to move to C# without any new features
Michael Weber :
@CA Simon announced that there will be a "roadmap" presented in Austin
george jeffcock :
@Weber Exactly. Already answered what my client thinks about WPF today on the forum, a non starter
Lorenz Alder :
@Weber: Some customers went through the process, one with 3500 panels ...
Michael Weber :
also with multilanguage support? eastern europe character set ...?
george jeffcock :
@short ok enough about compiler and backlog - what is the blue ribband release news for the next relase of CA Plex
Lorenz Alder :
@George: Would you like to see a WinRT client ?
Daniel Short :
@jeffcock, when the compiler upgrade is complete
Lorenz Alder :
@Weber What are the issues with eastern europe charsets ?
george jeffcock :
@alder go ask my architect not me, keep me out it. Personally wnated a web product out of plex but passed caring about UI really in plex these days as too far behind
Lorenz Alder :
@george: fully understood :-)
george jeffcock :
@short "when the compiler upgrade is complete" but what is the new functionality? Cant have yet more plex releases with nothing to give the customer
Michael Weber :
@alder, it is the way how Plex G&B the pnls. Reboot for each language etc. But this is not a topic we need to dicuss here it is only one additional topic needed to be addressed while evaluating a move to c#/WPF
george jeffcock :
@Chris take it my questions will be answered afterwards
george jeffcock :
@short what are your aims for plex as both owner and pouct manager
Lorenz Alder :
@Michael: agreed
Lenn Thompson - CA :
Okay everyone, we need to wrap up today's session. We'll get this transcript posted in the community later today.
Lenn Thompson - CA :
If there are further questions, I'd recommend either contacting Dan and team directly or asking in the community.
Lenn Thompson - CA :
Have a great day.