Software AG has pushed back the release of a full-blown object-oriented implementation of its Natural 4GL application development environment, which was due now, until next March, claiming it is taking longer than it thought it would to get the methodology straightened out (CI No 2.530). To try to make amends, it has inked in September as the launch date for a version of its Natural Engineering Workbench, fitted out with some object work it said can be used with the existing procedural and the future object versions of the development environment. A full-function object release of the Workbench, with inheritance and polymorphism, will appear next March at the same time as Unix and OS/2 implementations of the mechanism, which is currently Windows-only. Workbench will share tools like a browser, and a repository, with other Natural object products. The German software house, obviously intent on an object prelude to spring, will also reveal an object-oriented implementation of its Adabas database at the same time. The company said this will include a facility for the storing of persistent and non-persistent objects generated by Natural and support for a variety of object request brokers.
