Re: PowerBuilder and Informix

I have been using Powerbuilder since version 5 about 10 years ago against Informix and have to say it has been a great product for building database apps. I have rebuilt the same app in VB and have not had nearly the functionality or ease of use I had with Powerbuilder. The datawindow technology alone is worth the price of the product. Another poster mentioned the high price of powerbuilder. I use the enterprise edition of PB 9 and I believe the main benefit from it is using native drivers, but the professional version works just as well against ODBC drivers and since you have a small user base, using ODBC to connect to Informix may be easier to maintain. The professional version is cheaper. My clients are running on Win2K, XP, and 98 and they all seem to run the same. XP has some problems with forms but nothing that is considered serious and can be worked around. If you spend the investment to learn PB well, you can do some really amazing projects( yes ok you can say that with any language ;) ) in a short amount of time. The object-oriented nature of PB is great as well. I have base objects that allow me to build really robust data entry screens in 30 minutes with little coding on the inherited forms. Not to bash PB, but the IDE is still a pain in the a** sometimes especially when it comes to debugging. There are also the rare situations where something won't work, but when you step through it in the debugger it magically works ( like it didn't get rebuilt or something ). Other than that its ok. I also develop java apps and feel that Java still is not ready to built complex database apps that I can do in PB. Maybe thats just my novice status when it comes to GUI in java. I love PB, but am afraid of the future sometimes and when it came to finding PB developers to assist me in my area, I had a hard time finding anyone. As a developer, I also found it hard to find jobs that require PB. Thats just my opinion, but thats what you are looking for right? Hope this information helps out a bit. "Sean R. Durity" <sdurity@cornercap.com> wrote in message news:a1dd8270.0312220514.449f2d4b@posting.google.com... > We are evaluating the use of PowerBuilder 9 for building fairly basic > database applications hitting an Informix 9.x server. Some of this is > re-writing/re-working a 4GL application. I would like to know if there > are many Informix/PowerBuilder developers out there and if they > recommend PB as a development environment. > > Some keys: > - low number of users (<15) > - need quick development/deployment cycle > - all clients are Windows 2000; multi-platform would be nice, but > Java/Swing seems to be more complicated to do well. > - fat/rich client preferred; web interface too limiting > - do not care about .Net, prefer to avoid. > - we use Linux servers for web, network, IDS, etc. > > I know some about 4Js/Genero, but it seems way too expensive, > especially with per client fees. Also, it seems to be a niche product > with no books, little internet information, etc. Hopefully > PowerBuilder isn't falling into that problem as well. Is it being > consumed by .Net and Delphi and Java?