OpenROAD

OpenROAD, which stands for "Open Rapid Object Application Development", is a fourth-generation programming language (4GL) and development suite from Actian Corporation.

It includes a suite of development tools, with built-in Integrated development environment (IDE) (Written in OpenROAD), and Code Repository.

History
The history of OpenROAD is closely tied to that of the Ingres relational database.

The Ingres Product set, (marketed by ASK Corporation, Computer Associates, Ingres Corporation and then Actian) was popular in the governments of North West Europe, and can be found in many government departments. OpenROAD appeared in beta form on the SUN platform in 1991 as Windows4GL 1.0, and was available to British Universities under a special license agreement. The development environment was known as the Sapphire Editor.

The Sapphire Editor allowed the creation of complex GUI interfaces using an IDE, rather than large volumes of Motif code / resource files. This was one of the first environments to enable rapid prototyping of GUI clients.

Windows4GL 2.0 introduced Microsoft Windows compatibility and the debugger.

Version history
The reason for the varying and shorter Lifecycle dates of latest versions is Actian is working to bring OpenROAD releases current to Actian X. The Lifecycle dates will re-align with the 11.2 release in 2021.

OpenROAD Server
The OpenROAD Server enables business logic written in the OpenROAD 4GL language to be accessed by client applications. The OpenROAD Server is multi-threaded and allows concurrent access from a number of client interfaces. These client interfaces include the following:
 * Java clients (JSP, Java Servlets, Java applications)
 * .NET clients (VB.NET, C#, ASP.NET)
 * COM clients (VB, C++, ASP)
 * OpenROAD clients

Open Database Access
OpenRoad Server has built-in support for Ingres/X and Vector/Avalanche databases. On IBM z/OS mainframes, EDBC (a separate product) provides the same level of access to native VSAM, DB2, IMS, and Datacom/DB databases to enable you to access data from anywhere.

Features needed (Q2 2008)

 * Intellisense for source, SQL statements and user defined objects.
 * The ability to construct user objects that inherit from the system classes
 * Better configuration management for large development teams
 * Native access to .NET classes
 * In process access to Ingres NET for FAT clients making distribution easier.
 * Extension of the OpenROAD language into the Ingres database engine replacing the Procedure language.
 * Access to the sources of the OpenROAD language