If you’re looking at ethical, then you’d want to steer very well clear of SV. Do I have to remind you (or anyone) about the scam that was Clarion.Net? The value in renewing is for those people who are either dyed in the wool fanboys, or those who have to support legacy systems where the cost of re-writing the software in a modern language is simply not worth the effort. In those cases, I can see that the upgrade costs would be, as Bruce puts it, a “no brainer”. For anyone who isn’t tied to Clarion, just start running and never look back!
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You are buying hope. This may be more important than buying a product.
Clarion<>SV. We can use what we have now for many years without SV. It’s simple with a subscription. If you see the point in it, then pay, if not, then don’t pay. If we pay, then everything stays as it is, if we don’t pay, then it can help influence SV and their approach to business.
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I’m extremely annoyed that Softvelocity is charging for an “update” that offers nothing at all to the “normal” user.
I renewed my subscription on the day Clarion 11.105 (SV calls it Clarion 12) was released. I still have a few old programs that I haven’t rewritten to Windev. I don’t want to advertise Windev; the language has enough problems of its own; but at least with every update there’s something new to try out. They have cool ideas and introduced 64-bit back in 1952 (I think it was in April). Unicode two weeks later. And they know about list boxes with thumbnails…
I then admired the new colors of the IDE and the great change in the version number in Clarion, missed a change log, until I realized that there were no further changes and decided that it would be better to rewrite the old programs and let Clarion die for me.
In fact, I only started Clarion “12” once.
Clarion used to be a really cool development environment. That ended sometime between Clarion 8 and 11. After that, nothing changed for the user. It really pains me to give up Clarion. I learned to program with Clarion Professional Developer 2.1 (for DOS). I had Clarion 3 (even in German!), then switched to CW 4, CW5, and CW 6 (which my employer bought for me). I skipped 7 and got back in with 8. I skipped 9 and 10. I bought 11 again. Even with 11, I wondered what the difference was between it and 8.
Clarion makes me sad. Softvelocity makes me angry.
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There’s a reason I never upgraded from C6 
In 15 years they’ve not managed to deliver unicode or 64bit, which are the only 2 things i care about.
Well, a few months ago I had to give support to a Clarion 6.3 system, and Oh boy… I forgot what a PITA was that IDE. The new IDE introduced with Clarion 7 and stabilized around Clarion 10, has so many advantages over C6 that I just couldn’t work with C6 anymore. Just the compatibility with 64 bits Window, the docking panels (allowing to use several monitors), and the handling of different Clarion versions in the same machine/disk with no need to use VMs, makes me way more productive. That’s why I use Clarion, to be more productive and create more leaving the routinary work to the templates. Some Clarion versions feel like a filler chapter in a TV series, those where you end up saying Meh, if you don’t see it’s the same. Other versions, like C6 in its time, or C7/C10 later are those WOW chapters that you sit on the border of the chair. At this moment we have the TV off. 
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But waiting six years for a filler chapter is a bit long, isn’t it?
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WAY too long. We lost any edge we could have years ago. I remember when I started with Clarion, anyone seeing it and its results were amazed. This year I’m starting to train my son with Clarion (he’s 18, already know javascript, he just ended high school) and he’s not impressed. He shows me how with frameworks and AI obtains the same results in the same time… Not to mention he says nobody’s even hear about this language, or that took me time to convince him why I had to pay at all for a development tool…
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Theres over 8000 programming languages in active use around the world, its a massive field.
Clarion is listed here and theres only 283 languages in this list.
In past years its been in the top 50-100, closer to the top 50, but its not a perfect measure because end users dont really care about the language, they care about if the product they are going to buy will still be around in years to come and provide the facilities they want.
10 Ten programming languages.
Loads of languages have come and gone.
TLDR. Any complaint about Clarion is a complaint about yourself.
Hmmm, I didn’t receive an email yet although I have a current subscription. Am I the only one or are there others who didn’t receive it either?
I received an email just yesterday that says, in short:
“If you have not yet renewed your Subscription this is a friendly coutesy reminder that your Clarion Enterprise Edition subscription is due for renewal. As some users have reported they did not receive a renewal reminder email we are extending the renewal option until July 31 - after July 31 you will need to choose the Upgrade option to continue receiving updates to Clarion 12”
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The last email I received was on December 2, 2023 with the Clarion11.1, build 13855. But that email also confirms I have a CSP:
“You are being sent this information as a member of the Clarion Core Subscription Program.”
Is build 13855 the last build?
Anyway, I will sent them an email.
I have worked with Clarion since Adam and Eve and am still extremely happy with the tool.
And there is nothing I would rather do than pay for the tools I use to run my business.
But if I have to pay, Softvelocity will also have to show a lot more initiative on the communication front.
None of us can run a business where you don’t follow up on agreements and at least explain why things aren’t going quite according to plan.
How am I supposed to explain to my customers that they should trust Softvelocity when you never hear a word from them.
I’m in two minds but I’ll probably choose to take the chance - what’s the alternative…
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To pay or not to pay - everyone has outlined valid points here. That’s not my question. From Clarion accessory supplier perspective my choice falls to “no-brainer” side.
Just out of curiosity, where the rumor about Ukrainian developers hired by SV is coming from? Am I missing something? What I can see:
I am not sure what Sean is talking about. Probably he’s referring to the difficulty of getting paid for one well-known developer in Russia. And rumor begins…
btw @seanh, could you please point me out to any other person except Alexey.
IMHO, the biggest thing RZ promised and delivered in the past 6 years is as follows.
I announced that we’re launching an open source project, the “Clarion Database Driver Kit”. This project provides the scaffolding and documentation for you to build your own fully Clarion-compliant driver.
Bruce J. of Capesoft already has a list of ideas that he intends to explore. I’ll post back when the project is available on GitHub.
This is a great step in making Clarion open source and community supported. Clarion templates and ABC classes have always been there. I would propose the next step to become the AppGen technology. The stumbling block on the path to AI assisted development is the binary format of the APP files. Existing APV/TXA export is way too vague and volatile. This is AI show-stopper. Clarion community enthusiasts achieved significant progress in the promised next to the Driver Kit “implementation of a pathway to making use of AI models” but in hand-coded sources only. As for the AI assisted Clarion AppGen… with clearly limited SV resources better open the “pathway” to Clarion community and focus on 64-bit compiler and Unicode.
Been away from Clarion for probably 20 years. Just got a wild hair to do a search in google AI and learned the company is still in business, barely, from reading the comments here. I started with the DOS version, I think and moved on to several Windows versions. I always liked the user interface and templates being driven by the data dictionary. A very productive system. Then came Clarion Net and things seemed to go down hill fairly rapidly from an ongoing support and development standpoint, so I thought I saw the handwriting on the wall. Besides that, there was no communication from the company as they moved from Topspeed to SoftVelocity. That, plus no marketing except for the loyal cult-like following made me concerned that this was not a company poised for growth and investment. I’m glad to see it is still around with dedicated users, but as far as re-starting a platforn for ongoing development, not sure this is the place to be. I can see having to re-write future Clarion apps as support for the platform disappears. I don’t know what the $700 annual support agreement actually buys me or what the support turnaround would even be. They seem to be trying hard to generate some minimal amount of revenue, but platform developers have to eat to live. I wonder how many side-jobs the SV team members have in order to survive.
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By API i ment you have the whole windows API to play with to link to your existing version of clarion. Like for example Cape soft hosts its server in clarion templates.. and with AI … and document limits ever increasing on code AI generating platforms that allow you to do some very rich developments in CPP calling your existing code.. The days of CPP being to hard are pretty much over as AI generates your code.. albeit with some touching up.. You can even create work flow tools for AI to use as MCP servers and you could if your own capesoft server an MCP server for AI i imagine… Bruce could comment on that as we use a linux MCP using a Linux binding software emulation service technology that we own… But i imagine capesofts Tools and server office Clarion developers potential AI connectors.. even if Clarion very slowly creeps along you have a HUGE tool set in capesofts server solutions to hook your software up to AI.. would be ver surprised if capesoft does not come up with a MCP server solution well before SV..
For those looking for hidden jewels in clarion try the Tie and astring.. in order to enjoy some of the benefits we have in linux with CPP we have used this to create cstring addresses that can be shared by address in CPP for cross boundary data sharing.. Just maintaining the clarion compiler and fixing any bugs would be a good policy from SV. Slowly making there way to unicode and maybe one day 64 bit compiled code… it is what it is..for those not up taking the license AI generated code in other products like VS Code will no doubt give an alternative.. not to mention AI agents and Anthropics artifacts..
throw the Clarion template language ref at your local AI and go wild… upgrade your UI .. get it learn the window embed points and control tensions.. get AI to summaries parts and build your own development manuals… Now we dont use the APP GEN … as i said we do mostly linux.. but here is a JUNKIE dream up from AI…
UBS Bindable Service Application Template Specification.pdf (210.3 KB)
dont forget to whatch those clarion experts over on Clarion Live..
I’ve spent over a year slowly building a TXA parser, there are some gotcha’s built into the format which dont instantly show up, but I would imagine an Ai could figure it out if directed properly.
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SV may have decided on a yet unpublished path and moved to implement the unicode in parts of the stack and rework large parts of the stack… it could be years before you see the full plan implemented…AI may not even make it into the IDE… really the Csharp IDE, the base compilers being in old topspeed , the appgen being in CPP… then there is the seperate clarion compiler one assumes…its starting to look like a bit of a large logistic to move forward.. come back in a couple of years to see if there is any movement…
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In the new delivery did the SQL LITE stuff make it..? im still waiting on our SQL API ++ port from linux too… these things take time..
If there is no Real clarion 12 release in the next 12 months.. well…
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Hi!
I’m not sure to what “SQL LITE stuff” you refer to. There is a SQLite driver in the DCT, but it was already there in Clarion 11.1, so, nothing new there.
Kind regards,
Jorge Lavera