Re: Visual Basic, ODBC and Oracle 6

In article <25ni17$536_at_infochi.com>, rfinkel_at_infochi.com (Richard Finkelstein) says:
>
>Jeff Kopmanis (jeffk_at_garnet.msen.com) wrote:
>
>: VB is *ALOT* cheaper. PB is *ALOT* more powerful. You get what you pay
>: for. For medium strength apps, VB is probably OK, but for bigger stuff, PB
>: would be the tool of choice. VB also has a much wider support and 3rd-party
>: library hook-ins than PB.
 

>: --
>: Jeff Kopmanis (Ann Arbor, Michigan) | email: jeffk_at_msen.com
>: Organizer of the Linux Software Map (LSM) | phone: (313) 393-4784 (work)
>: "So shines a good deed in a weary world." -Willy Wonk
>
>In my experiences and based upon discussions with many PowerBuilder and
>Visual Basic users, I have found that VB gives more flexibility, more
>functionality, and more control over the application. With VB 3.0 and all
>of the add-on tools that are available, I would say that VB is a stronger
>product. PB has some nice features (e.g. check-in/check-out) with some
>inheritance capabilities, but I do not feel these features in themselves
>warrant the extra cost of PB (more than $2500) especially with all of PB's
>limitations. Companies have complained about hitting brick-walls and
>severe performance problems. They often have to exit out of PB into C
>coding. I have found that PB seems to be most successful in smaller
>applications. Not too long ago, a _reference_ for PowerBuilder ranted and
>raved for over 1 hour about the product, he was so upset. He said that his
>company ( a major PB user) was moving over to ObjectView and VB. He also
>said that he knows of many other large corporations who are decommitting
>to PB. This is pretty much what I have gathered from talking to other
>large corporations and analysts in this area.
>
>-- ich
>--
>Richard Finkelstein Voice: 312-549-8325
>Performance Computing, Inc. Fax: 312-549-4824
>Chicago, IL Mail: rfinkel_at_infochi.com

Are you talking about building client server apps or just windows apps that don't need to talk to an RDBMS? The datawindow is the real strength of PB. I haven't seen much of what VB can do with the back end. I know that until v3.0 you had to code or buy your own DLL. How close is VB in this area? What about inheritance? What about transportability (being able to port to NT is a given) to platforms like Motif, Macintosh, etc? Received on Thu Sep 02 1993 - 16:11:01 CEST