A Case Study:
Building Applications in just a couple of Days

For 15 years, I have been friends with a Swiss gentleman named Reto Rohrer. Reto is an agronomist by training.

When I first met Reto, he made a very good living for himself selling custom application solutions for $2,500 to $4,000 each. Reto would typically build and install complete custom agronomic systems in just a few days. His normal plan was to spend a day or two reviewing the operating procedures of a business such as a winery or pig farm. Then he would spend one or two days writing the rough cut of a custom business application (typically of sales processing and inventory control consisting of 30-60 mainline programs, drawing to a certain extent on prior works) based upon the way the business actually worked. After customer-review, a further 2-3 days of programming would turn this into a finished product. Finally, Reto would come back for a day of setup and training.

The thing that is interesting about Reto is that while he is intelligent, and highly skilled in his agronomic profession, as well as systems analysis, programming and many other fields, he is not a "rocket scientist" -- one of those truly brilliant programmers with a "genius" Intelligence Quotient (I.Q.) who can naturally write good, clean programs in what seems an eye-blink.

Instead, what made Reto successful was that he used both a MultiValue database (R-83) and a 4GL tool (System Builder) to amplify his programming productivity. He would be the first to tell you that what made him successful was the tools, because he was able to master them with only 2-3 hours of formal training from others, and was able to rise to the productivity and income levels discussed after just 3 years of practice.

What Reto once did is no longer possible today (in most cases) because the tools referenced, which used to have a retail cost of $1,500 to $2,000 now have a retail price far greater than his consulting income, thus pricing the entire solution out of acceptability for most participants in the agricultural industry. So, Reto has gone onto other things, both distributing D3, and providing more complex systems.

But what Reto's story demonstrates is both that phenomenal programming-productivity gains are possible with the right set of tools, and that well designed tools permit rapid mastery. Our goal as a company is to make what he did again possible for him and many others.