To use App Builder or not !!

[tonydt1g3r]

So if I am a new progress developer, new meaning I am fresh out of college and have only begun to learn progress and the in's and outs in using App Builder, should I even really try to use app builder or just learn something else that makes the UI look better. I mean I am using app builder now and its not bad but I havent grasped the entire concept of the different smart objects and when I should use them and when I should not.

 

[Progress_Guy]

Hi Tony,

You can still use the App Builder without Smart Objects. Smart Objects are a Progerss 'plug-in' to allow faster development (allegedly).

It's still worth learning the App. Builder in that it integrates 4GL code with the GUI, making development much faster than with, say, .net.
However, I posted up this question to get back feedback from everyone on what alternatives are available. If you do know App. Builder you can make an informed decission about which is better. And also, it's 'horses for courses' - sometimes you may want, say, .net and other times App Builder.

Also, from a career point of view you would find yourself limited in the Progress world if you knew .net and not App. Builder - most employers would find that curious (at least in the UK).

 

[Macery]

When using .NET with a Progress DB are you all using an ODBC driver or have Progress or a child party come up with a more up to date method of accessing the db (ADO for example). Also does anyone have any other example of using .NET with Progress other than the ones on PSDN? Unfortunately our maintenance has expired and I am unable to access those.

Many thanks.

by using Proxygen you can create the equivalent of a class from your p-source code and can compile that to a .dll file. Once you link your .Net code to the dll resource that you have compiled then it becomes a class object in .NET and will even have all of it's function/events/properties made available to the .NET IDE and the IDE will even use the Intelitype(is that the right name for that technology?) so the options pop-up as you are typing your code.

The .dll file will connect to your DB via the Appserver channel. So it creates an easy method for a thirdy party app to interact with your server.

 

[Macery]

As for using any 3rd-party front-end via ODBC. There was one flaw that I have ran into with going that route. For operations that get to Progress via ODBC, they do not activate any of your 4GL Triggers.

We had a company come in to try to build a web element for us, and everytime they would enter data into the DB we never could get the proper DB-Triggers to finish off the deals. So we limit all of our ODBC to Read-Only operations.

 

[Progress_Guy]

Cheers Macery. All good stuff. Think I now have enough to get started. Much appreciated.