Another Microsoft "Next Big Thing" technology bites the dust

This time it's LightSwitch.  Two months ago it was RemoteApp.  It must really give .Net developers a lot of second thoughts when the next "big thing" is announced.

I just find this ironic

Remember Steve Job's "Thoughts on Flash"?  Remember the closing statement?

"Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind."

This just in.  A company called Nexedi is suing Apple.  For what?

"The primary reason for starting this lawsuit is because we hope that it will help Apple to sooner support the latest Web and HTML5 standards on its iOS platform - the operating system used by all iPhones.  Anyone running html5test (http://html5test.com/) on his iPhone will find out that current iOS support of HTML5 Web technologies is lagging behind other platforms."

Preparing PowerBuilder applications for submission to the Windows Store using the Desktop App Converter

What the Desktop App Converter does is create a UWP wrapper around a .Net or Win32 application.  It runs the application within an isolated Windows environment so that any elevated privileges only affect the isolated environment and not the host machine.

Accessing any database from PowerBuilder 12.6 using OData

OData

One of the new features added to PowerBuilder Native with the 12.6 release was support for accessing SQL databases through OData.  A number of database vendors, particularly SAP and Microsoft provide build in support for exposing their databases via OData.  However, what do you need to do if you want to access other databases such as IBM or Oracle?

There are a number of options.  One is to get something like the Progress DataDirect OData Connector or the CData Could Driver.  Another approach, recommended by IBM and Oracle, is to expose the database through WCF Data Services using Visual Studio.Net.  The problem with that approach is that Microsoft (as it often does) has indicated that WCF Data Services has been deprecated in favor of Web API OData libraries.  So instead, we're going to look at a third option, using platform neutral open-source tools to expose any database through an OData service.

Recap of PowerBuilder Future Webcast 5

The recording of the webcast is available at:  www.appeon.com/recordings  The following is my summary of what was discussed.

Calling WCF web services from PowerBuilder Native through a proxy web service

One of the issues with PowerBuilder Native's support for web services is that it is based on ASP.Net Web Services.  That technology, introduced with .Net 1.0, doesn't provide support for anything other than simple XML over HTTP SOAP services.  Microsoft introduced WCF web services in .Net 3.0 to provide support for a much creater variety of SOAP services.  In particular, WCF web services:

• Can be accessed through protocols other than HTTP, such as TCP or named pipes.
• Added support for web services standards such as WS-Security, WS-Addressing, WS-ReliableMessaging, WS-Coordination and WS-AtomicTransaction.

So what can you do if you need to consume a web service that requires support for alternate protocols, those latter web services standards or both?

PowerBuilder TV Webcast: PowerGen 2016

Automating the PowerBuilder Build Process with PowerGen 2016
Presenter: Phil Wallingford
Tuesday, October 11, 2016 at 8:00 AM PST (Los Angeles) / 17H00 PM CET (Paris).

An essential tool to automate the building of PowerBuilder applications, it lets you use command line functions to automate the entire build, create libraries from object source. With PowerGen, you can control your builds with predictability and reliability.