How PowerBuilder should go web....

[oswaldo_varela]

First of all, excuse for my terrible english... I'll try my best...

I got time to learn some others tecnologies... and they blow my mind... specially ASP.NET MVC and started to think "How Powerbuilder should go web???".... I wish someone in SAP is going to read this.

1) Datawindow is awesome but it does not separate the concerns... the View from the model... everything is on the window and with some time and more people it's dificult to maintain... Now I understand the logic of MVC model (Model View Controller) and it's so great.

So Datawindow have to split in 2 parts...

1) Just the data ... (it's like working only with datastores... just handle data), makes some processes and return JSON data(data in text format wich travels trough the web). so PowerBuilder should be converted into a web server ( or maybe a plugin for IIS or Apache).

2) The View part (it is essentially a Graphical javascript library like "Datawindow.js" wich runs on the client browser and it handles the JSON data that travels beetwen the server and the client) Just imagine PB running on an Iphone or a Galaxy Android (without Appeon of course, just pure and understable javascript)

the part 2 is optional because the programmer can use some other tools already in the market like Telerik Controls, jQuery controls, etc.

So powerbuilder JUST handle data beetwen the server and the client.

The new part is How to render dynamic HTML. in ASP there is a new engine called Razor... with some similarities to PHP or Java, it's basically a HTML script editor in wich the programmer embed "dynamic parts" with the sign @ for example.

I don't see this too much complicated... Just keep it simple... just a text interface... nothing graphicall.

The last part I wanna mention in Microsoft ASP.net is the new and famous "Entity Framework". It simply retrieves data from the server and puts it into objects... if you change the data in the object and call Context.SaveChanges() the data is saved in the database.... so, well it is a no big deal... it is basically the core of the datawindow... because it can fetch data, you can handle it, change it, create it (internally PB keep a flag new!, newmodified!, modified!, notmodified! so as Entity Framework) and then save the changes... so in this Context PowerBuilder created this technology 20 years before microsoft.

But Now Powerbuilder is in limbo....

I really don't want powerbuilder to die... I want it to evolution... to transform... to live...

Please make PB open source... so it can reborn... and may compete with Ruby on rails, ASP.NET, Java, etc... like it used to be...

[Former Member]

Groundhog Day!

[Former Member]

Having gone through a few ASP.NET MVC tutorials I would tend to disagree and say I dislike MVC as I would be writing hundreds of lines of code in various places to do what I would do in a few lines in a powerbuilder application. That being said I can see where you are coming from with the need for a datastore to be held in a web service to match the html client data for updates/inserts.

I think the webserver (asp.net/jsp) should be cut out all together and they should be focussing on single page application style architecture with the datawindow layout being held as html and data loaded/updated from the web service.  My biggest problem with my current web datawindow sites is that I cannot update more than one datawindow on a page at a time due to the need for a page refresh.

For my way of thinking business applications are still even on the web going to be made up of hundreds of datawinows spread across lots of pages and datawindow reports being run on this data. At the moment I cannot see a web tool out there that quickly allows you to define the data and layout on the pages (like a datawindow). Some out there like Kendo have great grid components with resizable, draggable, sortable, filterable columns but are not graphical defined like a datawindow and don't go into the free form style.  I think there would be a market out there if they can get something together with a html5 datawindow with other modern components definable on the page like panel bars,tab strips, menus, multiselect etc.

Obviously this would need to be a separate target and wouldn't care if I had to do the client coding of events in Javascript/Jquery or a powerscript blend.

[Former Member]

Hi Oswaldo;

   To enable PowerBuilder applications on the Web, Mobile & Cloud (without rewriting your current application's code) ... have a look at Appeon for PB!  

FYI:  http://www.appeon.com

I just deployed my 3rd Web application into production over the past 12 months. Appeon is "awesome"! 

Regards ... Chris