I have a client who needs to move from an initial PB 5.0 release (no patches
applied) to a newer version of PB.  This is a small internal application but
they would like to open it up via the internet in the future.  They are
currently running on a SQL Anywhere DB but would be looking to change that
also.

I don't have any hands on experience with PB 7.x but from what I heard and
read it hasn't been that great.  I've been using PB 6.5 since build 444 and
was thinking of recommending that they make the move to 6.5 first and then
wait for PB 8.0 later this year.

Any thoughts?

A couple of things to keep in mind: 

Experience is subjective: What is best for you may not be best for me.
For example, the last PB6.x build I worked with had a bug in
ClassDefinitions that left me hanging. PB6 was useless to me. I moved
up to PB7, didn't have the problem, and was quite happy. I also didn't
have the same problems other people have had, and have been building
for production since 7.0.0. Other people are still quite happy with
PB6.

Human nature is negative: No one tells stories about the number of
green lights they hit coming to a party. They tell stories about the
fire trucks blocking the road, or the speeding tickets, or the morons
driving too slow in front of them. No version of PowerBuilder has
*ever* seen warmth gushing onto electronic forums. Besides, people
come here to solve problems. 

Subjective statistics: I wouldn't want to be the one to try to prove
it, but as someone who is required to read most of the messages posted
to this forum, I'd say the number of serious complaints about PB7 has
diminished significantly since the release of C3/build 8046. There are
still problems with each build: there have always been and will likely
always be, unless Murphy's Law is rescinded. <g>

One fact: Based on historical Powersoft/Sybase policies, support for
PB6 will be discontinued about 60 days after the release of PB8. PB8
has been announced for the first half of this year. That means you
likely have less than six months of support left for PB6. If you run
into a problem that turns out to be a PB bug, and there is no
identifiable work around, the only solution you may have would be to
upgrade. Your migration effort would be lost.

Given how often your client apparently likes to upgrade, I'd have a
hard time suggesting moving to a product that may be unsupported
before the migration and testing effort is completed.

BTW, most likely, unless the original architects were incredible
visionaries, changing the architecture will be a bigger issue moving
to the Internet than changing the PowerBuilder version. If you want an
HTML front end, things like moving business rules out of window
objects and into non-visual objects are most likely the big effort
(based on how most developers were working back then).

Good luck,

Terry [TeamSybase] and Sequel the techno-kitten

On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 10:00:34 -0600, "Jack  Holstrom"
<jack.holstrom@born.com> wrote:

>I have a client who needs to move from an initial PB 5.0 release (no patches
>applied) to a newer version of PB.  This is a small internal application but
>they would like to open it up via the internet in the future.  They are
>currently running on a SQL Anywhere DB but would be looking to change that
>also.
>
>I don't have any hands on experience with PB 7.x but from what I heard and
>read it hasn't been that great.  I've been using PB 6.5 since build 444 and
>was thinking of recommending that they make the move to 6.5 first and then
>wait for PB 8.0 later this year.
>
>Any thoughts?
>


Sequel's Sandbox: http://www.techno-kitten.com
Home of PBL Peeper, a PowerBuilder Developer's Toolkit, 
winner of PowerTimes 1999 "Little Helper of the Year"

Actually, the most recent versions of PB7 are quite stable.

With that said, for most people who are developing currently on PB6.x, and
have looked towards moving to PB7 or PB8 my advice has been as follows:
First, ensure that the initial PB8 release is stable.  If it is, migrate
directly to it (skip Pb7).  The PB6.x, PB7.x and PB8 IDEs are all rather
different, and I suggest that the developers should only have to go through
one retraining.  Obviously, if there are problems with the initial PB8
release, a recent version of PB7 would be the way to go.

On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 10:00:34 -0600,
 in powersoft.public.powerbuilder.general
Jack  Holstrom <jack.holstrom@born.com> wrote: 
>I have a client who needs to move from an initial PB 5.0 release (no patches
>applied) to a newer version of PB.  This is a small internal application but
>they would like to open it up via the internet in the future.  They are
>currently running on a SQL Anywhere DB but would be looking to change that
>also.
>
>I don't have any hands on experience with PB 7.x but from what I heard and
>read it hasn't been that great.  I've been using PB 6.5 since build 444 and
>was thinking of recommending that they make the move to 6.5 first and then
>wait for PB 8.0 later this year.
>
>Any thoughts?
>
>

---== Posted via the PFCGuide Web Newsreader ==---
http://www.pfcguide.com/_newsgroups/group_list.asp

Terry & Bruce,

Thanks for the feedback, I'll be recomending that the client consider the
C3/build 8046 for PB 7.

The PB market had been slow for a while and most of our developers had moved
to other technologies so it's taking me some time to get back up to speed
with PB now that the work has increased.

Jack
"Bruce Armstrong [TeamSybase]" <NOCANSPAM_bruce.armstrong@teamsybase.com>
wrote in message news:VU6wvhFmAHA.199@forums.sybase.com...
> Actually, the most recent versions of PB7 are quite stable.
>
> With that said, for most people who are developing currently on PB6.x, and
> have looked towards moving to PB7 or PB8 my advice has been as follows:
> First, ensure that the initial PB8 release is stable.  If it is, migrate
> directly to it (skip Pb7).  The PB6.x, PB7.x and PB8 IDEs are all rather
> different, and I suggest that the developers should only have to go
through
> one retraining.  Obviously, if there are problems with the initial PB8
> release, a recent version of PB7 would be the way to go.
>
> On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 10:00:34 -0600,
>  in powersoft.public.powerbuilder.general
> Jack  Holstrom <jack.holstrom@born.com> wrote:
> >I have a client who needs to move from an initial PB 5.0 release (no
patches
> >applied) to a newer version of PB.  This is a small internal application
but
> >they would like to open it up via the internet in the future.  They are
> >currently running on a SQL Anywhere DB but would be looking to change
that
> >also.
> >
> >I don't have any hands on experience with PB 7.x but from what I heard
and
> >read it hasn't been that great.  I've been using PB 6.5 since build 444
and
> >was thinking of recommending that they make the move to 6.5 first and
then
> >wait for PB 8.0 later this year.
> >
> >Any thoughts?
> >
> >
>
> ---== Posted via the PFCGuide Web Newsreader ==---
> http://www.pfcguide.com/_newsgroups/group_list.asp

We are just moving from 6.5 to 6.5.1 to get Oracle 8 connectivity. Since we
don't need the new features of 7 enough to warrant the IDE's learning curve
(and bugs ;-) we will probably skip it. There's a local (Baltimore/DC)
user's group meeting in March at which I will get a look at PB 8. We'll see
how the public beta goes, then decide when to go.

Bruce Armstrong [TeamSybase] wrote in message ...
>Actually, the most recent versions of PB7 are quite stable.
>
>With that said, for most people who are developing currently on PB6.x, and
>have looked towards moving to PB7 or PB8 my advice has been as follows:
>First, ensure that the initial PB8 release is stable.  If it is, migrate
>directly to it (skip Pb7).  The PB6.x, PB7.x and PB8 IDEs are all rather
>different, and I suggest that the developers should only have to go through
>one retraining.  Obviously, if there are problems with the initial PB8
>release, a recent version of PB7 would be the way to go.
>
>On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 10:00:34 -0600,
> in powersoft.public.powerbuilder.general
>Jack  Holstrom <jack.holstrom@born.com> wrote:
>>I have a client who needs to move from an initial PB 5.0 release (no
patches
>>applied) to a newer version of PB.  This is a small internal application
but
>>they would like to open it up via the internet in the future.  They are
>>currently running on a SQL Anywhere DB but would be looking to change that
>>also.
>>
>>I don't have any hands on experience with PB 7.x but from what I heard and
>>read it hasn't been that great.  I've been using PB 6.5 since build 444
and
>>was thinking of recommending that they make the move to 6.5 first and then
>>wait for PB 8.0 later this year.
>>
>>Any thoughts?
>>
>>
>
>---== Posted via the PFCGuide Web Newsreader ==---
>http://www.pfcguide.com/_newsgroups/group_list.asp

PowerBuilder 7.0.3 is available (C5 for the consolidated release), with
support for Windows 2000. Also, just today we released the localized
runtimes for PowerBuilder 7.0.3.

Terry - I enjoyed the "human nature" statement. So true, so true.

Cheers,

Michael Salerno
Group Product Manager
Sybase, Inc.

"Terry Voth" <sequel@techno-kitten.com> wrote in message
news:fa1r8tgbaldcc2bcneg4mpm6lrktp3hi1g@4ax.com...
> A couple of things to keep in mind:
>
> Experience is subjective: What is best for you may not be best for me.
> For example, the last PB6.x build I worked with had a bug in
> ClassDefinitions that left me hanging. PB6 was useless to me. I moved
> up to PB7, didn't have the problem, and was quite happy. I also didn't
> have the same problems other people have had, and have been building
> for production since 7.0.0. Other people are still quite happy with
> PB6.
>
> Human nature is negative: No one tells stories about the number of
> green lights they hit coming to a party. They tell stories about the
> fire trucks blocking the road, or the speeding tickets, or the morons
> driving too slow in front of them. No version of PowerBuilder has
> *ever* seen warmth gushing onto electronic forums. Besides, people
> come here to solve problems.
>
> Subjective statistics: I wouldn't want to be the one to try to prove
> it, but as someone who is required to read most of the messages posted
> to this forum, I'd say the number of serious complaints about PB7 has
> diminished significantly since the release of C3/build 8046. There are
> still problems with each build: there have always been and will likely
> always be, unless Murphy's Law is rescinded. <g>
>
> One fact: Based on historical Powersoft/Sybase policies, support for
> PB6 will be discontinued about 60 days after the release of PB8. PB8
> has been announced for the first half of this year. That means you
> likely have less than six months of support left for PB6. If you run
> into a problem that turns out to be a PB bug, and there is no
> identifiable work around, the only solution you may have would be to
> upgrade. Your migration effort would be lost.
>
> Given how often your client apparently likes to upgrade, I'd have a
> hard time suggesting moving to a product that may be unsupported
> before the migration and testing effort is completed.
>
> BTW, most likely, unless the original architects were incredible
> visionaries, changing the architecture will be a bigger issue moving
> to the Internet than changing the PowerBuilder version. If you want an
> HTML front end, things like moving business rules out of window
> objects and into non-visual objects are most likely the big effort
> (based on how most developers were working back then).
>
> Good luck,
>
> Terry [TeamSybase] and Sequel the techno-kitten
>
> On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 10:00:34 -0600, "Jack  Holstrom"
> <jack.holstrom@born.com> wrote:
>
> >I have a client who needs to move from an initial PB 5.0 release (no
patches
> >applied) to a newer version of PB.  This is a small internal application
but
> >they would like to open it up via the internet in the future.  They are
> >currently running on a SQL Anywhere DB but would be looking to change
that
> >also.
> >
> >I don't have any hands on experience with PB 7.x but from what I heard
and
> >read it hasn't been that great.  I've been using PB 6.5 since build 444
and
> >was thinking of recommending that they make the move to 6.5 first and
then
> >wait for PB 8.0 later this year.
> >
> >Any thoughts?
> >
>
>
> Sequel's Sandbox: http://www.techno-kitten.com
> Home of PBL Peeper, a PowerBuilder Developer's Toolkit,
> winner of PowerTimes 1999 "Little Helper of the Year"

PB7 hasn't been great, it's true - but even the earlier builds were way more
stable than 5.0.0, so if your client can manage with that one, then PB7
(especially using the most stable release, C3 (7.0.2 build 8046)) will be a
doddle in comparison.
S.

--
Simon Caldwell
Get Real Systems Ltd
Holtby Manor, Stamford Bridge Road, York, YO19 5LL
Tel 01904 481999 Fax 01904 481666
Visit us at www.getrealsystems.com

Specialists in e-Procurement and supply chain technology


"Jack Holstrom" <jack.holstrom@born.com> wrote in message
news:ycAEJQDmAHA.199@forums.sybase.com...
> I have a client who needs to move from an initial PB 5.0 release (no
patches
> applied) to a newer version of PB.  This is a small internal application
but
> they would like to open it up via the internet in the future.  They are
> currently running on a SQL Anywhere DB but would be looking to change that
> also.
>
> I don't have any hands on experience with PB 7.x but from what I heard and
> read it hasn't been that great.  I've been using PB 6.5 since build 444
and
> was thinking of recommending that they make the move to 6.5 first and then
> wait for PB 8.0 later this year.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>