Many developers tell me they have to move their PowerBuilder client/server applications to the Web to deploy them on their intranet. In most cases, this is not useful. It just seems that the marketing people at Microsoft did such a good job we're forgetting that we don't need Web technology to deploy our PowerBuilder applications on our intranet.

In my last article I showed you how to expose a PowerBuilder component on an EAServer as a Web Service that could then be orchestrated into a Business Process Service in Unwired Orchestrator with Sybase WorkSpace. In this article I want to attack the big picture from another angle, the angle of calling a Business Process Service in Unwired Orchestrator from a PowerBuilder Client.

XML is becoming the standard for data exchange. More and more software products and technologies are being built on top of it. Even the newest buzz word in Internet programming- AJAX - is related to XML. The good news is that .NET framework provides a very powerful API for manipulating XML, and you, as a PowerBuilder developer, can leverage on that API through the .NET interoperability feature released in PowerBuilder 11.

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.

AJAX frameworks - says former Ascential VP of Technology and Product Management Bob Zurek, now with IBM (who acquired Ascential) - currently lack a killer component like the DataWindow. Developers spend way to much time dealing with all the complexities that are easily handled by a component like the DataWindow. Over time, a rich DataWindow like component will emerge as part of a Ajax framework and I suspect that this will be the framework that everyone will want for simplifying data intensive Ajax applications.

In the past decade, the software industry has evolved significantly, especially in the enterprise application development area. And the biggest evolution has been the transition from client/server applications to Web based applications.

Six years ago I was asked to implement a data repository to hold network management and performance data. With monitoring systems, databases have a tendency to be large, and have a delicate balance between inserting (logging) new data and deleting old (aging) data out from the system. The SQL Anywhere server database from iAnywhere was what the customer wanted to use, so I first had to evaluate if it could handle the expected load.

At Techwave 2005 in Las Vegas, ISUG unveiled its entirely redesigned Web site (see Figure 1) and showcased some new functionality. A good deal of this new functionality is related to the enhancements process, the voice between the Sybase user community and Sybase product management. ISUG is the main repository for capturing product enhancements, compiling voting from its ISUG members and working with Sybase product management to incorporate these enhancements into future products. The enhancement process alone should be reason enough to be an ISUG member, not counting the vast array of other member benefits.

We begin this article by asking the question, why would you want to add caller ID to your PowerBuilder applications anyway? I can think of about a handful of applications for it, mostly revolving around picking a phone number and querying a database. For example, 'Good morning, Chance, will you be ordering the cheese and sausage pizza again?' Or perhaps a database of people, some whom you might not like, just to have your modem hang up on them. The possibilities are endless.

Sybase WorkSpace is the first integrated development environment (IDE) capable of delivering all of theapplicationtypes in demand today - whether services-oriented, mobile, Java-based, composite, event-driven, or data-driven. Sybase WorkSpace is built on the Eclipse Open Source framework making it easier and faster for programmers to develop complex applications that link heterogeneous infrastructures like databases, messaging systems, and enterprise applications.

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 mentioned earlier, that particular format seemed to work well. There also didn't seem to be as many problems as there were last year with having enough food or providing it fast enough.

Due to new government mandates and the consolidation of departments, the State of Michigan's Office of Financial and Insurance Services (OFIS) confronted the challenge of custom building, or buying, a new IT infrastructure. Either option would require the investment of millions of dollars and several years to implement, along with the need for large-scale effort to re-training and/or hiring staff.

Last week, our development team was supposed to launch a new version of our application. As usual, right before finishing the application we discover that one or two problems had to be corrected.

Every now and then we create reusable components, and so far we are giving them away for free. Some pathetic bloggers call this 'giving back to the community'. We look at it simple: if we do not have time to productionize the component, we donate it.

A session-based synchronization technology designed to synchronize UltraLite and Adaptive Server Anywhere databases with many industry-standard SQL database management systems from Sybase and other vendors. We use it to synchronize data from one or more bookstores to a consolidated database running at their warehouse. This lets them run reports that aggregate data from many stores, transfer stock between stores, centralize purchasing, and do stock look-ups and one-time data entry,

This article describes the architecture and features of the Web application development tooling in WorkSpace 1.5, how to develop these powerful JSF DataWindow components, and then use them in a JSF Web application, as well as how to integrate Web applications into a Service Oriented Architecture.

Yes, Virginia, Sybase does have a J2EE-compatible application server, and it's known as EAS, short for Enterprise Application Server. In fact, EAS is alive and well, and this issue of the PowerBuilder Developer's Journal will focus on the recent release of version 6.0.

This article describes the synergies between PowerBuilder and Sybase WorkSpace for services-oriented development and shows how to use a PowerBuilder component in Sybase WorkSpace 1.5.

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.youtu be.com/watch?v=Vq0VbTrjld 8

We discovered PowerGen when we were looking for a command line utility for importing objects into PowerBuilder. At the time (PowerBuilder V5.0) we were struggling with a source control system whose SCC-API interface was having all kinds of trouble with PowerBuilder (as most source control systems did at the time). As a result we cobbled together our own check-in/check-out utility using PowerGen's command line operations.

Ten years ago I've been doing PowerBuilder and my mentality was different: first, I was the best friend of business users, and second I did not really worry about what's under the hood. I could do stuff quickly, or using the modern jargon, I was an

SYS-CON Events (www.events.sys-con.com) announced today that the first international 'AJAXWorld(TM) Conference & Expo' (www.ajaxworldexpo.com), taking place on October 3-4, 2006, at theSanta Clara Convention Center, California, will offer AJAXWorld University - Developer Bootcamp program. The AJAX Developer Bootcamp will take placeon Monday, October 2, 2006, one day before the conference opens.

When we talk about AJAX and its huge impact on Web development, one important thing to mention is that it's not a ready-to-ship component that you just plug into your app and now you're Web 2.0. In fact, what AJAX can do for you is to provide a simple, yet powerful way to make transparent server requests; but nothing more than that. The important point with AJAX is what to do with it. In other words, how do we use it to improve the user experience?

Great news today .. Sybase's subsidiary in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada - iAnywhere Solutions has announced the release of the new SQL Anywhere database version 10 into production! Sybase has decided to rename the ASA (Adaptive Server Anywhere) database back to its original name SQL Anywhere.

Let's suppose that you have a search window where a user can enter a search string and get the list of text items matching this pattern. Ideally, the portions of text that meet the search criteria should be highlighted, for example, by text formatting.

My presentation at TechWave 2006 is intended for the beginner or the moderately experienced PowerBuilder developer. I hope to share some of the useful tips and tricks I have picked up in my 12 years as a PowerBuilder developer.

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 it was introduced is the ability of non-.NET applications to call .NET components through the use of a COM Callable Wrapper (CCW).

PowerBuilder offers some dynamic querying capabilities. For simple scenarios it works quite well. But what if your scenario isn't simple? What if you wanted to write a database-querying tool that provides stored procedure compilation, ShowPlan display, or the execution of large complicated batch scripts?

At Nielsen Media Research (NMR), the Core Business Architecture group recently completed a project to evaluate where systems support business processes poorly or not at all. Our first challenge was to determine the format to use in capturing the information.

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 afternoon. What were the four-day a.m. courses are given in a single 10-hour session all day Tuesday.

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 prior to this during the pre-conference classes) and yet it was booked to capacity (100+ people).

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.

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 dinner for 'friends' who have supported ISUG or local user groups over the last year. It was held in the Cafe Logo in Ceaser?s Palace. Pictures are here.

This online web application is huge and belongs to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)! It has been running for the past 5 years and as of late, has had major upgrades and features added. This latest release has been built using Sybase's application server (EAServer) release 5.2 and its premier development tool PowerBuilder release 10.2.1. It is also backed up with Sybase's database engine ASE version 12.0!

Monday's keynote speakers included Sybase Chairman, CEO, and President John Chen and Sybase iAnywhere President Terry Stepien.

'In today's world, it's time-consuming for IT administrators to go through the steps of setting up secure testing scenarios for software evaluation,' said Joe Owen, vice president engineering, Sybase iAnywhere.

We've all had days when QA made things difficult. When we take a closer look at what caused it we usually find that there was some miscommunication between QA and the programmers. And this miscommunication was most likely caused by the business having unrealistic expectations of the development team or the business/programmers not understanding the best way to utilize QA. So where does QA fit?

PowerBuilder Developer Resources released PBDelta version 5.2.0. This new version includes PowerBuilder 10.5 support including new icons and menus.

EAServer 6.0 brings with it many new and exciting changes on a number of fronts, not the least of which is its management console, EAServer Manager. Many of the changes wrought in the console are simple byproducts of the changes in the underlying server, so I won't delve into them. Instead I'll deal with changes to the console itself, discussing the most notable ones and hopefully giving you a good feel for what's in store.

In this paper we'll be discussing the migration of existing EAServer applications to EAServer 6. Because of architecture changes in EAServer, an explicit migration is needed; whereas with previous versions you could simply upgrade an existing installation or install and sync the entities.