Re: PowerBuilder 5.0 & VB 4.0 LAB EVALUATION for $295 (http://www.strategicfocus.com)
Date: 1997/03/01
Message-ID: <331bbf1d.8473183_at_newshost.us.oracle.com>#1/1
On Sat, 01 Mar 97 18:35:22 GMT, ashastry_at_ma.ultranet.com (Arun Shastry) wrote:
>In article <5f7rf2$fd_at_mtinsc05.worldnet.att.net>,
> Amiano_at_worldnet.att.netZ (John M. Miano) wrote:
>>In article <33174FA3.6EA_at_strategicfocus.com>, jprakash_at_strategicfocus.com
wrote:
>>>This posting is just to inform you guys that we have a special promotion
>>>underway till March 31st, 1997. We are giving away two C/S tool
>>>evaluation reports --- PowerBuilder 5.0 and Visual Basic 4.0 for the
>>>low, low price of only $295 per report. This represents a savings of
>>>70% over our regular price of $995 per evaluation. For your
>>>convenience, we now take VISA and MasterCard and you can order the
>>>reports on-line.
>>
>>VB - Slow, inflexible, unsuited for professional development.
>>PB - All the above but slower.
>>
>I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you as far as PB goes.
>What about PB you think is slower ? DataWindows are certainly
>a performance plus, 5.0 has distributed objects, database
>connectivity cannot be simpler elsewhere. There's got to be
>some reason why major VB, VC++ shops around here are switching
>to PB 5.0.
Flame Retardant --> ON
Yeah.....it's known as marketing and advertising.
I'll agree with you that VB is slower for database access operations than PB is. But I think you may be ambiguous when you talk about DataWindows being a performance plus. From the development standpoint, they are a huge plus if you have something simple to put together.
But for more complicated operations, and as well from a database standpoint, they are not a huge plus. PowerBuilder does not fully exploit UPI, thus making it a somewhat network-unfriendly application. And the display performance has been miserable, IMHO. If you're going to do a stand-alone, no-database application, I would choose VB in a minute....but traditional client/server may be losing steam anyway.
And let's say for example, you are building a PowerBuilder to Oracle application. If you want to do this right, you will want to become intimately familiary with PL/SQL and its use in stored procedures, packages, integrity constraints, etc. Then to develop in PowerBuilder, you must learn PowerScript, which is a crippled VB-wanna be...and then lastly, if you need to do any fancy footwork within datawindows, you'll want to learn about the DataWindow syntax, which is one of the most obtuse "languages" I have ever seen. I would rather read octal dumps all day.
I have used PowerBuilder in development shops since version 2.0, and I think all of the peers from my previous locations would agree that we easily spent 40% of our time working around PowerBuilder (the "tool"), whether that be bugs (which are many) or just unimplemented but desirable features.
Flame Retardant --> OFF
>
>>All you need to know...and free too.
>>
>>John
>>
>>------------------------------------------------
>>Yes my child, but if the computer industry were
>>driven by the "best" technology Bill Gates would
>>be washing car windows outside the Lincoln
>>Tunnel.
>>
>>
>>
>>
Thanks!
Joel
Joel R. Kallman Enabling the Information Age through Oracle Government Network Computing! Bethesda, MD http://govt.us.oracle.com jkallman_at_us.oracle.com http://www.oracle.com
The statements and opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent those of Oracle Corporation. Received on Sat Mar 01 1997 - 00:00:00 CET