History

4C came about in 1986 when Dennis Noon and Kevin English decided that they needed a better tool for writing business applications. Machines were getting more powerful and customers were demanding more features. After searching and trying multiple tools that promised to solve this problem, they found that they kept running into the "Brick Wall Syndrome." Some of the tools were easy to use and easy to write simple programs with. Unfortunately none of them made the real hard problems easier. In fact with some of the tools, you just couldn't write complicated programs at all.

Since it was clear that the customers were not going to be satisfied with simple programs they decided to write their own tool and to fund the development by selling better applications. The strategy worked well and although 4C as a business application programming tool is hardly a household word, all the applications ever developed using 4C have been successful.

The early versions of 4C ran on Unix operating systems and worked with character based terminals. Even those early versions had an impresive windowed user interface that end users loved.

As the hardware and software industry evolved, 4C evolved with it. As more and more users started using desktop pcs running some version of Microsoft Windows, 4C was rewritten as a Client/Server application. 4C programs now run on any 4C server machine, and they display on a thin client running on either a MS Windows workstation or a MacOS X machine.

4CSoftware continues to develop 4C so that our customers can continue to develop the best end user applications on the market.

4C Advantages

Some of the advantages of using 4C to write business applications are:

Rapid Application Development - Develop applications quickly because 4C lets you think in terms of business requirements instead of low level programming protocols.
Ease of making application changes.
Integrated Source Code Control
Integrated Debugger
Modern GUI look and feel - Create complicated layouts using a WYSIWYG layout editor. The application programmer doesn't need to know anything about the underlying windowing system.
Database Independance - Use our easy to administer and fast ISAM, or any modern DBMS including Oracle, Sybase, MS SQLServer, MySQL, and PosgreSQL.
OS Independance - Your application will run on any Unix/Linux like operating system as well as any of the Microsoft operating systems.
Thin client - changes to your application are made on the server and any 4C Client connecting to the application sees those changes immediately. No client update is necessary.
Security - The 4C Client and 4C Server establish a secure connection and all communication between client and server is encrypted.
Support - 4csoftware prides itself on the support we give our clients. All email support requests are responded to within 24 hours. Enterprise users get immediate phone response.

Industries Running 4C Applications

Our clients have used 4C to write applications in many areas including, but not limited to:

Medical Back Office
Hospital administration
Electronic Medical Records
Oil and Gas Industry
Auto Industry
Insurance Industry
Treasury Systems
Private Investment Banking
Airline Industry
Credit Union Back Office

4C Applications are used by small companies as well as by some fortune 500 companies.

4C Applications have competed successfully against applications written by such industry giants as SAP and JD Edwards.

4C Applications have been installed in many US States as well as in Canada, UK, Belgium, Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.

Some 4C Application Developers

DNA Data Systems is the premier medical software provider in Southern California.

Forte' Data Systems Provides technology solutions to insurance companies and automobile claim centers that allow them to verify part prices on claims and process sales more efficiently.

Trafxs Expert Systems Develops, installs, and maintains integrated software applications for the petroleum industry.

Testimonials

From DNA Data Systems:

4C is an absolutely superb development environment for business/database applications. Its major benefits are:

Programs are 90% self-documenting

The majority of programming is non-procedureal

4C applications are completely portable among Unix and Windows operating systems and different databases

Software maintenance/enhancement is trememdously aided with the 4C approach.

Other features we like are:

4C includes an excellent source code control feature.

In addition to it's own bulletproof ISAM file system, 4C works well with most of the major DBMS products including Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server, Postgres, and MySQL.

4C is very server centric which results in a very thin client and excellent performance over the internet.

4C has an on-board screen painting feature that makes prototyping applications and enhancing after implementation a dream.

4C interfaces nicely with MS Windows applications.

The procedural component is a feature rich, C like syntax with hundreds of built in system commands to make the programming experience even better.

DNA cannot recommend 4C too highly. It is extremely stable and reliable and, most importantly for a classic VAR like DNA, the end users love the applications.