By Bruce Armstrong Particularly in a means of moving PowerBuilder applications to the web. What I’m looking for doesn’t require a server license or the installation of unmanaged code to the web server, and works well across different browsers (not just Internet Explorer). The WPF DataWindow will help... Sep. 30, 2008 05:45 AM Reads: 569 |
By Bruce Armstrong  The PowerBuilder 11.5 beta is officially opened. If you're at all interested in upgrading, particularly to improve the "eye-candy" aspect of your applications, now is the time to get involved. If you wait until after the product has been released and find that there are some key compon... Aug. 26, 2008 01:20 PM Reads: 762 |
By Bruce Armstrong  The first is Borland. Originally known for their development tools (e.g., Delphi, JBuilder, C++ Builder), in February of 2006 Borland announced they were planning to sell off the Development Tools Group so that they could focus on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) product offering... Aug. 7, 2008 04:00 PM Reads: 860 Replies: 1 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Back in 2002, Sybase announced their four-phase approach toward adding .NET support to PowerBuilder. Phase 1 was the implementation of web services in PB9 and Phase 2 was the release of DataWindow.NET, which was packaged with PB 10. Phases 3 and 4 were the more significant phases. In P... Jul. 14, 2008 10:30 AM Reads: 1,286 |
By Bruce Armstrong  If that doesn't ring a bell, it's from the Reagan / Carter debates in the 1980 election cycle. Carter had presented a string of criticisms of Reagan's positions, which Reagan pretty much dismissed with that statement. Back in the heyday of client/server development, the folks at Borlan... Jun. 12, 2008 04:15 AM Reads: 5,385 Replies: 3 |
By Bruce Armstrong  I received an e-mail from a loyal reader recently complaining that the magazine was no longer 'primarily about PowerBuilder.' The charge is actually true and, despite the title of this column, is not particularly new. In fact, we had an editorial eight years ago explaining part of that... Mar. 18, 2008 02:00 PM Reads: 3,079 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Well, if you listened to Rob Enderle of Enderle Group (www2.sdtimes.com/pdf/SDTimesBackIssues/sdtimes184.pdf) you might think that Rapid Application Development (RAD) is dead or dying. However, I think it's important to distinguish between two different things that are often lumped tog... Mar. 4, 2008 01:00 PM Reads: 2,969 |
By Bruce Armstrong  PBDJ's readers ask us from time to time what the most popular article in the magazine has been over recent years. We are delighted to report that the answer is that it is one by our very own and much loved editor-in-chief, Bruce Armstrong. We first published it in 2005. Here it is agai... Mar. 2, 2008 10:00 AM Reads: 3,491 |
By Bruce Armstrong  That isn't, by the way, a Chinese curse. The phrase 'may you live in interesting times' (which became popular after Robert Kennedy used it in a speech in 1966) probably originated from a 1950's science fiction story. Regardless of its roots though, we find ourselves living in such time... Feb. 27, 2008 11:00 AM Reads: 3,119 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Or well, perhaps it just seems that way. Like the Dilbert strip where aliens kidnap the PHB and one of them impersonates him. They all notice because he's suddenly more competent and caring, so they don't report it. Sybase released PowerBuilder 11.0 in June of 2007 and hyped it at Tech... Jan. 6, 2008 08:45 AM Reads: 7,230 |
By Bruce Armstrong  This year TechWave 2007 took place at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. For those of you who didn't make it, the following is a recap of the events, with a couple of thoughts and suggestions thrown in. Officially the only thing going on Sunday was conference registration. However, there is a ... Nov. 7, 2007 11:00 AM Reads: 6,998 |
By Bruce Armstrong  It's been the bane of PowerBuilder development since day one. You have a DataWindow that contains one or more text blocks that, when previewed for printing or printed, span a page boundary. The result: the DataWindow incorrectly handles portions of the text. You may find some text on t... Nov. 3, 2007 11:00 AM Reads: 8,710 |
By Bruce Armstrong  As I've mentioned previously, TechWave 2007 was (IMHO) one of the best TechWaves we've had in years. Nonetheless, there is always room for improvement. I've made some specific comments in my blog, but there are a few general suggestions that are the most important. Quite a few Sybase c... Nov. 1, 2007 11:00 AM Reads: 5,192 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Microsoft recently released the Interop Forms Toolkit 2.0 in order to allow 'developers to incorporate VB.NET Forms and Controls into their VB6 applications' (www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=934de3c5-dc85-4065-9327-96801e57b81d&DisplayLang=en). Oct. 8, 2007 01:45 PM Reads: 6,125 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Novalys released Visual Guard for PB11. This tool secures PowerBuilder 11 applications and supports .NET Winform and ASP .NET Web forms deployment. Sep. 5, 2007 03:00 PM Reads: 5,218 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Microsoft recently released the Interop Forms Toolkit 2.0 in order to allow 'developers to incorporate VB.NET Forms and Controls into their VB6 applications' (www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx? FamilyID=934de3c5-dc85-4065-9327-96801e57b81d&DisplayLang=en). Aug. 26, 2007 03:00 PM Reads: 7,906 Replies: 4 |
By Bruce Armstrong  As with previous TechWaves, there are once again a number of changes. The most obvious one is that this year's event is at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino rather than Caesar's Palace. While not the complete move out of Vegas that I was hoping for, at least it's an improvement. Aug. 24, 2007 03:00 PM Reads: 5,927 |
By Bruce Armstrong I really like how all this was laid out. When we were at Caesar's the wi-fi lounge and tech support lab were basically hidden past the entrance to the exhibit hall. Here at Mandalay bay you walk into the South Pacific Ballroom and everything is immediately available. Email kiosks both ... Aug. 9, 2007 02:45 PM Reads: 5,847 Replies: 1 |
By Bruce Armstrong  It will come as a surprise to no one that PowerBuilder's native graphing capabilities are somewhat lacking. Even the Define Graph Style dialog for the DataWindow graph style seems to have been left out of the GUI update in PowerBuilder 10.5 (see Figure 1). Forget Windows 95, this looks... Aug. 1, 2007 01:15 PM Reads: 9,196 |
By Bruce Armstrong  What do you want to see in PowerBuilder 12? That's not just my question for you this month, it's also Sybase's question for you as well. Two things demonstrate that. The first is the recent invitation to participate in a survey by Sue Dunnell, PowerBuilder's product manager, so PowerBu... Jul. 25, 2007 06:30 PM Reads: 8,923 Replies: 1 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Back in August of 2006, I wrote an article about calling .NET components from PowerBuilder using COM wrappers (i.e., CCW). Since I was basing it on a registry entry approach, the technique demonstrated required the component to be added to the GAC, which in turn required that we create... Jul. 7, 2007 01:00 PM Reads: 10,496 Replies: 1 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Every few years somebody winds up the 'PowerBuilder is dead' argument, and every few years we beat it down again. This time it's Mary Brandel of ComputerWorld and her list of the 'top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills' (www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic... Jul. 3, 2007 08:30 AM Reads: 9,278 Replies: 2 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Back in late 2002 I wrote an article on creating Web Services using PowerBuilder ('Implementing PowerBuilder-Based Web Services from PowerDynamo' http://pbdj.sys-con.com/read/42210.htm). It was based on a PowerBuilder 8.0 component deployed to EAServer called from Web pages based on Po... Jun. 9, 2007 11:00 AM Reads: 10,450 |
By Bruce Armstrong  I just recently (finally) upgraded to a Wii, and I only had to pay about $50 over retail on an auction site to get it. Good luck trying to find one in the LA area; most stores told me it would be at least a month before they had more. Then try finding accessories once you have one. I h... Jun. 2, 2007 05:00 PM Reads: 16,589 Replies: 1 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Just over a year ago PowerBuilder 10.5 was about to release and we looked at the top 10.5 reasons to move to that version. In that same vein, I'm going to look at the top 11 reasons to consider PowerBuilder 11.0, which is just about to hit the street. This time I'm going to break those... Jun. 2, 2007 02:45 PM Reads: 10,509 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Over the years we've been offered, either by Sybase or by third-party companies, a number of 'move PowerBuilder to the Web' offerings. Focusing specifically on those offered by Sybase, we were first offered Web.pb. It was provided as a set of libraries with PowerBuilder 6 that was buil... Mar. 12, 2007 02:00 PM Reads: 9,280 Replies: 1 |
By Bruce Armstrong  (OK, let me start off by acknowledging that in the literary work I am alluding to, Juliet is not asking this question because she's looking for Romeo. She's actually lamenting that he comes from the rival family. But it's so commonly misunderstood that I thought it would be useful none... Feb. 1, 2007 01:00 PM Reads: 8,149 |
By Bruce Armstrong  About this time of year folks make their predictions about what's coming up in the New Year. Not to be left out, here's mine, along with my thoughts on what these events will mean for you. Jan. 18, 2007 12:45 PM Reads: 8,677 |
By Bruce Armstrong  New features of this release include the DataWindow Designer Visual Studio Plug-in. This is a set of plug-ins for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. It enables users to design DataWindow objects directly in Visual Studio instead of in the standalone DataWindow Designer from the previous ver... Jan. 11, 2007 12:15 AM Reads: 8,136 |
By Bruce Armstrong  It may be a bit early, but I have a New Year's resolution I'd like to propose to Sybase: 'No more 80% solutions.' What is an 80% solution? It's a technology approach that seems well conceived and when used with small demonstration applications (e.g., beta testing) works well. Dec. 8, 2006 02:00 PM Reads: 8,449 |
By Bruce Armstrong  It took me a while to mull over what I thought about the conference, but the following is my take on it. This year at TechWave the Game Show was held during the reception, where food and drink were served. In a similar mode, many of the meals were served in the exhibit hall. As I menti... Nov. 8, 2006 12:00 PM Reads: 8,660 Replies: 4 |
By Bruce Armstrong  I went to TechWave a bit early because TeamSybase was holding their reception on Saturday evening. At the reception TeamSybase initiated several new members. If you'd like to view some of the video from the super-secret initiation ceremony, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq0VbTrjld8 Oct. 29, 2006 12:30 PM Reads: 11,353 |
By Bruce Armstrong  I used to implement SMTP for PowerBuilder using a PBNI class that used P.J. Naughter's CPJNSMTPConnection MFC class to do the heavy lifting. Well, .NET 2.0 changes all that. One of the new features of .NET 2.0 is the introduction of a SMTPClient class. One of the features of .NET since... Aug. 13, 2006 03:30 PM Reads: 13,274 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Welcome to TechWave 2006! The structure of the conference has changed significantly this year. The two- and four-day a.m. education courses are gone, at least in that format. This year what were the two-day classes are given in a single five-hour session on either Monday or Tuesday aft... Aug. 9, 2006 07:30 PM Reads: 10,401 Replies: 3 |
By Bruce Armstrong I was originally planning on attending the .Net Interop in PB11 class. However, due to a bit of a snafu Sybase thought I was an employee and scheduled me to proctor the New Features in PB 10.5 / 11.0 class. It was actually quite encouraging to know that the class was held twice (once p... Aug. 8, 2006 09:30 AM Reads: 8,110 Replies: 3 |
By Bruce Armstrong John Chen thanked ISUG and TeamSybase for being here. He then thanked the event sponsors. He noted that keynote was being webcast live and made disclaimers. He also noted that board of directors are attending the event and meeting the customers. Aug. 7, 2006 11:30 PM Reads: 7,095 Replies: 1 |
By Bruce Armstrong I'm here a bit early because TeamSybase has their own reception Saturday evening. According to the Newswave, there are 1,600 attendees this year. Here?s a picture of the logo welcoming everyone to Techwave. That backpack in front of it is the one you get when you register. ISUG had a d... Aug. 7, 2006 09:30 PM Reads: 7,329 Replies: 2 |
By Bruce Armstrong  PowerBuilder Developer Resources released PBDelta version 5.2.0. This new version includes PowerBuilder 10.5 support including new icons and menus. Aug. 1, 2006 02:00 PM Reads: 7,234 |
By Bruce Armstrong  PowerBuilder has almost entirely lost mind share. In order to reintroduce PowerBuilder to a new generation of developers, Sybase should treat it like a new product. When it was originally being developed, PowerSoft used the product internally and also partnered with clients, providing ... Jun. 28, 2006 12:45 PM Reads: 10,456 Replies: 3 |
By Bruce Armstrong  Sybase announced the availability of Sybase PowerBuilder 10.5, the next-generation rapid application development tool. PowerBuilder 10.5 features key functionality enhancements and improves the DataWindow, an industry leading patented data access, presentation, and manipulation tool. T... Jun. 28, 2006 02:45 AM Reads: 8,290 Replies: 3 |