Powerful Web 2.0 Alternative to PowerBuilder

Rich Bianco over at the Displaced Guy blog just wrote a post entitled WaveMaker delivers for the cloud like PowerBuilder did for client-server. In it, he talks about using WaveMaker to migrate PowerBuilder applications to Java.

He makes a number of great point in his post. Here are the key take-aways

1. PowerBuilder is a powerful product but developers need a rich internet alternative.

"I’ve spent most of my career doing PowerBuilder development against every major DBMS and I still believe it offers productivity beyond anything on the market for client-server applications. But the writing is on the wall for client-server and rich internet applications and WaveMaker are the future."

2. WaveMaker is particularly easy to learn for PowerBuilder developers because it uses the same visual development and data window-like concepts

"WaveMaker is the first development tool since PowerBuilder to catch my attention and keep it. WaveMakers’ claim of building a functional enterprise web application without needing to write Java code is for real. In a single day, I’ve taken an existing PHP / MySQL web 1.0 application and re-created a good portion of the core functionality using WaveMaker."

3. WaveMaker is just plain fun, particularly for PowerBuilder developers!

"From the day I downloaded WaveMaker and gave it a test run I knew that it was the next step for me as a former PowerBuilder developer. Not and not only am I still having a blast but I feel as confident as ever to tackle the challenge of developing enterprise web applications, or robust SaaS solutions."

It has taken WaveMaker almost 3 years to build a worthy replacement for PowerBuilder. We certainly have not achieved the full breadth of functionality that developers can get from mature client/server tools like PowerBuilder, MS Access and Oracle Forms. However, for developers who want a fast and easy way to build Web 2.0 applications, WaveMaker rocks!

Where have all the 4GLs Gone?

Brad Feld recently wrote a blog post entitled, What Happened To The 4GL? In it, he describes the difficulty of working with today's web development frameworks:

This summer I spent some time playing around with Google AppEngine.... It didn't take long before I realized I needed to really understand how to program in Python to do anything.

People often ask whether Ruby on Rails is a competitor to WaveMaker. My response is that WaveMaker is for people who don't want to learn a new language to build web apps, RoR is for people who do.

In Proustian fashion, Brad looks at the new cloud computing tools in hopes of recapturing that sense of power that comes from working with a well-designed 4GL:

When I was playing with Google AppEngine, I kept waiting for the 4GL "aha moment." That's the moment I had using Clarion and Access where I realized how easy it was to do certain things. That moment never came with Google AppEngine - the deeper I got, the more confused I got.

This is the elephant under the table in web programming today - it is no longer possible for mere mortals to build basic business applications. Even formerly technical guys like myself and Brad are intimidated by the bookshelf worth of O'Reilly books you need to read just to get started with web development.

WaveMaker has a very strong 4GL pedigree and is funded by Mitchell Kertzman (of PowerBuilder fame) and Roger Sippl (of Informix 4GL fame). Our belief is that the time has come for a 4GL web development solution.

Ten years ago, there were loads of ways to build client/server apps easily - PowerBuilder, MS Access, Lotus Notes, Filemaker. None of those tools have made the leap to the web, leaving a huge market vacuum.

It has been so long since there have been decent tools for non-expert developers that people have literally forgotten what a 4GL even looks like. The best proof of this is the many comments on Brad's post by people who think that coding frameworks like Ruby on Rails and Django are reasonable substitutes for a 4GL.

This is not to slight Rails and Django, just to say that these products are targeting making hard-core developers even more productive. They are absolutely not appropriate for visual developers who don't want to do any programming in the first place.

Two Doors to Enterprise Web 2.0 Adoption

Ben Worthen of the WSJ recently posted an entry about Web 2.0 adoption. He sited a Forrester survey that concluded Enterprise Web 2.0 solutions would gain broad adoption in 2008 despite clear CIO resistance to the siren call of blogs and wikis.

As a strong proponent of Web 2.0 in the enterprise, we at WaveMaker want very much to see a rapid adoption of these technologies at the corporate level. On the other hand, wishing won't make it so - the grab-bag of technologies and ideas that constitute Web 2.0 are bound to confuse the IT community.

There are two possible observations here:

1. Damn the data, full speed ahead. Just like drug companies that sink a great deal of money into disappointing clinical trials that they then attempt to spin into medical break-throughs, analyst firms like Forrester won’t sell many copies of a Web 2.0 report that concludes Web 2.0 ain’t happening in the enterprise anytime soon. Thus there is a strong incentive for the report authors to refute their own data in the survey summary.
2. Web 2.0 is being pulled into the enterprise, not pushed. Since the PC, all client-side technologies have been pulled into the enterprise by business users, not pushed into the enterprise by central IT. The main themes of Web 2.0 – rich interface, collaboration and user-driven content – have more to do with how users interact with their computers than with computer infrastructure.

At my WebGuild panel this week, Rod Johnson of SpringSource observed that open source technologies like Spring and WaveMaker build unstoppable momentum within the IT organization by solving fundamental problems that much bigger players either cannot or will not solve.

For Spring, the tailwind came the intractable complexity of the EJB standard that left developers desperate for a simpler, more lightweight java application server. For WaveMaker, the tailwind comes from the complete dearth of visual tools for web development that would enable MS Access, Lotus Notes and PowerBuilder developers to come out of the client/server dark ages and build the kinds of web-based applications that their end users want.

The WaveMaker Genie Is Unleashed!

We launched our new WaveMaker product last week in Boston. At its worst, a product launch tour can be a mind-numbing exercise in navigating the Mass turnpike while regurgitating at regular intervals an adjective-laden product pitch to barely conscious industry pooh-bahs. These soporific meetings are puncuated with frequent stops at Dunkin' Donuts (apparently the only chain allowed in suburban Massachusetts) for undercooked donuts and overcooked coffee.

Our tour last week wasn’t like that. Mostly because our story is simple – building web apps is too hard – and our solution is equally simple – a visual development tool that generates pure Java apps that run in any Java platform.

The best meeting of the week was with Judith Hurwitz, who wrote a great blog posting on our product launch, asking Is WaveMaker the Web 2.0 version of Powerbuilder? How often does a seasoned analyst describe a company meeting as fun!? Judith said:

Some meetings are just fun (I can’t always say that..sometimes I just want to run away and hide under my desk). But my meeting today with WaveMaker reminded me of the type of meetings I had in the .com days. I admit I was excited about what I heard.

I also had an interview with Jason Meserve of Network World on the launch of the WaveMaker product. This 15 minute podcast gives a good overview of our strategy and you can listen to it here. Finally, Paul Krill of InfoWorld had a good product write-up here.

Ready to Make Waves

Although the computer industry is still young, we have already seen several waves of development tools. These waves follow technology and architecture trends: new technologies like the PC make new architectures possible, like client/server, which in turn require new tools, such as PowerBuilder.

Each wave of development has had a distinctly character - either logic-based or visually based. The tools to support each of these waves have been tailored correspondingly.

While the last 8 years have been dominated by thin-client architectures and code-based tools for expert users, the rich client technologies and collaborative user expectations behind Web 2.0 argue strongly that a new wave of development tools is beginning.

Here is my take on the four big development waves:

1. Green screen (1960-1990): centralized development with code-based Cobol tools


2. Client/server wave (1991-1997): departmental development with visual-based tools like PowerBuilder, Notes, Access, Oracle Forms.


3. Thin client wave (1998-2007): centralized development with code-based Java tools


4. Rich client wave (2008+): Web 2.0 democratizes development and dramatically opens up both the responsiveness and functionality of the client with an avalanche of Internet-based widgets and services. Can today's code-based tools targeting expert Java and C# developers ride this wave? History would say no.

It is hard to remember today - when all the development tools are code based - that all the client/server development tools were visually based. Ten years ago, visual tools like PowerBuilder and Notes dominated the development world. Now, the programming world has shrunk to just two code-based tools - Eclipse and Microsoft Studio.

We believe that the industry stands on the edge of a new wave of computing, driven by the Rich Internet Application architecture. Web applications are moving from static, limited html pages to much more responsive and powerful widgets and services.

The explosion of widgets and services available on the Internet is driving a demand among business users for more useful business applications. As thing client applications get more visual, coding tools like Eclipse and Microsoft's mis-named Visual Studio are increasingly awkward.

To underline this point, a recent customer was able to re-build an application in our visual tools using 98% less code than in .NET/Visual Studio. Note that it is important for visual tools to support coding for advanced services - we are not advocating code-free development, just code-lite development, particularly for visual web applications.

After nine months of hard work, we are ready to start making waves. Over the next month, we will be introducing a product that will launch the next wave of enterprise computing. Our vision is to be the Powerbuilder of Web 2.0.

To underline our commitment to this vision, we have changed the company name to WaveMaker. And that is exactly what we intend to do!

Larkware - ActiveGrid is the missing link from Access to Web 2.0

Mike Gunderloy of Larkware blogged about our MS Access to MySQL migration here. Mike is well known in the Microsoft community, although he has another blog, A Fresh Cup, that he bills as "notes from a recovering Microsoft addict," where he waxes eloquent on Ajax applications, Ruby on Rails and all things Enterprise 2.0.

The interesting point is that although there is a great deal of enthusiasm around Web 2.0 tools like Ruby on Rails, there are no Web 2.0 equivalents of the trusty drag-n-drop client/server tools like MS Access and PowerBuilder.

Face it, if you have to learn about Rails concepts like meta-programming and scafollding just to build a Web 2.0 app, your average VB developer is just going to continue taking a pass on this whole web thing and hope that it blows over.

Until there are Web 2.0 tools that provide a natural evolution from client/server development to web development, an entire generation of programmers will continue to hang fire. At a minimum, this will require drag and drop web development tools that don't require an entire bookshelf of manuals to get started building useful apps.