Enterpriser Reporting Tools - 3GL Based

These Enterprise Reporting Tools attempt to overcome the inherent limitations in the database dependent Enterprise Reporting Tools by adding a Third Generation Language (3 GL).  This means that any report that is not merely a formatting exercise is going to be written using a 3GL.  Usually a variant of BASIC or in some cases PASCAL.  This is putting a pretty face on old technology.  In fact, if you were going to chose a 3GL for report writing BASIC and PASCAL would probably not be at the top of the list. COBOL is a better and more productive 3GL language for writing reports than either BASIC or PASCAL.  So from an enterprise perspective, these languages put a pretty face on reporting languages that are less productive than COBOL.  This is not a direction that promises significant productivity gains.

The issues with this class of tool  are

• Productivity issues in developing reports.  Because these Enterprise Reporting Tools rely on an inefficient 3GL, productivity is adversely effected along with responsiveness.
• Training staff.  Staff will have to be trained in the 3GL used by these Enterprise Reporting Tools.  This is an expense and also a hidden cost, because the skills building phase is expensive.
• Cuts out End-User development.  Instead of providing tools that an end-user can work with, they now are just as dependent on the IT staff as when most reports were COBOL based.  Sure they can do the easy reports, but most times they need something more.  The skills required to do this are beyond most users.  Also, watch an end-user's eyes glaze over as you explain the difference between inner and outer joins.
• May have issues with dataset size depending on what is being attempted. This cause not only errors but run time issues as well.  If the Enterprise Reporting Tool requires that a large dataset needs to be returned to the users workstation, than not only does network traffic go up, the end-user is often looking at a 'locked' workstation during the transfer.   This is a productivity killer.
• These Enterprise Reporting Tools are also dependent on SQL so that legacy data is not accessible. Most large organizations have much of their data in such systems.