Re: PB 4.0 vs Oracle Forms

In <SMUENCH.95Mar20001029_at_doh.oracle.com> smuench_at_oracle.com (Steven P. Muench) writes:

[...]

>Oracle's Developer/2000 suite, announced last week, include the latest
>and greatest release of Forms 4.5 and has free runtimes.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Free runtimes has been a Powersoft policy for a long time; Oracle was forced into this. I would rather trust that Powersoft is going to continue this policy, than trust that Oracle is going to continue this policy...

(not trying to provoke a flame war here; I think the statement is reasonable)

>With Oracle Forms 4.5, included in the Developer/2000 suite, you build
>standard Windows MDI applications which behave like any other Windows
>app on the market. The benefits over Powerbuilder in the MDI area are:
 

> (1) We support vertical and horizontal toolbar alleys on all
> windows including the MDI parent window. These toolbar alleys
> can have all the same controls you need in your toolbars just
> like *real* Windows applications have: buttons, poplists,
> text items, even VBX controls! PB supports only iconic buttons
> in the MDI parent window.

True. Glad there's competition out there....

> (2) You don't write code to get an MDI app in Oracle Forms, in PB
> you do (they're new application template can save you a little
> time, but you still end up writing code for most MDI apps)

Well, after years of experience with all sorts of high level development tools (12 years). I have come to appreciate, that writing code is not bad; writing code is good. It gives flexibility. No matter how many claims to the contrary I have seen in my career, nothing beats being able to write good code. One of the strengths of Powerbuilder is that it provides a well designed development environment, which encourages writing *good* code. It's not perfect, but for a high level system it's pretty good.

Beware of programmers who are *afraid* of writing code... Hire programmers who are afraid of being *forced* to write *bad* code....

Rennie Allen
Electrical Engineering Dept.
Pine Falls Paper Company
1 Mill Road,
P.O. Box 10 Pine Falls, MB ROE 1M0
Phone (204)367-2311
Fax (204)367-4407
email: rgallen_at_mbnet.mb.ca Received on Mon Mar 20 1995 - 17:43:15 CET