Enterprise Architecture on Ulitzer

John Strano came to Los Angeles on part of the PowerBuilder 12.0 ISUG road show. If you have an opportunity to attend one in your area, run by either John or Dave Fish, they're well worth attending. John demonstrated some impressive new features of the new version of PowerBuilder, including a fly-away image effect (see Figures 1 and 2) as well as DataWindow skinning (see Figure 3).

Of course, this is all based on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and the WPF DataWindow. I found it all quite impressive. I think we're about to experience one of the biggest leaps forward in PowerBuilder functionality that we've seen in recent history.

My nagging concern is that in order to become fully ".NET," Sybase has to commit to Microsoft developed technologies. And if there's anything constant about Microsoft, it's that they keep switching out technologies. PowerBuilder's original web services implementations were based on the .NET System.Web.Services classes. Along comes .NET 4.0, and those are essentially abandoned in favor of WCF. PowerBuilder also based their initial desktop and web targets and WinForm and WebForm, respectively, just in time for Microsoft to introduce WPF and SilverLight. Now Sybase is busy implementing WPF, but one can't help but wonder if it won't be replaced with something else in the relatively near future.

My other nagging concern, more directly related to the title of this article, is whether Sybase shouldn't have focused on implementing support for Silverlight rather than WPF. Michael Desmond of Visual Studio Magazine made an interesting point with regard to WPF. In an article on Windows 7, he quoted Mary Jo Foley, a Redmond magazine columnist, as saying:

"Microsoft is trying to drum up support for new apps that will use the touch/gesture/sensor capabilities built into Windows 7, but I haven't heard developers clamoring to get on board that train."

He followed up that quote with this remark:

"The situation is somewhat reminiscent of Microsoft's effort to promote Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) development on Windows Vista."The implication is that there isn't a great deal of traction within the development community to move to creating WPF applications.  More to the point, Rob Sanfilippo, research VP for Development Tools and Strategies, Directions on Microsoft was quoted in that same magazine as indicating that RIAs (such as SilverLight) are the area where there is traction:

"Although Windows 7 and WPF will get attention, it won't be enough to change the momentum toward Web apps and RIAs."

Now, perhaps the reason that WPF development hasn't taken off is because the tooling isn't there yet, a problem that Sybase intends to solve with PowerBuilder 12. However, if the movement in development methodologies is to RIA rather than thick client apps, then the introduction of WPF in PowerBuilder 12 is trying to solve the wrong problem.

Or perhaps not. WPF and Silverlight are similar enough that the introduction of one paves the way for the other. One of the slides John presented did indicate that Silverlight support is tentatively planned for a post 12.0 release (see Figure 4).

The questions are, will it ever be implemented and how long will it take before it is? If PowerBuilder 15.0 (the next version, since both 13 and 14 are being skipped) provides it, but takes as long to introduce as PowerBuilder 12, we might not see it until 2011 or 2012.

What do you think? Are your clients looking to move to RIA? Or do they just want to see existing thick-client applications continue, but provided with more capability? Let me know.