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From: ronnyong@unicomp.net (Ronny Ong)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development,comp.lang.basic.visual,comp.lang.basic.visual.misc,comp.databases.sybase
Subject: Re: Visual Basic vs. PowerBuilder
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 10:23:01 LOCAL
Organization: UniComp Technologies International Corp -- Internet Service
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Message-ID: <ronnyong.230.00DD9DA9@unicomp.net>
References: <davebo.18.0010EDAE@mcs.com>
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In article <davebo.18.0010EDAE@mcs.com> davebo@mcs.com (Dave Borowiec) writes:

>Has anyone done a comparison of these 2 tools?  We are running Sybase System 

These threads are really a dime a dozen and if you step back and take a real, 
hard, long look at the issues, what you'll find is that PowerBuilder kicks 
butt if you are in a traditional, corporate MIS (i.e. COBOL background) 
environment. Visual Basic rules if you are more of a pedal-to-the-metal coding 
shop.

Ultimately, you _can_ do anything with either tool. (A few things require 
nitty gritty code in one that don't in the other, but there are 
always other things where the situation is reversed. It all depends 
on exactly what you want to do.) Ultimately, they cost about the same _if_ you 
really want/need to equip VB with all the extras that PowerSoft throws in 
their box. (Maybe you do, maybe you don't.) People will try to tell you that 
PB requires less coding. That's only true if you _don't_ buy all the add-ons 
that raise VB's price to match PB's. PB is buggy, but so is VB. PowerSoft has 
merged with Sybase, casting shadows of doubt on them as a supplier. Many 
people despise Microsoft, too, though. PB and VB both have incomplete object 
models. PowerScript is very similar to Visual Basic in the language department.

We handle complex application development projects that most of the small 
"consultant" and contract shops won't touch for under $100 an hour. We find 
that PB, VB, ObjectView, SQLWindows ... they all make easy stuff easy, but the 
hard stuff is still hard. Things like unbalanced control breaks and multiple 
types of detail bands in reporting are largely unaddressed by anything but 
code. The tools all have some sort of auto-lookup capability in forms design, 
but they never have automatic explosion of component detail. We chose not to 
go with PB because if you're doing hard stuff, you'll be writing code for it 
anyway, so might as well buy the cheaper tool. We haven't eval'ed PB4 yet, but 
if we ever find a tool that does the hard stuff without code, we'll jump in a 
heartbeat.