Show Report

Finally, Dave had an "off-the-record" discussion of ideas they have in mind for the DataWindow even farther out. Unfortunately, since they were "off-the-record," I can't report on them here.

He then took questions from the audience. I asked him about:

• Better XML import support (such as importing into a nested DataWindow and not requiring a column to be visible on the surface of the DataWindow before it could be used in an XML template). In addition, being able to create a DataWindow from a WSDL or XSD, so that we didn't have to manually create an external DataWindow for XML import from a Web service.
• Providing a method to DataWindow.NET that would more directly indicate whether or not a column in the result set also had a control on the surface of the DataWindow. If you are writing generic services for the DataWindow control and want to mass manipulate DataWindow column control attributes, you currently have to check the .Band attribute for the column first. If it returns "?", it means there is no associated control on the surface of the DataWindow. So while it's possible, it's not entirely intuitive.

Incidentals
I really do like the way they did the Conference Program Guide this year. Rather than a hard binding as it's been in previous years, this year a three-ring bound version in the portfolio was provided upon registration. So when you get additional materials (such as the daily NewsWave), you simply include it in the three-ring binder.

The Pocket Guide was included in the binder as well; you simply folded it up. I must admit it wasn't entirely obvious it was there though. Yes, there was an index tab that said "Pocket Guide," but it was fairly well down in the Program Guide so I didn't get to it until today.

What I didn't particularly like was the map of the conference center (or rather, the lack thereof). Only one floor of the four floors was actually mapped out. And the keynotes and lunches were held in the event center, which is a bit of a hike from the conference center. (Between the heat and the length of the walk, it kind of reminded me of previous conferences in DisneyWorld.) And there was no map provided in the conference materials for the entire hotel (so we could see how to get to the event center). There are maps scattered throughout the hotel as well as direction signs, but they're not always that helpful. It's said that "all roads lead to Rome" but what I tended to find was that "all roads lead back to the casino." I lost track of the number of times I got lost in the maze of the first floor of the hotel in the first couple of days here.

I have to complain about something somewhat related. The main reason I'm checking the Program Guide is to find where the sessions are. Perhaps the information wasn't available when I originally registered, but it certainly wasn't made available in the "add to Outlook" options that were available when you scheduled your sessions online. I took advantage of that option, and then synched with my SmartPhone so I would only need to carry that around. Ian Thain's PocketBuilder app for tracking the sessions is great, but I really only wanted to handle it in Pocket Outlook.

That's really an issue for the third party that handles the registrations for Sybase. If they do decide to fix that for future conferences, they could also improve on the "add to Outlook" feature in another way. Once I had my schedule complete, I had to perform the "add to Outlook" operation individually for each session. There has to be some way to implement that in a batch process so that my entire schedule is added at once.

Some kudos to the hotel though - unlike the Gaylord Palms, the meeting rooms here are well marked. It was generally pretty easy to find my sessions, even without a decent map in the Program Guide. Also, as with the last two conferences in the Gaylord Palms, there is a Wi-Fi hot spot in the conference center and high-speed connections in the hotel rooms. The e-mail kiosks are back again this year as well.

As opposed to the Gaylord Palms, there are plenty of other places to go within walking distance. You aren't trapped in the hotel if you don't have a car handy. On the other hand, the few times I have been to Las Vegas are in the winter, when the temperatures are reasonable. So although there are lots of places to go within walking distance, I'm not doing too much walking outside in Las Vegas in late August when it's 102 degrees.

Wednesday, August 24
Keynote
Jonathan Baker began the Wednesday keynote and introduced the three points that would be discussed:

• PowerBuilder: Believes in .NET
• J2EE: Tomorrow has arrived
• Mobile: The future is now

The whole thing had an X-files theme. It was okay, but nothing compared to the MIB theme from Tuesday's technote. John Strano then came out for the PowerBuilder portion of the keynote. He indicated that the benefits of PowerBuilder include:

• Rich Clients Today, Smart Client Tomorrow
• The DataWindow today will rock the world of .NET DataWindow
• Integration with J2EE in .NET applications

He then presented dw-extreme samples of what a DataWindow can do. That was followed by a discussion of the roadmap for PowerBuilder's .NET support. John noted that Sybase is a Microsoft Premier Partner in their Visual Studio Industry Partner program. Sybase is intending to introduce .NET enhancements in line with .NET releases, beginning with the PowerBuilder 11 release linked to the release of Visual Studio 2005 (particularly ASP.NET 2.0).

In the more immediate future, John discussed the release of PowerBuilder 10.5 (currently in beta) and the PowerBuilder Application Server Plugin (about to go into beta) that will allow PowerBuilder components to be deployed as EJBs in third-party application servers.

As for PowerBuilder 11, John noted that in addition to the ASP.NET compiler that release will also introduce the .NET Interop capability (where PB components can utilize .NET components) and enhancements to the Web DataWindow.

In the longer term, Sybase is working on the PowerBuilder Runtime Assemblies for .NET so that applications will no longer require a managed PBVM layer. Sybase is also working on enabling PowerBuilder to utilize smart client deployment techniques, including using Web services as the primary means of transmitting information to and from the client application.

John then demonstrated a couple of the PowerBuilder 11.0 features, such as "painting" a Web form using a regular PowerBuilder painter. The application (a PowerBuilder implementation of Microsoft's Duwamish 7.0 Bookstore) was then compiled using the new .NET Application WebForm Wizard. The result, except for the title bar, was completely indistinguishable from the PowerBuilder client version.

Dave Dichman and Jeff Prizlack then came on stage to demonstrate the ability to do analysis, design, development, deployment, and testing of applications all within a single IDE: the Workspace product. Unfortunately, the last part of the demonstration was the creation and deployment of an SOA service based on a database stored procedure without writing a single line of code. As amazing as that was, I don't know if the majority of the audience was familiar enough with SOA to realize what was being done or how significant it was.