<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Vaughn, you may want to look in the archives for "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; "><b>Yet Again - Powerhouse is Dead (Was; Re: PowerHouse & PowerHouse Web on Linux)</b></span>" from June 22, 2007.<div><br></div><div>Some things have a slow death. Powerhouse looks to be in that category. ;) Hey, Cobol is still alive.</div><div><br></div><div>A friend used to say that to get Powerhouse to do what you really want, you had to trick it. I see a couple of tricks were offered up to get around some of the archaic limitations. 30 years and PH developers are still forced into those old tricks.</div><div><br></div><div>Karen, by my calculation you'll be replaced when they off source maintenance of UT. It will still be around for a while because the replacement cost is so high. Maintenance is cheaper and moving that off shore is cheaper still. Accountants like cheap. Sure PH is easy to learn, but seriously, one would have to be an idiot to invest valuable career time into a dead end tool. As a side note, they'd also be a sucker to do it there.</div><div><br></div><div>Mike, that migration, was it a Powerhouse system being ported to PH Web. Kodos to you for convincing management to go with a cheap option, but isn't that cheating a bit. Would management have considered using PH Web from scratch. I wonder if anyone has used Powerhouse products for new development in the last 10 years.</div><div><br></div><div>As for apps going web only. I have my doubts that will occur any time soon. Soon as in the next 15 years. The techniques have come a long way, but continually have issues with the different browsers. Also, how many companies want their source available for anyone to look at, even just the client code.</div><div><br></div><div>Oh, lets not forget to add the iPad into the mix. The cutting edge companies with money are jumping all over it. Younger developers aren't going to want to maintain old crusty PH code that will do nothing for their future career while their friends are working with the hot new platforms and tools.</div><div><br></div><div>The future of Powerhouse is death. Everything dies, just don't let it be your career.</div><div><br></div><div>Darren.</div><div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On May 1, 2012, at 9:10 AM, JA Vaughn Smith wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">I have been back on an OpenVMS system using PowerHouse, (PH), for 4 months now. In that time, I have been re-amazed at the things I can do with Qdesign, QTP and Quiz. Before this year, I did some work learning PHP and Python with mySQL, typical Windows development tools. PH has them beat from a productivity standpoint, and not by just a bit either.<br>
<br>Realistically, what future does PowerHouse have? The products are 30+ years old but they still perfrom quite well on the right hardware. With the exception of Unix and Windows, they run on antiquated hardware, though. The HP 3000 MPE is done; HP offers help to move these sites to Unix or Windows platforms. OpenVMS sites can move to HP Itanium machines which are about 12 years old and have a very uncertain future. PH used to run on IBM AS/400. What's up with that these days? Unix and Windows remain viable platforms for PowerHouse deployment since you can actually buy modern servers from various manufacturers.<br>
<br>What about the future of PowerHouse itself? IBM has stated that PH will remain supported as long asit makes business sense. That said, there are no future updates planned at this time. The longstanding problems remain: <br>
<ul><li>only 31 files in a Qdesign screen</li><li>popular databases are unsupported, (mySQL, others?)</li><li>PH Windows uses ODBC 2.5 from 1994. Version 3.8 is now current.</li><li>POW, the automated interface to the PDL dictionary, ships with OpenVMS only</li>
<li>PH screens look old. Users must learn specific keyboard commands</li><li>Web interface must be done with the PH Web add on which generates code that usually requires further modifications to address design requirements.</li>
<li>poor runtime error notifications</li><li>very limited number of PH sites, and declining<br></li><li>extremely limited number of Axiant sites<br></li><li>many, (most, all?), PH programmers have grey hair<br></li></ul><p>
It is my belief that IBM has a great product with PowerHouse. I also believe that they barely understand this fact and that the corporation purchased Cognos for the great business intelligence tools,mainly. The PowerHouse business has to have seen substantial decline for IBM over the years. How many more sites can convert to other development environments, reducing IBM's revenue, before they shut down Cognos?<br>
</p><p>Sincerely,<br>Vaughn Smith<br>Canada<br></p>
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