[Bulk] Is there a future for PowerHouse?

Tue May 1 09:36:48 CDT 2012

Vaughn, I hear you. I have been working in this language since 1986 full
time and I love it.

The other problem is, management does not want to invest in Powerhouse
anymore as they seem to think it is a dying language and resources are
getting harder to find. Even though there are still COBOL programs out there
still churning out data tirelessly. Programmers coming out of school have
never heard of a 4th generation language, they would rather work in a 3gl
with a WEB front end. Give me a common data dictionary any day.

Our own company is converting to Oracle on Windows/Linux to get off the
antiquated hardware.

Once we are fully converted, I expect to start replacing QTP extracts with
Oracle stored procedures. Then replace screens with and HTML version that
simply gets the data.

Your comment about a 31 file limitation in Qdesign is still correct, but
with the addition of Cursors and database Views, I have been able to bypass
that issue completely.

POW (or the Architect as it was replaced with on HP3000) was a very useful
tool, I created my own to maintain the dictionary and spit out PDL code.

As far as I know, MySQL is the only worthwhile database that is not
supported and since Oracle now owns the rights to it, I think it should be
added.

PH screens are old, QKView screens are a little better.more like Windows 98,
but users still need to know specific commands.

I do have some grey hair..thanks for that.

I believe, at the end of the day:

1)      There are only going to be 3 databases left; Oracle, MySQL and SQL
Server.

2)      There are only going to be 2 O/S left; Windows and Linux because
they can be implemented rather inexpensively.

3)      There will only be one look and feel for all applications; Web

If Cognos wanted to get back into the running, they would have to follow
these assumptions and revamp (combine) all the products into 1 suite and
stop charging licenses for Runtime.

They would have a leg up on all these other tools with the dictionary, but I
don't see this happening.

Ken

From: powerh-l-bounces+ken.langendock=rogers.com at lists.sowder.com
[mailto:powerh-l-bounces+ken.langendock=rogers.com at lists.sowder.com] On
Behalf Of JA Vaughn Smith
Sent: May 1, 2012 10:11 AM
To: powerh-l at lists.sowder.com
Subject: [Bulk] Is there a future for PowerHouse?

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.

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.

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: 

*	only 31 files in a Qdesign screen
*	popular databases are unsupported, (mySQL, others?)
*	PH Windows uses ODBC 2.5 from 1994. Version 3.8 is now current.
*	POW, the automated interface to the PDL dictionary, ships with
OpenVMS only
*	PH screens look old. Users must learn specific keyboard commands
*	Web interface must be done with the PH Web add on which generates
code that usually requires further modifications to address design
requirements.
*	poor runtime error notifications
*	very limited number of PH sites, and declining
*	extremely limited number of Axiant sites
*	many, (most, all?), PH programmers have grey hair

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?

Sincerely,
Vaughn Smith
Canada

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