I read with interest Marcia Gulesian's article "Plugging into the Web." (See DBMS, December 1996, page 69.) Our company is entering into the murky waters of building Intranet applications.
We use PowerBuilder, and I have been testing the PowerBuilder Window Plug-In with success. The Window Plug-In does everything it claims to do and is very simple to use. Our findings are in agreement with the article.
Once the euphoria of our plug-in success wore off, a few of us sat down to analyze what we could now do with this wonderful marriage of PowerBuilder and the Intranet. We could not come up with a single valid business reason for using the Window Plug-In. Our logic is fairly simple. You need all the PowerBuilder runtime DLL files for your Window Plug-In to work anyway. You can't now miraculously make a PowerBuilder application available to anyone who has a Web browser. So why not just compile your PowerBuilder application to a standalone program?
One argument for using the Window Plug-In is that you do not need to distribute the application to your clients. We run all of our PowerBuilder applications from our LAN servers, so we do not gain any advantage in this area by using the Window Plug-In.
One potential of the Web is to create platform-independent applications by having the browser handle platform- specific GUI presentation on the PC, Macintosh, Unix, and so on. The Window Plug-In does not help in this area; you will still need to create PC, Macintosh, and Unix versions. Granted, PowerBuilder code is easily migrated to the other platforms. But if you will have to maintain separate platform-specific PBD files, why not just use standalone applications?
Finally, there are drawbacks to using the Window Plug-In for PowerBuilder applications. Gulesian's article does touch on obvious issues such as being limited to child windows and other things. I can live with those limitations.
One big drawback is that when I move away from the page containing the Window Plug-In, I effectively close the PowerBuilder application. If I return to the plug-in page, I load the application again and start from scratch; I can't "multitask" Web pages. I can't move back and forth between my company's third-quarter financial statement and my Window Plug-In inventory application. The nature of an Internet browser is just that: browsing, moving from page to page. Window Plug-Ins and Intranet "browsing" are conflicting activities.
The only reason we have been able to come up with for developing Window Plug-In applications is that our clients are clamoring for browser-enabled applications. Window Plug-Ins enable us to satisfy our clients' demands. But in reality I don't see that we have given our clients anything that makes their work easier or more productive.
Gulesian's article was very good at introducing the Window Plug-In to developers and demonstrating how easy it is to use. However, it did not address the issues I have described. I would like to hear Gulesian's thoughts on why a business should use Window Plug-In technology for PowerBuilder applications instead of the conventional standalone application. I like the Window Plug-In technology, but I can't come up with a valid argument I can present to management as to why we should use it.
Mike Dawson
Chiron Corp.
Mike_Dawson@cc.chiron.com
The Window Plug-In is primarily for corporate Intranets where most end users will probably have a PowerBuilder runtime environment on their PCs (because they are a PowerBuilder shop). The product's advantage is primarily that it lets you "get something on the Intranet" very quickly. As seen in the article's Figure 1, it lets you use PowerBuilder to add components to your Web applications. Web applications may consist of Java applets, ActiveX controls, HTML, JavaScript, and plug-ins. With PowerBuilder, you can create custom plug-ins. And soon you'll be able to create custom ActiveX controls.
I would suggest that you also take a close look at Web.PB. Web.PB lets the developer build an application server with PowerBuilder that runs on NT, Windows 95, or Solaris. The application generates dynamic calls and sends HTML pages back to the browser. No PowerBuilder runtime files are needed on the client's machine -- you only need a browser.
-- Marcia Gulesian