SUMMARY : How good are PowerBuilder, SQL Windows etc.
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1993 13:57:00 GMT
Message-ID: <14JAN199308573884_at_hagar.bms.com>
SUMMARY : How good are POWER BUILDER, SQL Windows etc ...
I got the following Responses from users users of Database Application Development Tools. Thanks to Mark, Tom, Paul and others who took the trouble of replying to my posting. Following is a summary of the responses.
The Tools that are discussed are PowerBuilder, SQL windows, UnifAce, ObjectView and SmartStar Vision.
Got only one response about SmartStar Vision. I am posting the response at the end .
The general feeling has been that PowerBuilder,SQL Windows , ObjectView and Uniface are all robust products, Learning Curve for SQL Windows being the most difficult. As far as technical support is concerned, all are rated good, especially Guptas SQL Windows and UniFace.
Performance wise ObjectView is good, SQL Windows is slight slow, no responses on others.
About 2 years back when Time required to develop Application using this tools was compared, SQL windows took 150 days to develop a test project compared to 75 hours using Uniface.
These Tools support Database Triggers, Stored procedures and other nice Features of databases available today.
Uniface is a complete system development tool having a CASE development type of approach with interfaces to other Upper CASE Tools like Programmers Workbench, IEW etc. One can start from Entity Relationship diagrams and develop a complete application using Uniface.
General Trend to produce graphics is to use a Familiar Windows based Graphics package and pass data to this package using DDE.
Other Details can be found from the following posting I received.
Hope this helps
Narendra Mishra
mishra_at_lavc01.bms.com
From Mark A. Israel : misra_at_monalisa.boston.fsg.com (Mark A. Israel)
I have done extensive development in SQL Windows using Sybase databases as well as Gupta's SQLBase. I have also looked at using PowerBuilder but found SQLWindows to be a better product. Both ease application development, and both are very robustness (they offer good language coverage and allow access to any windows DLL). I found that Gupta's tech support to be better, although they do take about 24 hours on indepth questions.
I know that the big selling point of Gupta early on was the access to many different SQL databases. Guptas gateways are very complete and easy to use.
Perfomance is not as good with either of the products when compaired to C or
C++ development. But both operate well on higher-end systems (386 33mhz or
better). I wouldn't recommend either if you were creating large applications
(>100 windows, dialogs).
As far as graphics, I used DDE and other methods to output data to other applications to create charts. I know both can do it, how well I am unsure.
From : Tom Fisk <fisk_at_cvdv99.mayo.edu>
Just thought I would respond to your question on application development tools. The tool we use is called UnifAce and we are very pleased with the tool.
Before answering your specific questions, here is my "canned" response on UnifAce:
Uniface is a multi-platform, multi-database, presentation method, and network independent 4GL application development tool...in other words Uniface makes true Open Systems applications a reality. Uniface's architecture is based on the ANSI 3-Schema architecture...the key which will gives Uniface it's unique ability to be a true open systems tool. The Ansi 3-Schema architecture is comprised of:
o Conceptual Schema - This is the level where you define your data and functions, i.e. entities, fields, and relationships. For each of these you also can define global triggers that will be picked up by all applications. For example, at the field level you can define triggers for Start Modification, Leave Field, Next Field, Previous Field, Encrypt, Decrypt, Detail, Help, Error, and Menu. The DBA can define these triggers globally and all applications based on the entity will automatically pick up this functionality. You can also import the conceptual schema from other upper CASE tools (Programmer's Workbench, IEW, etc.). About 80% of the application design is done at the conceptual schema level. You can also control it so that the DBA is the one who maintains the conceptual schema while programmer's just do screens (more about that later) or just let everybody do everthing...but you can put in whatever controls you feel are appropriate. You can also verify your conceptual schema to ensure that all of the relationships are correctly defined and make sense.
o Physical/Internal Schema - This is where your conceptual schema, your ERD, gets translated into a database implementation. Uniface handles this for you...all of the SQL to create the tables in your target database is created. For those databases that support stored procedures and triggers, Uniface will take advantage of those mechanisms. All of the integrity constraints in Sybase, for example, will be implemented as stored procedures. If your database doesn't have these, then Uniface will take care of it for you. One nuisance in this area is when the table changes. Right now Uniface does not have tools to support dumping the database, recreating it, and reloading it. We have been happy with the tools supplied by the database vendors though and it is a relatively easy task with most quality commercial databases. Uniface supports a wide variety of databases (all major players) and file systems. If you have an odd database, you can write your own driver with the template they supply.
o External Schema - Here is where you do your screen design. This is a relatively easy task. You paint your entity onto the screen and then choose the fields that you want and paint those on the screen. There is a fastform utility that will paint the form for you and then you can tweek it. The external schemas support multiple entities on the same screen and many occurences within an entity. ALL record management is handled by Uniface! You can paint a fully functional form in a matter of minutes. The only code you have to write (if you so choose) is for handling exceptions...i.e. do you want something different than standard to happen here. All of the code is put into the triggers. I can not convey fully in words how important this part of Uniface is! The amount of code you write is minimal and this makes Uniface a very highly productive tool. I also want to mention Uniface's ability to handle multiple user interfaces at this time also. Uniface will allow you to use the same application in character mode and GUI interfaces. Checkbuttons, pushbuttons, scroll bars, and bitmaps are the supported widgets in the GUI environment right now (with more coming). But with these basic widgets you can create some pretty sophisticated GUI screens (more on this later). Uniface handles displaying the screen in the appropriate presentation method and will take advantage of the unique features of each. Producing reports is the same as producing screens, you use the same facility. In fact, each screen by default is a report and can be used as such. Of course, additional features are provide for reports, such a control breaks, headers, and footers. Again, you can develop some pretty sophisticated reports using Uniface. Oh, and another thing, you can mix databases/filesystems on the same external schema. So you can pull up a screen that pulls some data from Sybase, other data from Rdb and other data from RMS.
Uniface also supports global & local registers (variables), central procedures, central messages, keyboard and device translations. It also has support to develop multi-lingual applications. Keyboard translations allow you to remap the keyboard whatever way you want and device translations allow you to define/redefine display and printer devices.
Sounds good so far? Here is what my group is doing with Uniface. We have developed about 7 applications to date. All of the application development takes place on a VAXstation 4000-60 against Rdb. Some applications are developed in a character mode and some are developed against Motif. Some of the applications are then ported to IBM RS-6000's running Sybase. This is very easy to do and the only thing you have to do is recompile the application on the target platform to get it to work. No changes for the database, or the operating system, or the presentation method!
Our most complex application is an electronic medical record for patients with diabetes. This is a full GUI application that is developed on the VAX, and ported to the RS-6000 and PC platforms.
If you haven't guessed by now, I am probably pretty biased towards the product. But (!) I have used many other 4GL tools and Uniface is by far the best one I have used. Here at Mayo, I have given about 35 presentations on Uniface to others in Information Services and many of those people are similarly impressed with Uniface's capabilities. One of the groups is currently using Ingres 4GL for windows and they are going to give Uniface a serious evaluation. We also have mainframe people (that are still coding in assembler!!!) that have chosen Uniface as their migration tool off of the mainframe. All in all, it appears that Uniface will be a major player within our institution.
I am back! Now I will answer some of your specific questions:
i) Ease of application development - very easy to put together an application. If it wasn't mentioned before, Uniface handles all of the DB interactions so you don't have to specifically code these. We can change the default behavior, but for our applications (and most of those in any circumstances) the default works well.
ii) Reliability and Robustness - Reliability is very good. We have our application running on VMS, AIX, and MS-Windows and we had to do very little to get the application running on each platform.
iii) Technical support - also good in this area. Fairly easy to get through to the support people and they are available into the nite (until 7pm West coast time I believe). Very prompt at returning calling and finding out solutions to problems.
iv) Ability to access databases of SQL*Net - don't know, never tried product or even heard of it.
v) Capabilities to produce graphic output - we use a companion product called Uniface Business Graphics to do our graphics. Works well, is relatively easy to create graphs.
vi) Critical feastures - Application generation is one of Uniface's strong points. If you want to write LOTS of code then Uniface isn't for you! ;-) Only code you have to write is 4GL for triggers if you want to change default behavior.
vii) Support Oracle 7.0 and 6.0? - Yes they support Oracle although I am not sure which versions.
viii) Performance of applications developed - Extremely good. On our VMS platform they run as fast as executables (and that is really amazing considering the VMS overhead). We don't have performance concerns with out applications.
From : chandk_at_usomsd.daytonoh.ncr.com
NCR Corporation has done an extensive study to determine which GUI application development tool should be used for all internal business applications. Among the products reviewed were PowerBuilder, Gupta SQL Windows and ObjectView. A brief synopsis:
SQL Windows: Robust, but difficult learning curve
ObjectView: Robust, minmial learning curve
Version 2.0 soon to be released has some excellent enhancements
PowerBuilder: Robust, I am not personally sure about the learning
curve; very expensive when we considered the number of
developer and client copies of the software that we
would require
I was involved in the initial review process which was completed about two years ago at that time PowerBuilder was only beta release therefore we did not review it as extensively as we have previously reviewed it. In the more recent review it was considered a very robust product. However, our company standardized all application development to be done with ObjectView.
When we initially compared ObjectView and SQL Windows it took 75 hours to develop a test project with ObjectView compared to 150 hours with SQL Windows.
Since your news message did not mention ObjectView, I will give you the name and number of the company that created it.
Matesys
(415) 925-2900
CEO Michel Prompt
NCR Contact Chirag Patel
From : Paul Templeman <paul_at_sqltech.dialix.oz.au>
I don't know whether I count, but I'm currently looking at Powerbuilder to take on as a product to resell here in Western Australia. But I know the product reasonably well.
Powerbuilder uses painters to develop an application, which makes life really easy. The SQL painting especially makes life easy, as you can paint the SQL statement rather than having to know Oracle's SQL implementation back to front. You can event paint embedded SQL statements and cursor statements in the script painter, very handy!
I can't comment on this, as I have not been running Powerbuilder in a full commercial apllication environment. I've had no problems with it though.
The support given by Powersoft Australia, is good, but I obviously can't comment on the US.
Powerbuilder has a concept of a DataWindow which allows you to paint a report/data screen from an SQL statement. You can include graphics in the report as well as do calculations and then print or display the report. I've found this area to be one of the most impressive Powerbuilder functions. In other areas e.g. graphs etc. my motto has been with all products, not just with Powerbuilder, to use the best tools for the job. For graphs with Powerbuilder I'd use either the OLE or DDE capabilities of Powerbuilder to link data to Excel or Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows.
It is FULLY object orientated. Allows creation of User Objects. Supports multiple development environments, including locking/unlocking code stored in shared libraries. ODBC database interface due in March 1993. Supports stored procedures in Oracle 7.0 and Sybase.
Support ORACLE 7.0 and 6.0 .
Can't really say about performance as not in a commercial application environment.
From : smrtstr!"DONALD!SPOWERS "
In reponse to your request for information these and other tools. SmartStar Corporation has introduced a New Object Oriented Programming Environment for Cross-Platform Application Devlopment with several advantages over the GUI builder mentioned in your request. The name of this tool is SmartStar Vision. It is based on an Osf-Motif interface and is the first tool of its kind that provides for MOTIF TO SQL database design with no coding. As a database independent tool it supports Dynamic binding, Inheritance, as well as supporting referential integrity and query optimization. Support for Oracle, Ingres, Sybase, and CISAM etc are provided. I would like to send you some more information and discuss your requirements in more depth. Please contact me at (800) 677-7827, ext 237. or by Internet at " spowers_at_smartstar.com" regards steve powers. Received on Thu Jan 14 1993 - 14:57:00 CET