One of the questions that I've been pondering lately is what will become of
Windows. Based on the buzz about BYOD (bring your own device), tablets and
the like, and the less-than-stellar reception of Windows 8 and Surface
(Microsoft's Windows 8 tablet), you'd think that Windows was on its last
legs. Combine this with the "death of the PC" hype, and things look bleak.
They would look particularly bleak for PowerBuilder developers for two
reasons. First, the PowerBuilder IDE is only available for the Windows
platform. There were versions available for the Mac and UNIX at one point,
and I used both, but they never generated enough sales to warrant the amount
of support required to maintain them. Second, PowerBuilder essentially
generates targets that - for the most part - only run on Windows devices. The
Win32, .NET Windows Forms, .NET Assembly targets in PowerBuilder C... (more)
For the past year plus I've been spending a lot of time working with a
web-based BI tool (the development is actually done in a plug-in to Eclipse,
but the end users access the results through a browser). The tool reminds me
a lot of the DataWindow. You create objects that can either map directly to a
database table or are based on textual SQL. Those objects are then combined
into a composite object that the user can access to do ad-hoc queries without
having to know how the underlying tables are related. The data connection is
abstracted from the data access layer, and the repor... (more)
PowerBuilder 12.5 introduced a number of significant enhancements to web
services support, both for creation and consumption. In particular, the
following were introduced as new features in PowerBuilder.NET:
WCF client proxy WCF service target REST client proxy
We're going to look at what those new features provide and how to use them.
We're also going to look at how we can package some of that functionality so
that it can be used from PowerBuilder Classic applications as well.
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
First though, some background. When support for a web service client... (more)
What forums you may ask; the Sybase NNTP forums? No, those are going away.
Not on the schedule that was originally proposed (December 1 of 2012), but
they will go away soon. Replacing them are the online discussion forums in
the PowerBuilder Development Center (PDC), part of the SAP Community Network
(SCN). Never fear though, the information on the Sybase NNTP forums aren't
going away; a searchable archive of the messages will be available.
If you've been using PowerBuilder for a long period of time, then you'll know
we've gone through a similar transition before. We started in on... (more)
Dave Fish will be presenting at both of the following user group events:
11/11 Prague, Czech Republic
http://www.sybase.cz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=154:nove-user-groups-na-prvni-tvrtleti-roku-2010&catid=24:akce
11/16 Vienna, Austria
http://www.sybase.at/country.jsp?show=event&sub=PowerBuilder12
... (more)
Bruce Armstrong is a development lead with Integrated Data Services (www.get-integrated.com). A charter member of TeamSybase, he has been using PowerBuilder since version 1.0.B. He was a contributing author to SYS-CON's PowerBuilder 4.0 Secrets of the Masters and the editor of SAMs' PowerBuilder 9: Advanced Client/Server Development.
Yakov Werde
Jim O'Neil
Ian Thain
Dave Fish
Arthur Hefti
Brad Wery
Paul Horan
John Olson
Frederick Koh
Walter Hinton
Walt Robertson
Akshat Singh
Chris Shaul
James Meickle
