A User’s View Of Synon/2E Release 6.0

I want to commend Synon on its newest release of 2E. Following are some of the things I really like about Release 6.0.

First has to be the ability to share subroutines. This is a real code saver. It has also made it possible to use techniques that were quite difficult before. I was able to re-package a piece of code in about 15 minutes rather than having to rethink an entire logic structure when a customer request changed. Just for chuckles, I generated the code in my RTVOBJ both as a non-shared and as a shared subroutine. The non-shared version hit about 407,000 lines of code. The shared version hit about 8,000. I avoided a re-design that would have been necessary only because of the tool under previous releases.

Second is the ability to generate EXCINTFUNs as shareable subroutines. The EXCINTFUN has finally become an efficient means for packaging logic.

Third has to be the enhanced options in the Action Diagram (AD) editor. Access to Usage information, Reference information and Narrative from within the editor is absolutely fabulous. The Usage and Reference options open up so many other roads. Access to function details and options without having to start another session or get out of the current AD is wonderful.

Fourth, as best as I can tell, the model load time is dramatically improved when you have lots of array definitions. I'm on a different machine at a different client, but I think I can tell that there is a real boost here.

Fifth, highlighting of newly defaulted parameters on a call in an AD is great. I can finally tell what parameter changed and make some quick decisions on what should be passed to the function I'm calling. Don't have to wonder what other parameters might have defaulted.

Sixth, the ability to see object type or implementation name in an AD. I can finally see what type of function I'm calling without having to bounce all over the place. Sure, an FF and an F9 would show me before, but now I can see several at a time, and nothing would show me the implementation name before.

Okay, seventh is the persistent notepad. Now it's really useful since I can copy code around without having to have all the ADs involved open at once.

Those are the most obvious and useful things so far. I still haven't played with the bookmarks in the AD and there are several other little enhancements that I've just started to use. Templating and action diagram protection should be interesting when I get into a new project using Release 6.0.

Kudos to the design and development staff!

Virgil Green of SynapTech Consulting.