PBDJ Blog

This note is to my many acquaintances and professional colleagues,

I've been  around the PowerBuilder Sybase/Powersoft camp for more than 15 years.  For 13 of them I was lucky enough to be a trainer, traveling all over North America helping thousands of you build your coding skills and master the PowerBuilder platform.  Golly, I remember standing in front of more than 400 of you in at Techwave in Orlando introducing you to building web apps with PowerBuilder and the EAServer studio (anybody still doing that?).  During all my years at Sybase I didn't write much.  I was so busy traveling, training and designing courses, that I left other knowledge delivery modes to other adept people.

Back in Feb 09, my world changed.  After more than 10 years as a Sybase employee, I found myself out of the comfort of the corporate fold and in the glaring sunshine of independence.  After some protracted soul searching, one strong resolution emerged;  I wasn't going to let all my years of experience, knowledge and connections die.  I was going to continue marching on the road of PowerBuilder related development, training and education even if I had to do it as an independent. It's a Web Wide World out there and individuals can make an impact (and a living) Fortunate for us there is One who looks after this world. Others heard of my situation.  Connections were made and shortly thereafter, the idea of ISUG sponsored Powerbuilder eTraining was born.

For those of you who don't yet know, I founded a company named eLearnIT, who mission is to use the latest learning technologies and adult education theories to help software developers (aka PowerBuilder developers) and those who use their products effectively master what they need to know and do  eLearnIT's first product is the PowerBuilder Essentials Series marketed in conjunction with the International Sybase User Group (ISUG) http://www.isug.com/common/PBTraining.html

More recently,  I have been diving into PB 12 .NET and all of its underlying technologies and producing free eTutorials on PB 12 in conjunction with ISUG and Sybase.  You'll find two of them, Advanced .NET Language Features, and WCF on Sybase.com here http://www.sybase.com/powerbuilder12beta/tutorials .  A third, titled 'Future Proofing Your PowerBuilder Code Investment' is all about refactoring PowerBuilder Classic code in a controled TDD manner. You'll want to watch this tutorial as you begin thinking about migrating your Classic client/server application to .NET  I handed this tutorial off for deployment.  It should be available for viewing any day now

Right now, my attention is on refactoring PB and migrating to Classic PowerBuilder.NET.  I'll be writing and designing eTutorials and workshops on these topics that I think are crucial to Powerbuilder developers.

So why am I starting this blog?  There is a lot to say between the lines.   As I walk, or crawl, my way though new technologies, methodologies, tools and products,  I reflect alot on how things fit together and relate to other things that we know and do.  I have my personal opinions, musing, wishes, discoveries and disappointments  that don't quite fit into what I'm designing or writing.  I'd like to know whether your opinions and thoughts are similar to mine and if not, learn your perspective on the issues that I'm confronting.

Stay tuned, the wave is just beginning.

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