Finchley, London-based training specialist SkillAdvance Ltd has just introduced SuperNova, a non-procedural database-independent applications generator to the UK. SkillAdvance is the sole UK distributor of the product, which is developed partly in the US by New Jersey-based Four Seasons, and partly in Holland by the mainland European distributor, Transmediair. SuperNova, which is sold in the UK under Four Seasons’ badge, is the most recent update and renamed version of the window-oriented database-independent application tool, Nova, and encompasses fourth generation language conversion. SuperNova applications can be developed on one machine or operating system and run without modification or conversion on other systems – Unix, Xenix, MS-DOS, and VMS. And SuperNova applications can access data in different databases. The object-oriented engine – the basic mechanism that interprets and executes the generated applications – executes instructions in its own internal code which is independent of the machine or operating system and is constructed during the application-building process and stored in a database. Database interfaces are currently available for Informix, Oracle and Ingres databases, which can also be accessed through an SQL interface. SuperNova applications can also interface simultaneously to flat ASCII files and C-ISAM structures, enabling data to be shared with applications built for other environments. The basic objects in SuperNova include the menu, forms, tables and reports, and functions are performed against these. Except for these basic functions, which are coded in C, the applications generator is specified in terms of the logic of the engine. The development software is available now in two forms: the SuperNova development system – for creating and updating applications, and the SuperNova runtime system for executing SuperNova applications in a production environment. Prices vary by configuration but an 80386 development system would cost around UKP2,235; UKP745 for a basic runtime system. The product is available in all EC countries, Canada and the US and, says SkillAdvance, Nova users include British Telecom, Dutch Telecom, and AT&T.
