There is not much life left in that old horse SYNON. Let's be honest here. CA
has really not done much with it since they acquired it in 2000. It would
behoove one to migrate to LANSA instead. LANSA is still very much a thriving
4GL development environment. The LANSA visual development environment offers
you everything and much more than SYNON/2E or COOL/2E or Advantage/2E or
AllFusion/2e or whatever the hell the current owner is calling it these days.
Having worked with SYNON back in 95 and then for 4 years and recently worked on
LANSA, I can earnestly say that LANSA has left SYNON way behind. LANSA allows
you to use a single 4GL toolset to generate applications in green screen,
browser mode, or Windows mode that will run on the reliable iSeries or any
other platform alone or as part of a distributed database. It does all this
very simply and easily tool. Being a former SYNON developer, it was very easy
for me to relate to its data driven design, graphical modeling tools,
specifying business rules at the field or file levels, virtual fields,
referential integrity, access paths, processes, functions, components, etc.

In fact, since a LANSA model and a SYNON model have much in common, LANSA has a
migration kit that can be used to convert SYNON applications as over to LANSA.
The only thing it won't convert are EXCUSRSRC type objects but it will flag
such things for you. The flexibility of this arrangement allows you to continue
running existing LANSA applications as you gradually convert applications
requiring redevelopment or enhancement over to LANSA. The 2 can co-exist. This
allows you to maintain your investment in your older SYNON apps while you
migrate other apps over to LANSA for new development

LANSA is vastly superior to SYNON and is what SYNON should have become.
Unfortunately, those that conceived and then acquired SYNON made some bad
decisions. LANSA has only had one owner and they have extended the product as
necessary to keep up with technology trends. They are committed to this product
and the family of LANSA tools that has evolved around the product. In it's
latest incarnation, LANSA now provides direct native iSeries support for all
database field types including date, time, datetime, variable character, binary
objects, etc.

As you can tell, I'm a convert to and fan of LANSA. But, seriously, it is worth
a look out there for any shop who believes in 4GL develpment. The 4GL tools are
fantastic and has made me a happier and prolific developer. However, it is
important to choose a viable 4GL tool that has a clear and undeniable future. A
4GL tool that is backed by a sound company that continues to advance their
product in response to technology changes.

Take care.
DB