PowerObjects and CDE2, was Re: Oracle Project X's real name is......

In article <Henry_okeeffe.32.000D1CFA_at_inmarsat.org> Henry_okeeffe_at_inmarsat.org (Henry O' Keeffe) writes:
>In article <3i0rhl$g9l_at_news.csus.edu> sac50216_at_saclink1.csus.edu (Eric Pierce) writes:
 [snip]
>>: Apparently it's "Oracle power objects"
>>: Still dunno what it does, but there's an Oracle Press book coming out about it
>>: in april I believe. It was advertised in ORACLE magazine jan/feb 95 issue.
>>: (the book that is).
 [snip]
>Araghghghgh!!!!!!!!!!! Gaaaaaaawd!!!!!!!!!
>I've just looked. It uses Visual-Basic Basic as a language!! What's
>happening?!?!?! What's the strategy here? What happens to pl/sql CDE? Is this

Nothing happens to CDE/CDE2. CDE2 is a nearly $600 million business for Oracle. CDE2 is shipping now (tools and data access, CASE to follow in Q2CY95). PowerObjects is for the low-end -- personal to workgroup. CDE2 is for a higher range of applications -- workgroup to department to enterprise. Of course, there is some overlap, but think of it this way -- one programmer only ever, then PowerObjects should be better; three programmers, then CDE2 should be better. If you know VB, then PowerObjects should be better; if you know Forms or PowerBuilder or SQLWindows, then CDE2 should be better.

>Power Objects thing the way forward? There's no mention of Motif, I noticed.
>
>First we find out that CASE is written in visual C++ which ties Oracle to
>Microsoft, and now we find out that they have to keep up with the visual basic
>syntax etc. which ties them even more.

Only PowerObjects is using BASIC. CDE2 uses the Oracle-standard and industrystandard  PL/SQL -- the basis of the ANSI SQL3 database programmability, I believe.

Like it or not, Microsoft controls the desktop. We're as tied in with them as we are with Unix/VMS on the server. We plan to retain our portability, however.

> All "Oracle" programmers are being made redundant, and all the visual basic
>programmers are going to take over their jobs! This is what's going to happen!
>
>Thanks a lot Oracle.
>
>Henry.
>
>Henry_Okeeffe_at_Inmarsat.Org
>
>All Opinions are mine, and not my employer's.

Don't be so depressed. BASIC is not a competitive language in the long run. Some people seem to think it is easy to learn, and perhaps it is, but other languages are also easy to learn but without the monstrous syntax of BASIC. VB and other BASIC scripting environments such as PowerObjects (PowerBuilder too, for that matter since PowerScript according to PowerSoft/Sybase is BASIC) will be easy to learn. CDE2 is also easy to learn, but doesn't suffer a power shortage for teams of developers, for model-based development, for large data sets, or for large numbers of concurrent users. And of course there will be a CDE3 and beyond.

Good luck!

-- 
-- Dennis Moore, Oracle Corp.
dbmoore_at_oracle.com
dbmoore_at_netcom.com