Steve Katz

Welcome to a new column in PBDJ. In this column, we'll discuss all things "new" in PowerBuilder - from keys to success in starting new projects to tips and techniques you need to know to features in the latest, and upcoming, releases of the product. Our mission is to guide you on your path to developing state-of-the-art, robust, maintainable applications using PowerBuilder and other technologies. Your mission is to ensure we are fulfilling our mission. Your feedback and input on past and future topics will be critical in making sure this column provides educational, accurate and, most importantly, useful information. Disclaimer: both Larry and I have many years of development experience to share with you, but there will inadvertently, and inevitably, be times where we present (slightly) inaccurate information. Please remember that those errors and omissions are ALW... (more)

Avoiding Code Duplication: A Sample Exercise

Now that Steve has discussed frameworks and building from scratch, I'll cover some things to help you avoid writing duplicate code. Remember that the purpose of these articles is not a tutorial with step-by-step instructions but a guide to assist in the design and development process. Our goal is to help new developers get started in the right direction and to avoid pitfalls. This month's column will center on pitfalls with the Web target. Before I discuss Web targets I want to reemphasize the foundation that Steve covered last month. A solid foundation and base classes are extre... (more)

SQL or Stored Procedures

When we last left off, our hero was perched precariously on the edge of a cliff...oops, wrong article. When we last left off, we had a functional shell of an application. We had a menu that would open our five different sheets (Controls, Users, Messages, Menus, and Contacts); we had the shell of those five sheets themselves; we had some basic shared functionality with regards to managing sheets (arranging sheets, closing all open sheets); we had some basic shared DataWindow/DataStore error handling in the DBError event of our base-class u_dw and n_ds objects; we had some basic t... (more)

PowerBuilder Developer's Journal: Building a Working Application Shell

As I was reviewing my previous "state of the application" and began to work toward a basic application shell, I realized that there was some additional code that I needed to write. Missing Pieces First, I realized that I could add a default SetTransObject() call on my u_dw and n_ds objects in the framework to automatically assign SQLCA to the object. This is a convenience to anyone using the framework since SQLCA is utilized 99% of the time as the application transaction object. I added this into the constructor event of both u_dw and n_ds. However, I needed to remember to do th... (more)

PowerBuilder Standards and Frameworks

Now that we understand workspaces and targets, we can start to get a feel for what type of infrastructure we want to use for our application. As I mentioned in my last column (PBDJ, Vol. 12, issue 7), we need to answer some questions regarding standards and frameworks. As Larry wrote about in last month's column (PBDJ, Vol. 12, issue 8), we also have to choose whether to include multiple applications in a single workspace, have a workspace contain one application, or perhaps have a workspace contain all applications related to a specific business area. Once those issues are resol... (more)