Originally posted by: thorstenhirsch

Who's going to say goodbye to his old designstudio and welcomes the not-so-new-anymore eclipse environment? Now that wtx 8.3 can handle unlimited data sizes (well, more or less) due to 64bit, there should be reason enough for the upgrade ...right?
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Originally posted by: SystemAdmin

If I had a client using 8.2 I would upgrade them without another thought. I have clients who are using earlier Design Studio versions (5.0, 6.5, 7.5, 8.0), some of whom would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to get them to upgrade. They each feel that their current systems are stable, rock-solid and "don't want to touch it if it isn't broken" even though they are no longer supported versions. These customers are either smaller businesses who grew up with Mercator and had "sticker shock" at the IBM pricing model, or are Microsoft shops who don't want to dabble in IBM-land.

From IBM's standpoint I completely understand the move to Eclipse. It provides a standardized GUI that used in Java and a lot of other environments. Over the years I've gotten to expect the availability of some of the little features in the old Mercator Design Studio editors, but I'm still glad that IBM standardized on Eclipse. If I'm using different tool sets, I want to be able to focus on the task I'm working on and not getting sidetracked trying to remember the idiosynchracies of different editing GUIs.
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Originally posted by: TimUK

In Q2 2010 we will be moving from 8204 IF2 to 83 purely because our infrastructure will move to Win 2008 and that is only supported on WTX8.3

The Eclipse question is most frustrating. I do see the benefits of the framework but the additional time we put in due to crashes, very slow performance and odd behaviours certainly outweighs any benefits we get on the Design Studio side.

If we spent the time raising PMR's and doing investigation to the problems then we'd get no real work completed. Maybe the vendor should use the product in anger itself.
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Originally posted by: repanzer

I've been using the software with Mercator 1.4.3. I have to say that since IBM has purchased the product, it has gotten less and less stable, giving me problems in code that I've used for years, and the support has gone so downhill, I do not know what we pay them for. Everytime we open a PMR, they ALWAYS tell us to upgrade or get a patch. I work for one of the biggest companies in the world. Installing any core file on a production box requires months and months of testing on our end. Every single map would need to be regression tested. We explain this to them and get the whole "the newest releases have customer fixes in them, so in order to get a more stable version, you should upgrade". We're covered under our current version, but to fix the problem in that version, WE have to work for months, not the people who we pay to do this work. I think the only way we'll get a fully functinoal mapping tool and good support is by moving to GIS.
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Originally posted by: repanzer

With that being said, we will not upgrade to a new version (8.3), with full awareness that within a few months, it will be 8.3.0.2., which fixes some major issues with 8.3.

We thinking 8.2.0.4, because it SHOULD be more stable then 8.2.0.1, and more likely then 8.3.
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Originally posted by: SystemAdmin

Call Sterling for support on GENTRAN:Server for UNIX 2.2 with Mapper 1.0 and see what kind of support and patches you get. They distribute fixes, patches, and point releases just like any other software company. All software products are sunsetted at some point. IBM isn't any different. Mercator 1.4.3 is ten years old and been out of software maintenance for years, long before IBM acquired Ascential or Ascential acquired Mercator. I'm surprised any support is available at all.

No question upgrades are a pain and not practical in many environments. 3-4 years ago I had to duplicate some 1972 code in a DSTX 8.1 map. It was still out there on the mainframe running quite nicely. Perhaps you too need to wait a few years before your company upgrades.
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Originally posted by: repanzer

The problem isn't an expected upgrade; it's being covered under the current version and contract, opening a PMR for a problem in that covered version, and being told the only way you MAY fix the problem, is to upgrade to a newer version. I forgot that in my post above; they never say it WILL fix the problem, only that it MAY fix the problem.

When we went from trading manager 7.6 to 7.8, we had over 20 patches through multiple PMRs. Open one, get a patch, install, test, find new problem, open PMR, get patch, test, etc...etc....OVER 20 TIMES. I finally stopped testing IBM's product for them when a previous problem I already opened a PMR on (got a patch, installed , and tested) about 6 PMR's ago, showed up in the patch they gave me for PMR number 20. I did that work for IBM, and I did it for nothing, because it showed up in a future patch they gave me.

The last PMR I just opened was because when I imported a DTD in 8.1 Type tree importer....works fine as per the documentation (no known issues).....built an XML type tree where I would map alpha numeric character strings, and sometimes the zero's would be gone. Sometimes all the 1's and 0's and sometimes 1's, 0's, and A and B's would be gone. Take the same file (no re-deploy or anything), re-drop it, and it maps fine.

The map was already in production, but I forgot to put the output card type into my version control. NO prob right, I just import the DTD and there it is. What I didn't realize is the type tree that got lost was imported into 7.5, not 8.1. So I call IBM, I tell them about the error, how it's a production map and how I couldn't figure it out.

They ask what version I'm on. I tell them 8.1, and guess what they told me...I should upgrade. Oh, problem is in your product, my version is currently supported under the contract, well let me just hang up the phone and fix it myself.

The support I'm getting from IBM is absolutely unacceptable and obviously it's gotten me emotional.
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Originally posted by: thorstenhirsch

Looks like I'll take up the cudgels for IBM.

My experience with Ascential's support was horrible. I submitted 1 problem and it took them 3 patches to fix my problem. The previous 2 patches just did not fix anything - have they tried out my testcase at all??? Later I found out that the patch that finally solved my problem introduced several other problems and was worse than the old version. We also had to keep the testcases for every minor and major version of dstx, because most of the times the problems re-occured in later versions, so I had to re-open old PMRs. It was frustrating.

Since IBM I never received a patch that re-introduced a problem of a previous PMR. They must have changed their development model radically. And the runtime environment upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1 was flawless compared to the upgrade from 6.7 to 8.0. 99% of our testcases also work flawless with 8.2, so regarding the server I'm very happy.

But I'm also disappointed of the new DesignStudio. The move in 8.2 to eclipse was not for the customer's benefit, but only for IBM's. Looks like they had to port the DesignStudio to Eclipse, no matter the cost. I can understand it. But I really expected to see some groundbreaking improvements in 8.3 to keep the customers satisfied, e.g. better integration of tx functions in eclipse, windows that keep (their different visualizations of the same data) in sync, a reasonable presentation of cards in the map designer, a port of the DesignStudio to Linux, a plugin version of the DesignStudio that will work in other installations of eclipse, parenthesis matching (visualization!) in the rule editor, a migration of the tx core to a standard vm like the java vm, non-binary file formats for typetrees and maps (w/o the need to export/import) ...but there's nothing in 8.3! It's a big disappointment.
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Originally posted by: jvanboga

Have to say the best support I had was with Mercator. Once I figured out the Ascential support structure their support was fine. Usually turned things around quickly. The best support I've ever gotten from IBM is via the forum.

As far as 8.2.n or 8.3 goes I don't see updating our version. While I use eclypse for java development I find the design tool via eclypse painfull. Not very efficient or friendly. Might as well be a totally different product. While I haven't done any formal performance testing it seems to run slightly slower. Even opening a simple type tree or map takes what seems like forever. Also, the way they repackaged the product components in all of the 8.n versions was frustrating. Keep in mind that while Java has its benefits I've never percieved a Java environment a performace environment.

I like IBM. Disappointed with what they've done here.
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