PowerBuilder to ASP.NET [closed] - asp.net

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I was wondering if anyone has performed a migration from PowerBuilder to ASP.NET? Is this going to be a complete rewrite, is there a list of best practices for performing this type of migration? I personally have never worked with PowerBuilder and any guidance and or suggestions would be appreciated.

If you have never worked with PowerBuilder but have been tasked with migrating a decently sized application written in it, I would highly suggest you do the following:
Schedule a meeting with the project owners.
Show up with a blank notebook and pencil / pen.
The first question should be: "What do you want the new system to do?"
Go from there...
Migrating a decently sized system to another language is so full of pitfalls a lot of times it's better to wipe the slate and start over... Unless the team is fluent in BOTH languages. Of course, starting over has it's own drawbacks as well. I hope they are prepared to spend a lot of time and money.;)

I'd suggest
starting with my previous post on converting PowerBuilder to .NET,
subtract the DataWindow.NET suggestion (it's been discontinued in favour of control generation from PB.NET 12.5, which is a little steep in price for custom controls),
then add my opinion that client-server UI design (you don't say whether it's C/S or not, but I'll make that assumption) has different best practices than web design, so a lot of the functionality in the PowerBuilder app should be redesigned for the new platform. (I suggest this to PowerBuilder users even when they're moving to PowerBuilder's WebForms functionality.)
I've seen browsers time out because the developer was loading too many items into a dropdown for a web browser, and while I wouldn't call it optimal for client-server, it didn't bring the UI to a screeching halt.
If you're dead set on this, I'd use your PowerBuilder app as a business definition document, and start budgeting to build from the ground up.
Good luck,
Terry.

I have converted the powerbuilder 12.1 source into powerbuilder.net it gives you all functionality in web environment but right now its performance is very slow.

I also did a huge application migration from PB 12.1 to PB.NET.
It wasn't easy. I did a heavy use of SetRedraw, and that function is not more available in .NET.
After fixing a lot of migrated code, I noticed very low performances compared to PB classic.
PB .NET Ide is slower than Visual Studio one, and it allows you to mix PB code with .Net framework code.
After a forecasting cost review, we decided to rewrite a new form application with Visual Studio .NET and it revealed the right choice.

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Winfor vs WPF vs WinRTmarketshare [closed]

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Having experience in java (awt and swing) and also in html and javascript I have moved and in my new country found a job in a consulting company as a developer.
I also had experience doing some stuff in c#, but never touched the GUI part.
I have seen that the most of our clients are using .net, so I have decided to update my knowledge in .net and also learn about the GUIs while I have no assigned client.
But my problem is that for the GUI part I can see there is:
Windows forms
Windows Presentation Foundation(WPF)
WinRT
Universal Windows Platform (UWP)
asp.net
I understand all of those are not the same, some are compatible with each other (winform and WPF) and others are not. Syntaxis is different and also the elements available to create the GUI. I have searched and even coded some basic examples and found out even the way to program (events vs databinding) changes a lot. I also read several discussions about the pros and cons for each one.
Now, taking into account my context (big company, not a startup) which one of the above technologies should I focus into? and by this I mean: Which one has a bigger marketshare in 2016 or will have more action in the near future (I know it's impossibe to predict technology in 10 years but lets say 2-3 years). Is there any statistics or any official position from Microsoft about wich one will be the standard?
Thank you for taking the time to answer.
Edit: For those who didn't understand and are down voting my question saying is opinion based: I am not asking for which one you prefer. I am asking is there's some statistics or an official position from Microsoft about this.
Some of you say you cannot compare different technologies because it is like to compare programming languages. This has been done, because I am not asking to compare the technology itself but the marketshare. If you want to compare javascript with .net and abap MARKETSHARE you can use the tiobe index.
If you dont know the answer simply do not say anything, but not pretend people cannot ask things you don't know about.
Edit2: Finally I found what I was looking for.
For desktop application
42% use Windows Forms, 46% WPF and 8% UWP
More data available at http://www.telerik.com/campaigns/devcraft/net-developer-report-for-2016
WinForms is very old technology, so better choose something new.
If talk about vacancies now, I think that ASP.Net is leader. What would be in future - have no idea. Azure? ASP.Net Core?
WinRT (Windows Store 8.1 Apps) and UWP are have much in common but not extermely popular yet. Advantage is that you can write your apps already for desktop, phone, XBox, raspberry pi and more devices.
WinRT Windows 8 Apps are depricated.
WPF is nice. Better start learn .Net Core Apps (they are crossplatform)
Xamarin crossplatform apps are also popular now. You can write C# apps for Windows, iOs and Android.

Develop an online multitouch scrumboard | Flex or Silverlight? [closed]

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My company want to develop an online multitouch scrumboard for our scrumteams. We are still in doubt between flex and silverlight as platform for the application. (don't want to fire a hole new flex vs. silverlight discussion again) Installation rate & platform independence are not critical to us, because it's just for teammembers and only windows 7 enables multitouch events in flash or silverlight.
We would like some pros/cons specifically for this project (multitouch, rich user interface, integration with backends).
Our first pros/cons overview:
Pros Silverlight
More experience with silverlight / .net in our company
Multi-theading
One Integrated Visual Studio for All Development
Expression Blend
Easy unit testing
more intuitive and powerful xaml
Cons Silverlight
less platforms
less controls
Pros Flash
Balance the experience or products in our company (.net/silverlight & flex)
independent platform
lots of default controls / easy customizing controls
better template & css support
Cons Flash
can't combine default gestures at the same time
no other languages
no multi-threading
expensive tools
Thanks for any advise!
Assuming either could do the job, the decision on what technology to choose will more likely depend on either your company's in-house skills or if you intend to contract it out.
If you are an existing Flex shop you will probably develop it in Flex to leverage the existing skills, unless you find one of the missing features is a show-stopper (multi-touch?).
IMHO: if you have any Silverlight skills in-house, or intend to outsource it (and you want serious back-end integration), the Microsoft stack will make life very easy. Although there is a learning curve for Silverlight, RIA services alone is worth the effort for client/server apps.
It really sounds like you have done your research, and I certainly dont want to start a flame war here either, but ALL of the pros for flash are also pros for Silverlight. There really are plenty of controls available out there for Silverlight.
One thing to think about too, is the Multitouch support in Windows 7, I dont know about Flex but Silverlight 4.0 has the full API support for it, which makes life very easy when developing multitouch apps. There is the Surface pack for Windows 7 which has extra API's around multitouch development, and its very nice.
Im obviously a Silverligh guy, but no multi-threading in Flash sounds like a big deal breaker to me, how do you access data and do background processing in Flash without locking up the UI thread?
The whole TDD approach is also a big one for me, the tooling around testing and the like is a big benefit (which you did mention)...

How have you ever interacted with a Nabaztag? [closed]

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The Nabaztag I ordered has arrived. I know there is an API to interact with the critter from your own software. Have also seen links to libraries in Perl and .NET among others, and have started work myself on a simple .NET Compact Framework 3.5 library for interacting with the bunny from my mobile phone.
I have seen at least one application claiming to interact with the Wifi bunny: the TFS Build Notification application by Rob Aquila. (Not related to this question, but this does look like a nice app to have running on a central monitor in a large TFS Team...)
I'm just curious to experiences by other people with the Nabaztag:
Have you ever used the Nabaztag API to interact with wireless rabbits?
What did you do? Is it freely available to try it out on my bunny?
How did you like working with the API? Did you just use the HTTP API yourself or did you use a library? And if so, which library did you use?
Even if you did nothing with the API yourself, what applications and/or websites do you know of that can interact with a Nabaztag?
Any other tips?
This is a bit of a shameless plug for my employer, but someone wrote a quick and dirty Perl script to make a bunny read out log events from ZXTM (Zeus Extensible Traffic Manager).
The Perl script (and further up that page, how to plug it into ZXTM)
Video of the bunny
VMware image of ZXTM suitable for use on a desktop to try this out
I extended the start on a python api wrapper that others had made, and have a few apps (ugly control panel, personal weather and traffic reader, Google calendar events of the day). They are all available for download at www.mcgurrin.com/nabaztag.
I created a CruiseControl.net plugin with it. Had some issues with the default API because it is not that good documented, so needed a lot of experimenting. Furthermore it is not that easy to develop to the default API.
So i made an .net API (c#) which abstracts the violet api away and gives you more help while developing, specially while creating choreographys (pain in butt they are Yoda would say).
Currently both are not available to the general public but i am in the process of releasing.
Things that can be neath to implement on your bunny, i don't know, local traffic information (nice to have) new releases for music you like, interfacing with your phone? (send command from phone to bunny)
Hey peSHIr, congrats for getting a rabbit. Now as violet got bought by Mindscape, it's sure it'll continue living...
I would like to develop funny stuff for the rabbit as well, but it seems like a big fuss and it's hard to get started - I checked out several APIs and proxys to get a grip on it - found many projects but either useless or outdated. Although it's written in PHP, the OpenNab Project seems to be one the fewer active around. Maybe worth to check it out?
http://opennab.sourceforge.net/
I hope Mindscape will provide a better API, or even better, open source the rabbit!

why do you think microsoft hasn't implemented asp-classic as another language in .net [closed]

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a couple of days ago I had this idea, why not implementing asp-classic as another language in .net...
it would have helped lots of people to migrate to the new platform...
I mean there's IronRuby, IronPython, etc...
It sounded to me like a great idea... but, come on, I'm no genius, there must be some reason why they haven't done so...
I'm just curious about it...
Because Microsoft has given up on backwards compatibility of their API's. I guess they figured that using the maintenance cost for new development was a better investment.
Sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree with their new view...
Now so you don't think its just me projecting my thought on microsoft here you have some references:
Joel's an article about it
The first big win was making Visual Basic.NET not backwards-compatible with VB 6.0. This was literally the first time in living memory that when you bought an upgrade to a Microsoft product, your old data (i.e. the code you had written in VB6) could not be imported perfectly and silently. It was the first time a Microsoft upgrade did not respect the work that users did using the previous version of a product.
...
With this major victory under their belts, the MSDN Magazine Camp took over. Suddenly it was OK to change things. IIS 6.0 came out with a different threading model that broke some old applications. I was shocked to discover that our customers with Windows Server 2003 were having trouble running FogBugz. Then .NET 1.1 was not perfectly backwards compatible with 1.0. And now that the cat was out of the bag, the OS team got into the spirit and decided that instead of adding features to the Windows API, they were going to completely replace it.
Primarily because asp-classis is not a langauge. Its a very small framework of COM objects.
The builtin languages for use in ASP are VBScript and Javascript. I can't see why anyone would want to use "VBScript.NET" and "JScript.NET" does exist although its a bit of dogs dinner.
You can take a ASPX page with VB.NET can code isn ASPEsq manner if you like.

What's the fastest track to learning to build enterprise ASP.NET v3.5 apps? [closed]

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Having not done ASP.NET since v1.1, and now blitzing through the Wrox Pro ASP.NET v3.5 book, what other resources are available to get me developing enterprise ASP.NET apps the fastest?
I've been developing in DotNet since Beta and have been doing Winform & middle-layer architecture/design/dev for 3.5 years now (as this has been my client's desires). But I'm finding my falling behind has hurt me concerning a new client. :(
I'd appreciate any advice on moving forward as fast as possible. I'm looking for anything RAD related or even just great books on the subject that you recommend. Right now, I'm having fun consuming the Wrox book though. Thanx much!
I'd start with the QuickStart tutorials. That'll get you into the code, get you some exposure to the programming, architecture, controls, data access, and so on. You can also watch videos of how to accomplish various tasks in ASP.NET at the ASP.NET web site.
Assuming you already have substantial VB.NET or C# experience, you should get deep into ASP.NET fairly quickly.
Take a look to the ASP.NET Dynamic Data Scaffolding Framework (included in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1), it allows you to build really quickly data driven web applications. Here you can find more good videos and resources about this RAD feature.
Not that easy, since "enterprise" is a word that can encompass lots of things. First off, I would suggest just getting to know which new frameworks are available, both out-of-the-box and not. And there's been a lot of those since .NET 1.1.
WCF, for example. Dynamic Data, as mentioned in another comment. ASP.NET MVC. LINQ, ADO.NET EF, WF.
I'm not suggesting you learn all of them, at least not all at once. Rather, be at least familiar with what they are and what they bring to the table. Browse through the base class library reference and familiarize yourself with the available namespaces. This will help you know what's there and what you will have to write. Try your hand at the bits that interest you.
After you're a bit more well-versed with the .NET framework, it's time to take a look at the other stuff you'll need for enterprise development. Frameworks such as CSLA and NHibernate. Testing stuff like TypeMock. As before just knowing what's out there, even without knowing the details, can help quite a lot.
Write code. Nothing quite like writing code if you want to learn quickly. Choose one of the apps you wrote back in the 1.1 days, and try to write a shorter, cleaner and/or more maintainable version with the new tools at your disposal.
And don't forget to have fun. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, you won't really be learning much. Good luck!
You probably shouldn't mix "enterprise" with "rad" as the two generally have extreme connotations on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Enterprise typically draws up ideas of, large, line-of-business applications, large complexity, large configuration, (and some would probably relate to pain, nightmares, etc..)
RAD typically refers to the drag & drop garbage that you see in awesome conference demos, but then you go back home and try to build and maintain and app built with dragging and dropping controls & data acccess components on your UI and you quickly see that it breaks down.
Pick a good balance of tools & techniques that make you productive, but at the same time don't sacrifice maintainability.
You'll find no shortage of opinions of "how you should work" here on Stack Overflow, but the best advice I can give you is to be pragmatic, read as much as you can stand, and code-code-code. I code on the bus, at home, at work, on a plane, in a hotel room, etc. Try out different tools/frameworks, see what their communities say, try building a simple todo-list app, etc. Get your feel for what's out there.
You're on the right path by reaching out to the community.

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