Re: Forms 4.5 vs Powerbuilder

I have been following this debate for a while now and I think I can place some considerable input for this forum now that we are re-engineering a re-engineering (not a grammatical error) effort that we did with Oracle Forms 4.5. We are currently
building an "Open" database architecture that will support at minimum Oracle 7 and MS SQL Server, both of which are supported by Forms 4.5. And believe it or not, it works well. We are not using features such as row-level locking or any other oracle specific feature. The concurrency control is built into the data model. Enough about the DB. Having the experience in C/S systems that I have and know have hands on knowledge of both PB and Forms 4.5, PB is the winner hands down. Not ignoring the efforts of the Oracle support staff in bug fixes and workarounds, common things cause major business impacts and have bugs numbers such as:

LOV - Cannot use a global BUG 266100
null attributes - Causes GPFs BUG 271419 when-list-activated - doesn't work BUG ? memory leaks - When a form is opened and closed, doesn't release memory.

               every couple of iterations in the application and machine 
               locks. BUG 272843

VBX3 - Periodically causes GPFs. BUG ?

t-list - Doesn't work BUG 284538

hints.pll - Doesn't work BUG ?

show keys - Doesn't work BUG 277767
RAM internal error - records displayed != records buffered or records

                     fetched.
BUG 276300 Some things have been fixed in subsequent releases except those listed above, I will be glad to send anyone the correspondence of bugs/workarounds/fixes if you are interested.

As of June 1, we have started parallel development with PB4 and have recommended to our client to drop Forms 4.5 who has been a Oracle db/forms client since 1985. As a long term Oracle IS shop, they are very hesitant. I have no vested
interested nor do I care whether or not we use either tool, the issue has been one of stability, reliability, and performance which PB4 has been far superior. This is a full-cycle development cycle with over 100 interface screens within one application. I have built PB2 and PB3 systems with that many screens with some problems but none with mission critical impacts that we are currently realizing with Oracle forms 4.5. Face it. PB has been out in GUI for 3+ years. Oracle Forms 4.5 in my opinion is still beta. With mass development of a system over the last three months, we have flushed out many bugs or limitations not given in any canned sales presentation. Please contact me if you need additional information.

Thanks,

Bud Michels
bmichels_at_c-s-p.com
(301)598-7416

Dennis Moore (dbmoore_at_netcom.com) wrote:
: In article <1995Jun12.093914.2109_at_dde.dk> mj_at_dde.dk (Martin Jensen) writes:
: >jstarwoo_at_haven.ios.com (Jim Starwood) writes:
: >
: >>Matthew M. Lih (matt.lih_at_trw.com) wrote:
: >>: >
: >>: >We are a ORACLE SQL*Forms IS shop and are evaluating Powerbuilder as an
: >>: >alternative to building client-server apps. Has anyone out there gone
 

: >>: I'm working on a project developing a distributed system with over
: >>: ~10Gb data using Oracle 7.1.4, Oracle Forms 4.5. I'm also taking
: >>: a client-server class which is giving me some Powerbuilder exposure.
 

: >>: up Powerbuilder. Powerbuilder seems to require a substantial
: >>: amount of code to do things like connect to the database, which
 

: >>If six lines overall is substantial, one of us needs to go back to class.
 

: >>: If you're currently an Oracle shop and want to continue to use
: >>: Oracle servers exclusively, I would say Forms is a good choice.
: >>: If you need to access non-Oracle databases, you may want to go
: >>: to Powerbuilder.
 

: >>This is stupid rationale. Take a quick look at the product yourself,
: >>it's manageable for the kids of things Forms does, and has good
: >>integration potential to other Windows applications. Don't be an island.
: >
: >In fact I think both Forms and Powerbuilder are execelent for a large number
: >of general administrative solutions. I would though be more worried about
: >maintanance. Here Forms 4, as previous SQL*Forms versions, has (if you like)
: >all its information stored in database tables, which makes it very easy
: >fast to track down a small number of forms with a certain problem to solve.
: >Although I must say that the encoding of literal strings sure has made
: >life more difficult for us.
: >
: >I do not know if Powerbuilder offers similar cross referencing functions,
: >that will allow us to maintain hundreds of forms without having to enter
: >each and every of them?
: >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
: >>Jim Starwood I like a chromatic love affair...
: >>jstarwoo_at_haven.ios.com one half-step at a time.
: >
: >Best wishes - Martin Jensen
: >--
: >Martin Jensen, Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark
: >E-mail: mj_at_dde.DK
: > ---
: >Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out if it alive.
 

: No they don't have the option of storing source in the database, which not
: only makes maintenance difficult, but also makes team development difficult.
 

: BTW, Forms 4.5 (included in Developer/2000) includes many new productivity
: functions for developers:
 

: * Object Navigator: you can see, globally search on, globally replace
: names of, manage, etc. all client and server objects in a hierarchical
: outline view of all client and server objects, even across multiple
: forms, menus, and libraries.
: * Property Classes: visual and non-visual objects with multiple
: inheritance, multi-level inheritance, etc.
: * Full code debugger
: * Drag-and-drop application partitioning for tuning multi-tier applications
: * PECS for complete performance analysis
: * Property sheets: inspect and change properties of items, intersections
: of multiple items, and unions of multiple items
: * On-line tutorial, on-line manuals, comprehensive on-line help including
: copy and paste to your application
: * Objects-by-example: construct objects and then click a button to turn
: them into generalized classes which can be reused easily
: * Drag-and-drop inheritance: create libraries of reusable objects and
: classes, then drag-and-drop them into your applications
: * PVCS support for source code control
: * ODBC, Rdb, Sybase, Informix, and Ingres interfaces and drivers
: * Much much much more!
 

: Enjoy!
 

: --
: -- Dennis Moore, Oracle Corp.
: dbmoore_at_oracle.com <- Office (preferred for e-mail)
: dbmoore_at_netcom.com <- Home (preferred for living ;-)

Martin Jensen (mj_at_dde.dk) wrote:
: jstarwoo_at_haven.ios.com (Jim Starwood) writes:
 

: >Matthew M. Lih (matt.lih_at_trw.com) wrote:
: >: In article <3qnjjp$ckt_at_hazel.Read.TASC.COM>, Bob Ward <rjward_at_tasc.com> says:
: >: >
: >: >We are a ORACLE SQL*Forms IS shop and are evaluating Powerbuilder as an
: >: >alternative to building client-server apps. Has anyone out there gone
 

: >: I'm working on a project developing a distributed system with over
: >: ~10Gb data using Oracle 7.1.4, Oracle Forms 4.5. I'm also taking
: >: a client-server class which is giving me some Powerbuilder exposure.
 

: >: up Powerbuilder. Powerbuilder seems to require a substantial
: >: amount of code to do things like connect to the database, which
 

: >If six lines overall is substantial, one of us needs to go back to class.
 

: >: If you're currently an Oracle shop and want to continue to use
: >: Oracle servers exclusively, I would say Forms is a good choice.
: >: If you need to access non-Oracle databases, you may want to go
: >: to Powerbuilder.
 

: >This is stupid rationale. Take a quick look at the product yourself,
: >it's manageable for the kids of things Forms does, and has good
: >integration potential to other Windows applications. Don't be an island.
 

: In fact I think both Forms and Powerbuilder are execelent for a large number
: of general administrative solutions. I would though be more worried about
: maintanance. Here Forms 4, as previous SQL*Forms versions, has (if you like)
: all its information stored in database tables, which makes it very easy
: fast to track down a small number of forms with a certain problem to solve.
: Although I must say that the encoding of literal strings sure has made
: life more difficult for us.
 

: I do not know if Powerbuilder offers similar cross referencing functions,
: that will allow us to maintain hundreds of forms without having to enter
: each and every of them?
: >-------------------------------------------------------------------------
: >Jim Starwood I like a chromatic love affair...
: >jstarwoo_at_haven.ios.com one half-step at a time.
 

: Best wishes - Martin Jensen
: --
: Martin Jensen, Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark
: E-mail: mj_at_dde.DK
: ---
: Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out if it alive.

--
Thanks,

Bud Michels
bmichels_at_c-s-p.com
(301)598-7416