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. The suite included applications-by-forms (ABF), an early 4GL computer programming language. It provided an ASCII form painter, which automatically bound form fields to a database using ABF, a programming language, with embedded SQL, simplifying the task of making a "CRUD" application for textual data. ABF source code was interpreted into a 3GL language (C or COBOL), which is then compiled so snippets of the native language may be directly embedded in the ABF code. ABF was deprecated by OpenROAD in the early nineties. Nowadays, OpenROAD includes migration tools to modernize “green screen” Ingres ABF applications by converting ABF forms into OpenROAD frames. It also enables to transform OpenROAD thick-client applications to browser-based equivalents without the cost, resource, effort, and risk associated with rewriting or replacing code. Developers can then extend these applications for web and mobile deployment, using HTML5, JavaScript, and WebView2. Several other database vendors marketed comparable 4GLs at around the same time, such as Pick System Builder, Clipper, and DBASE III. ABF was deprecated by the OpenROAD business unit in the early nineties.

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.

Architecture

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:

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)