1st GeneXus Meeting :: The story of the first GeneXus Meeting as told by its main figures

It was a great challenge and we made huge efforts to overcome it, working around the clock for two weeks, focusing our energies on solving the problem. And we did it! Back then the team was made up by Nicolás Jodal, Karina Santo, Jorge Mastropietro, Gustavo Proto and me”.

First problem solved

“The 1^st GeneXus Meeting was the result of this performance problem, as we gathered our customers to inform them that they would soon get an updated version of GeneXus”.

“Two different outcomes resulted from this first Meeting, and the short-term one was negative. We didn’t sell anything for the following eight months! The explanation for this is that at first people were scared... However, the best result unfolded during the following twenty years, giving proof that the truth must always be faced and acknowledged. This beginning constitutes the foundation of our work method: we acknowledge that problems never cease to exist; when problems arise we will face them and solve them. In the Software industry there is no lack of problems, and they only disappear when the product is dead. Problems are also part of the dizzying speed of innovation”.

Once the initial scare was over, many new users began to use GeneXus and developers took the leap based on the results obtained and commitment with which innovation was undertaken. Shortly thereafter, GeneXus grew across Uruguay’s borders and started to be sold in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. The II GeneXus Meeting had a three-fold increase in the number of customers, and in addition to having participants from Uruguay, the first regional customers were also in attendance.

Nicolás Jodal :: “We were making a revolution”

“As years went by, each Meeting grew larger than the previous one. Looking at that first Meeting from today’s perspective, I cherish the thrill of expectation, the sense of duty, and the spontaneity of innovation, how things are at the beginning. What we weren’t fully aware of was that the first Meeting would be the foundation of many more yearly events. Fortunately, with time, the meetings became essential for Artech and the Community”.

Karina Santo :: “I’m GeneXus native”

“My relationship with GeneXus began during my time as a university student. I took the same courses as Jorge Mastropietro and also knew Gustavo Proto and Nicolás Jodal because, even though we weren’t in the same class, I took some exams with them. At the time, Breogán Gonda was a professor. While I was studying, I started to work with an accounting software tool that Breogán was developing, and around 1988 I used GeneXus for the first time to develop a billing system. Later, I started to work full-time in the newly founded Artech. My beginnings are tied to GeneXus, because even though at the university I studied COBOL, my first applications were created with GeneXus”. 

“As we all know, the first Meeting was driven by a performance problem, because applications were very slow with AS/400 SQL and we had to change to native code. In that sense, the 1^st Meeting was intended to face up to a problem and commit ourselves to achieving the required performance levels.

I will never forget something that Breogán said that day, when he made an analogy between GeneXus and pelicans. He explained that extensive research had been carried out in an attempt to prove that, according to their anatomical structure (shape of their wings, height, etc.), pelicans were not well-equipped to fly, but since the birds didn't know it and were unaware of their lack of favorable conditions to fly, they were able to take off and fly anyway. In some way, this resembled what was going on with GeneXus; we were in Uruguay and back then no credibility was given in the technology field to a country with absolutely no tradition of working in that area. I remember that Breogán concluded by saying something like: ‘All current research would indicate that we aren’t able to fly, but we don’t know that, so we will fly anyway’. His words filled me with enthusiasm”.

“For me, being part of the 1^st GeneXus Meeting was to be in the right place at the right time; I was motivated by the great challenge of what it means to begin something, the intensity of a fresh start, and its difficulties and good moments. It was groundbreaking technology that also posed certain difficulties for people to understand it, implying as it did a radical change of paradigm for those developers who had been working with native COBOL. Our confidence was based on the fact that the concept was very strong; to describe instead of program, and thus significantly increase programming performance levels was very attractive. In that sense, I witnessed the first impressions of the people who listened to our demos, and they were very surprised. It also happened that at first some of them thought that the product was wonderful but it worked only for prototypes, so we had to go out and prove that it also worked for large applications”.

 

Jorge Mastropietro :: “I felt that I was working on something very innovative”

“After graduating in 1986, I treated myself to a backpacking trip around Europe. I had worked with Breogán at the DGSS (which today is called BPS – Social Security Bank) where he was head of the data processing department. Before setting off on my trip, Gastón Mousques –who worked with Breogán– asked me if I wanted to work with them at my return. So when I came back I dedicated myself to migrating part of what was written in COBOL –the core of GeneXus– to C code”.

“Those were GeneXus’ origins. I was working on the initial stages of a technology that I sensed was extremely innovative. As I recall that was what motivated me the most. Besides, Artificial Intelligence was a fashionable topic back then, and they were dealing with that. However, even though we had AI in mind, we didn't have network computers or email to share work and information within the team. We used diskettes, and we had one that we called 'Cable'.

 “At the 1^st GeneXus Meeting I saw all our customers together for the first time. I only knew some of them who visited Artech’s office. There were about 30 or 40 people, and I remember thinking that we were doing something important that was useful for different people and companies. On one hand, it made me very happy but the responsibility of it all made me 'nervous'. It was almost obvious that we would meet again with our users, there was something bigger in the air, and it was as if we were rehearsing for future meetings. I believe that at the 1^st Meeting clients realized that we would work with them to solve the problems that would arise”.

 

Gustavo Proto :: “I felt the same way I do now: that our technology is amazing!”

 “I became involved with GeneXus from the beginning because I was working closely to Breogán and Nicolás in the development of an accounting system that Breogan’s brother used in his accounting firm (called RCG). They needed a system and my objective was to develop and market this system, so they sponsored me. In fact, the system worked and sold pretty well.During that process I familiarized myself with what they were doing, which was the beginning of GeneXus. First they asked me to document it, and when they decided to start generating programs to update the database according to the transactions’ data, they asked me to develop a program prototype. Based on it, Nicolás started to generate the transactions’ code and, later, I ended up generating it myself”.

1988      An innovative company called Artechis born. Technological context: AS/400 AS/400 was the continuation of the System/38 database machine (announced by IBM in October 1978 and delivered in August 1979). System/38 was IBM’s most successful minicomputer, but its architecture had reached its limit. The first AS/400 systems were delivered in 1988 and the product line has been refreshed continually since then.     1989   GeneXus 1.0 In 1989, GeneXus 1.0 is released with its first generator called RPG and Cobol for AS/400, and the FoxPro generator is launched. What was going on in the world? The Berlin Wall came down on the night of Thursday, November 9, 1989 to Friday, November 10, 1989, twenty-eight years after its construction. The opening of the wall, known in Germany under the name of die Wende (the Change), was a consequence of the demands for freedom of movement in the former GDR and frequent flees to embassies in capitals of the Warsaw Pact countries (especially Prague and Warsaw) and across the border between Hungary and Austria, which imposed less restrictions starting August 23. 1990    The 1st GeneXus Meeting is held During the 1st Meeting, there were discussions about experiences and needs in connection to what was expected of the new tool. Many topics were put forward, in addition to announcing the new version. It was a moment when suggestions that the first users made to improve GeneXus were included in the following version. This sealed the close relationship between GeneXus and the Community, the fact that the software's creators were available to receive suggestions for changes and features which were incorporated from one year to the next. Just like this year (2010) the World Cup was being played, but in Italy. In the field of PCs, Windows 3.0 was being used and was the first popular version. This made it possible to execute old MS-DOS-based applications in multitasking mode. Windows 3 turned IBM’s PC into a serious competitor for Apple Macintosh.