Re: Is there a future after PowerBuilder 12.6?

RAD development does not mean that the applications created in PB are simple, rather it allows very complex data-driven applications with heavy maintenance requirements that can be handled effectively using PB. In fact, PB is by far the best tool for desktop windows development. Case in point, one of our Oil industry customers is using a major Asset management & Accounting windows GUI application that is entirely developed in PB and tightly integrated with Oracle 11i EBS. Customer does not intend to re-write this application in any other language or tool as they have significant investments in this tool over a period of 20 years and is only making further investments in maintaining this application. In fact, many ERP level applications available in the market are written using PB including Asset Accounting, Telecom Billing products to quote a few examples. Without the power of tools such as Appeon, it will be very difficult to replicate the rich functionality in PB to Web. It would take a while before some new Javascipt based framework can really reach 4GL levels in abstracting the plumbing needed. Most developers in web are still doing a lot of non-essential coding that can and should be avoided. A 4GL developer may not like the idea of writing code in a 3GL style but i am not sure if the opposite is true