Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Recap of PowerBuilder Future Webcast 4

The recording of the 4th webcast (and the previous 3) can be found at: www.tinyurl.com/newroadmap

This webcast was the high level roadmap.  Normal legal disclaimers apply.





Overall
  • A solid roadmap that extends several years into the future (covers many releases)
  • More iterative releases (every 9 months)
  • Open betas for specific features (rather that for specific releases)
  • Evaluation copies will still be made available
  • Renewed emphasis on e-learning and online tutorials
  • Reintroduce providing sample applications with the product
High level roadmap
  • Core Desktop
    • Windows 10
    • Native PDF
    • Modernize existing UI (e.g, Rich Text Edit control)
    • Add New UI Controls
    • New DataWindow Features
    • Support for new database features
  • Developer Productivity
    • Get rid of PBL files so that more modern source control systems can be used
    • Command line compiler that is separate from IDE
    • IDE improvements, including improved Intellisense
    • Provide unit testing framework
    • Provide DW Spy with product
  • n-Tier Applications
    • Desktop Cloud apps - based on web services, don't require local database drivers
    • Mobile Cloud apps - native apps that can make use of local resources
    • Adding WCF, REST, OData web services support while still supporting SOAP
    • n-Tier TransFlow - add WCF transaction management to NVOs deployed to IIS - potential EAServer migration path
  • .Net Interop
    • Consume .Net assemblies (visual and non-visual) in PowerBuilder Native
    • Create .Net assemblies (non-visual at minimum, visual depending on customer demand) from PowerBuilder Native
    • C# Datawindow plugin for Visual Studio.Net
    • Plugin for Visual Studio for creation of Universal Windows Platform apps
First release
  • Windows 10 support
  • Native PDF generation
  • Enhanced RTE control
  • Latest DB drivers
  • Mobile Cloud App features
Second Release
  • Modern UI
  • New Graphs
  • JSON support
  • PBL removal
  • CI Complier
  • Testing Framework
  • DW Spy
Third Release
  • Desktop Cloud Apps
  • WCF Services
  • n-Tier TransFlow
  • New Desktop Controls
  • New Mobile Controls
Request for Enhancement system
  • Want to do something similar to what IBM is doing
  • Open to public
  • Voting feature
  • Updates on status of request
How priority for enhancements is determined
  • Benefits
    • Demand
    • Customer Advisory Board
    • Trends in Market
    • Strategic
  • Costs
    • Effort
    • Difficulty
    • Breakage

4 comments:

Jason Vogel said...

Create a Community edition. I walked away from PB several years ago, but I miss it. I haven't been with a client that needed PB for a while, but I do a lot of C#. I'd be willing to contribute some time to help out the PB world, but I don't have funds to pay for a license.

PB definitely needs to move away from the proprietary PBL format. Version Control should be external to PB.

There should be a common ancestor for DWs and Datastores in regard to the datastorage capabilities.

Command line compiles definitely... to support Continuous Build support.

Honestly, I wish I could just use Visual Studio and do PB's DW/Datastores and NVOs. PB tries to re-invent the wheel too much.and lags behind... just create PB.Net!

Jason

Paul Horan said...

Compatibility with Swift should be somewhere on the roadmap. I'd love to at least see DataWindow.Swift or something of that nature...

-Paul-

Unknown said...

It's been 15 years using Power builder but didn't find any major changes in core objects. Hopefully new features like Getting rid of PBL, Command line compilation, DW new features and cloud will help power builder to get into IT market again ....

Imran Zaheer
Software Architect.

Leo Tohill said...

Yay! It only took them 14 years to take my suggestion. I refer to my PBDJ article of 2002. http://pbdj.sys-con.com/node/42423 . I wanted to title the article “The PBL Must Die” but they wouldn’t let me.

Best wishes to all my old PB buddies.