Baan Information Systems NV, from Barneveld in Holland, was showing a new fourth generation development environment called Miracle – for Machine-Independent RISC Architecture Computer Language Environment at the European Unix User Show last week, saying it had already been used as the basis for a number of software systems, including the Unity accounting software also on show. Baan claims to have incorporated reduced instruction set computing techniques into the software by including only 20 low level coded functions as the foundation of the language, with the remaining 80% embedded in the Baan shell, an added layer sitting on top of the operating system. This results, says the company, in programs that are only 10% in volume compared with normal C compiled programs, faster load times, more efficient disk space usage, and better performance. Miracle can run under all Unix versions as well as under Hewlett-Packard’s MPE, MS-DOS, and DEC’s VAX/VMS.
