John Olson

Okay, so I've been promoting the inclusion of PB client/server articles, yet here I am writing about the Web DataWindow. Don't stop reading! This article applies to all PB developers, whether n-tier or client/server. That said, I now have to prove that this article is important t... (more)

Last year, after migrating a client's application from PFC 5.0.02 to 6.5, then applying some enhancements to take advantage of new features, the program began giving the following PFC error message: "For certain functionality the PFC DataStore requires a reference to its parent w... (more)

If you are up-to-date on XML features in RDBMSs, then you know that ASE, Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server are leapfrogging each other in a race to add XML features to their relational databases. With each new release comes a new array of features. If I were to read a competitive analy... (more)

The only constant is change itself. That's certainly true for software development technologies, which are evolving at breakneck speed. As technologies change, tool companies like Sybase struggle to keep up with those technologies. Imagine the effort involved in planning, coding,... (more)

Remember when you first heard the term "application server"? The concept was cutting edge and the products were vaporware. Companies that bought into the idea built their own application servers using whatever technology they could wrangle. Of course, each was proprietary and ind... (more)

Believe it or not 2004 is the tenth year I'll be writing for PBDJ! I can't believe it myself. This magazine debuted back in 1994 when PowerBuilder was the hottest client/server software development tool in the world. That year I joined forces with a dozen PowerBuilder experts and... (more)

Recently I was at a Sybase event and an IT supervisor/PB developer approached me and asked why the new features in PowerBuilder were almost entirely for Web and n-tier and only a few were for client/server development. First, tools that are purely for client/server development ar... (more)

Products and markets have well-defined life cycles that vary in amplitude and length, but follow historical patterns. As Bob Hendry described in his editorial in last month's issue ("Is IT Outsourcing Worth It?" [Vol. 10, issue 10]), the IT outsourcing craze is in full swing. Cer... (more)

While studying computer science at the University of California in Santa Barbara, I worked for a company named Inter-Continental Telex (ICT). The name implied a large corporation with offices in major cities around the world. In reality it had only one office, three desks, two te... (more)

For me TechWave is primarily about networking, schmoozing, and hanging out with friends and colleagues. Up at 7 a.m. and to bed at 1 a.m. with a lot of events in between. Of course, the in-between time is spent preparing my sessions, participating in TeamSybase functions or dutie... (more)

I first began attending the annual PowerBuilder conferences back in 1994 when PowerBuilder was a new and revolutionary development tool. TechWave 2003 will be my 10th annual PowerBuilder conference, which makes me feel a bit old. We still have the DataWindow and PowerScript, othe... (more)

Recently I was contemplating a situation at one of my company's projects and a parable that Jesus told came to mind. The parable goes like this. There are two men, one wise and one foolish. The wise man carefully chose a rock to build his house upon and the foolish man chose to b... (more)

My addiction began on Christmas 1997 when I received a PalmPilot as a gift. At first I fought it and continued to keep information in my head and even write some of it down in an ancient book called a "datymr," a rough translation being "keeper of important stuff." Those books ha... (more)

A few days ago I attended the PowerBuilder 9.0 Launch Road Show, then spent the next two days at a TeamSybase meeting. These meetings are always a highlight of my year - we have about 12 hours of private, focused technical and marketing discussions with product engineers, manager... (more)

The availability of PowerBuilder 9 was announced March 4 and the release was made available March 24. If you have an upgrade subscription or have prepurchased a copy, then you've probably already received it by the time you read this. I have the beta version, but haven't yet rece... (more)

Do you remember where you were on March 30, 1981, when John Hinckley attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan? What about on January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff? When I was younger the question was, "Where were you when Kennedy was ... (more)

The dizzying whirlwind of terms we are bombarded with is...well...dizzying. Apparently, the age-old term "data flow" was no longer capable of describing what we want to do with our data. Or maybe Sybase wants to take our data to the next level and make it really valuable, because... (more)

2003 is going to be a great year. The economy is on a slow recovery, but it is recovering. That means more money for off-the-shelf and custom software, meaning more work for you, me, and others like us. Companies that have tightened their belts for a few years are starting to tak... (more)

My goal in this article is to raise your awareness of the products available and give you enough information to go on if you choose to investigate them. I'll also discuss some of the main issues involved in searching for and selecting off-the-shelf products. Finally, this article... (more)

Believe it or not 2004 is the tenth year I'll be writing for PBDJ! I can't believe it myself. This magazine debuted back in 1994 when PowerBuilder was the hottest client/server software development tool in the world. That year I joined forces with a dozen PowerBuilder experts and... (more)