Re: NEWERA vs PowerBuilder.

In article <51oe68$3f5@cssun.mathcs.emory.edu>, billy@west.co.za (Billy Wheeler) wrote: >> We are using a ONLINE DYNAMIC server 7.12. we want to convert all >> our application to GUI environment. can any one tell us which one is the >> better product to Go ahead with.If possible write the advantages and >> disadvantage of each product. >> Our Application is related with Stock, Sales Analysis. Personnel & payroll( >> we want to work with images). > >This is difficult for me offer a complete perspective on, since my (very >limited) PB experience was limited to very old versions. How did you decide to go with NewEra without looking at the alternatives? The latest version of PB looks pretty good, from what I've seen of it. (I recently took part in a week-long "competition" between competant Visual Basic, Power-Builder and Delphi developers -- Delphi won, but PB was a commendable second. VB was just embaressing). >However, some things >for you to check are: >1) Does PB offer native Informix support? If you have to go through ODBC you >might run into performance and other hassles. Modern ODBC drivers have, in my experience, no performance problems. In fact some of them out-perform "native" drivers. I'm tempted to look at ODBC connectivity a bit closer too -- it's [largely unheralded] strength is the isolation it puts between you and your database, so you can change the database engine with comparative ease. (That should NOT be taken as Informix bashing BTW!) >2) My experience of PB indicates a GUI with scripting behind it. NewEra is >a fully featured language I'd agree -- I got this feeling too. >Also NE offers full object orientation, with the >ability to extend the language with classes PB also supports some level of object-orientation, and this is *very* important (at least to me). One of the huge reasons I went with Delphi was the strength of it's OO ability, and the ability to access my own classes from within it's "Window Painter" (something NE can't do). Inside Delphi I am now able to drop "OrderHeader", "OrderLine" and "Product" classes onto my form, glue them together, and get all the appropriate field validation/label descriptions/whatever "for free". I'm not going to tell you that it's easy, or that Delphi provides this functionality out of the box, but the development isn't that hard once you've grasped just how far you can push OO languages. Can anybody confirm if PB lets you create your own visual components like this? Cheers, Kerry S ------------------------------------,------------------------------------------ Kerry Sainsbury, kerry@kcbbs.gen.nz | THE INFORMIX FAQ v2.5 June 96 Quanta Systems, Auckland | http://www.iiug.org/techinfo/faq/ New Zealand. Work: +64 9 377-4473 | ftp://ftp.iiug.org/pub/informix/faq Home: +64 9 279-3571 | ftp://kcbbs.gen.nz:/pub/informix/