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Resolved PB 2025 Roadmap

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  1. Roland Smith
    Roland Smith
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:05 PM UTC

Could we get more details on the part that says source code will be saved in plain text? It sounds like you're getting rid of the PBL. Nobody is going to like that.

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Miguel Leeuwe
Miguel Leeuwe Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Friday, 20 October 2023 14:18 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 1

So ...

If I understood Bruce's image (from a presentation by Armeen I still don't know anything about), we are only going to get P-Code based executables?

(I don't mind, I prefer P-Code, but it might be and important thing to know for other people).

 

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Chris Pollach @Appeon
  1. Chris Pollach @Appeon
  2. Friday, 20 October 2023 14:30 PM UTC
Hi Miguel;

Yes, the new "Solution" approach will be a P-Code only executable rendering.

Regards .. Chris
  1. Helpful 1
Roland Smith
  1. Roland Smith
  2. Friday, 20 October 2023 14:30 PM UTC
We need p-code to run the app from the IDE instantly. Maybe machine code deployment is still supported.
  1. Helpful 1
Chris Pollach @Appeon
  1. Chris Pollach @Appeon
  2. Friday, 20 October 2023 14:46 PM UTC
Hi Roland;

For M-Code, you would need to stay with the current PBL approach in order to maintain that aspect.

Regards ... Chris
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Armeen Mazda @Appeon
Armeen Mazda @Appeon Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Friday, 20 October 2023 10:24 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 2

We will still maintain the legacy compiler for the long-term so the PBL is not going away if you don't want it to.  The new plain text format is just a choice and not forced on you.  Please look at Bruce's post for more details.

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Armeen Mazda @Appeon
  1. Armeen Mazda @Appeon
  2. Sunday, 22 October 2023 11:56 AM UTC
Our customer base is not the VS crowd... it's about whats the right thing to do for PB, and every step of the way we really have tried our best to do so not just try to be "cool". Pretty much any modern IDE no matter .NET, Java, etc. handle source code in plain text and separate the compile process out, and the rest of the world move forward for good reasons.

Now coming back to PB specifically, this change will alleviate Git/SVN integration issues as you mentioned, but also alleviates PBL corruption and opens up PB source code that can be manipulated by other external tools. Again, we are maintaining the legacy compiler for the long-term and NOT forcing this change so it is not important that we all agree on the merits of this new option... it is just an option for people who value to use it.
  1. Helpful 3
mike S
  1. mike S
  2. Sunday, 22 October 2023 21:44 PM UTC
will orcascript still require pbls, or will that be updated to work with the file based system? we use orcascript to build pbds for patch files and customization pbds for customers (customer's have PB and build their own customizations on top of our software).
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Julie Jiang @Appeon
  1. Julie Jiang @Appeon
  2. Tuesday, 24 October 2023 02:33 AM UTC
OrcaScript/PBC/AutoBuild will all work directly with the new solution (and the file based system). No need for PBLs.

Best regards, Julie
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Bruce Armstrong
Bruce Armstrong Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Friday, 20 October 2023 10:20 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 3

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Benjamin Gaesslein
Benjamin Gaesslein Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 19 October 2023 08:36 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 4

"Nobody is going to like that."

I, for one, say "good riddance". :) No more large binary files that contain both source code and compiled code? Yes, please.

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Andreas Mykonios
  1. Andreas Mykonios
  2. Friday, 20 October 2023 14:06 PM UTC
Ok. This is a good point. Of course those files will be organized into folders. That's what I understood. It's somehow what PB.NET was doing in the past. What may be an issue is if someone edit the source file using some other program (example notepad). There will be some mechanism for pb to understand that the compiled code doesn't correspond to the source code? PB.NET had not that issue, as there was no compiled code stored somewhere. But there was a problem when someone edited a file outside from powerbuilder. If I remember well it was related with incremental compilation.

Andreas.
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Benjamin Gaesslein
  1. Benjamin Gaesslein
  2. Monday, 23 October 2023 10:08 AM UTC
Roland, but you already have all these files, they're just contained within other files. Tightly coupling things is never a great thing in programming and coupling compiled code to source code is an exceptionally egregious example of this.
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Markus Eckert
  1. Markus Eckert
  2. Monday, 23 October 2023 11:35 AM UTC
Right now, I have the 15000 files packed into 80 pbl, as well as another copy of these 15000 files in the ws_objects subfolder for versionings. The worst of both worlds, so to say.

I for one won't shed many tears for PBL either.
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Bruce Armstrong
Bruce Armstrong Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 19 October 2023 08:34 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 5

From Armeen's presentation.

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IMG_2605.jpeg IMG_2605.jpeg
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Miguel Leeuwe
  1. Miguel Leeuwe
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 14:56 PM UTC
Hi,

Do you have a link to the presentation? The image is a bit too blurry.

TIA
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Bruce Armstrong
Bruce Armstrong Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 19 October 2023 08:14 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 6

From what Im seeing Armeen presenting here at the European seminars:

1.  Its a new option, you can continue to use the PBL if you want to.

2.  When its enabled, the source code is saved separately from the compiled pcode.  The files are stored in folders that mimic the PBL structure (like the source code is stored under ws_objects today for the SVN and Git interfaces)

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Andreas Mykonios
  1. Andreas Mykonios
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 08:33 AM UTC
That's what pb.net was doing. I wonder if this option is a selection that once made you can't easily return to the old way (using pbl's).
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Bruce Armstrong
  1. Bruce Armstrong
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 08:35 AM UTC
Yes, its a one way process. you cant go back once you've migrated a project to it.
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Miguel Leeuwe
  1. Miguel Leeuwe
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 14:57 PM UTC
Great news Bruce!
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Miguel Leeuwe
Miguel Leeuwe Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Thursday, 19 October 2023 07:02 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 7

Question to Roland,

Would you upgrade Wizsource when this change happens?

regards.

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Roland Smith
  1. Roland Smith
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 12:46 PM UTC
SCC functions take an array of file names as their arguments. The IDE currently has to export objects to files and then pass those file names to the function. For SccGet (called by Get Latest & Check Out), the IDE has to import the updated file.

I likely won't have to make any major changes. The location the files are saved to by the IDE will probably be different so I might need to create a one time conversion utility to update the path structure in the database. I'll certainly test it thoroughly when the beta is available and make any needed changes.
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Miguel Leeuwe
  1. Miguel Leeuwe
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 14:57 PM UTC
Thanks, we love WizSource, so that's great news.
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mike S
mike S Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Wednesday, 18 October 2023 15:15 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 8

I don't see the need for the pbl.  pretty much everything except the IDE itself spends time exporting out to plain text before doing anything anyway. 

I *assume* that the pbl originally was created due to limitations with the windows file system in 1989.   Seems to just cause problems today.

SCC systems such as roland's wizsource may have the bigger problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Roland Smith
  1. Roland Smith
  2. Wednesday, 18 October 2023 16:45 PM UTC
Since SCC systems like WizSource work on files exported by the IDE, they would work better theoretically since the IDE wouldn't have to export/import the source files.
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Andreas Mykonios
  1. Andreas Mykonios
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 06:06 AM UTC
I agree.

Andreas.
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Miguel Leeuwe
Miguel Leeuwe Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:53 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 9

More and more changes and more and more bugs. How do you ever expect us to upgrade our customers? Some new things are really nice, but then next to be undone / destroyed, like the .Net "Framework" support for the DLL importer tool as an example. Appeon has said it wants to totally move away from .Net Framework and migrate to .Net 6/7/8. What about OLE and COM, that won't work anymore then is it? And of course the ever changing RTE control which is never bug free. Native PDF has also never had a bug free version. I'm scared by the idea of this upcoming change. Luckily we don't use Git because that's another PIA. (Thank you Roland for WizSource!!!!).

We need more solid testing on the part of Appeon before expecting us to do the work of testing for them whilst having angry customers. We're not upgrading anything until we see something solid out here.

just my 2cts.

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Andreas Mykonios
  1. Andreas Mykonios
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 08:31 AM UTC
Powerbuilder 7 was a total disaster. IDE seemed to be incomplete. Version 8.0 should be the new version after 6.5...

Andreas.
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Miguel Leeuwe
  1. Miguel Leeuwe
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 15:04 PM UTC
@Bruce, yes, I've used PB since Jan 1993, starting to migrate v. 2.x to v. 3.x. I found v. 4 to be horrible and was lucky to (almost) never have to use v. 8. Loved 6.5.1, it was the IDE in which I have build apps faster than ever, just by using shortcut keys.

I don't really agree with you that things are more stable. Appeon has built on the ruins of Rome by starting of with 12.6 which was pretty bad too. v. 2017 is pretty stable, 2019 r3 blows up a lot, haven't used 2021 or 2022 yet to make an opinion on it.

My point is - not speaking of stability - is that every version has a considerable amount of bugs. Before they are fixed (IF they are fixed), a newer version is available, which has it's own new or old bugs. So to constantly upgrade your customers seems less and less like a good idea to me.

We'll only consider LTS versions, because too many times I see bugs aren't fixed in non-LTS.

just my 2 cts.

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Miguel Leeuwe
  1. Miguel Leeuwe
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 15:06 PM UTC
BTW, the crashes of the IDE when opening datawindows sometimes still exist, which still have to be corrected by editing the PB.INI or registry file.
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Andreas Mykonios
Andreas Mykonios Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Wednesday, 18 October 2023 14:35 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 10

Hi.

Can't say if I like the idea or not. But if it's true, then some things should be handled differently... The plan is to change pbl to folder like pb.net was doing? Or to get rid? If it's the second, what will happen with pbd's? Will be able to customized if we want to still use pbl's or not?

Andreas.

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Chris Pollach @Appeon
  1. Chris Pollach @Appeon
  2. Thursday, 19 October 2023 17:16 PM UTC
Hi Roland;

This is a VERY popular thing that many PB shops use in production with IM!

Also, I have developed "Ad-Hoc" reports in PB that are dynamically added to production Apps in a similar manner.

Then there is the case of storing DWO's in a DBMS and dynamically adding them to a PBL at runtime.

I use dynamic PBLs when unit testing my PB Apps. This is a great PBL feature advantage IMHO.

I also use a WIP PBL in development environment process to "test" potential object changes before I actually check out the real object and make a permanent cod change.

So in these above cases (and I am sure that there are many other "Use Case"), you would need to stay with the current PBL technology

You will *not* be forced into the new "Solution" Workspace mode. ;-)

PB Developers will need to assess the Risk / Benefit though before converting as it is a "one way street".

Food for thought. HTH

Regards ... Chris

PS: The same considerations apply for PBD's as well BTW.
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mike S
  1. mike S
  2. Friday, 20 October 2023 03:22 AM UTC
roland, why do you think that pbd's would change (ie patch.pbd files)? Isn't it just the pbls?



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Julie Jiang @Appeon
  1. Julie Jiang @Appeon
  2. Tuesday, 24 October 2023 02:30 AM UTC
Mike, you are right. PBD files will be the same with the new solution.



Best regards, Julie
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