Re: Appeon - The Future of PB Webcast Series - Vision - Comments

Hi Andreas;

   Thank you so much for your thoughts on PB's potential direction and how you perceive the WPF.Net world. I always state ppfront, that my views are biased by the IT realm I play in and that's focused on the Canadian Federal Government. Its not the world-wide perspective that Appeon probably has along with its diverse customer base. So if I say that WPF is "dead" - I mean that I can not see it in use by my government clients or even talk of them using it in the near future.

  Interestingly, there is a BIG all weekend workshop Microsoft event coming up next week in the national capital. Believe it or not, its totally focused on JavaScipt! MS is really pushing the HTML5 + JS combination only these days around here. JavaScript is the #1 world-wide programming skill in demand in 2015. So it begs the question whether Appeon should even go after C# vs JS as its new PB development tool direction!

  One also has to remember that business people, application programmers, and importantly end users don't care about Winform vs WPF vs C/C++ vs Java vs Delphi vs etc - they only care about the final application. Does it do what I need it to do, does it look good GUI wise, does it help with visibility issues like eye strain, readability, etc, its it 100% reliable, does it perform and does it process well against my business information flows. As a business application programmer (putting that hat on for a moment), I am too busy with Business Analysis, Systems Analysis, Use Cases, Information Flows, Operational Considerations, UI & UX design, Performance, Test Cases, DBMS design & interaction, Security, Data Retention, Reporting , QA, etc, etc to care one IOTA about .Net vs Java vs WPF vs Native based software. I need a KISS development tool that really supports RAD/Agile/Protocycling, gets the applications up & running fast with low cost, yet can evolve into a robust 24/7 application that is really performance oriented as well. Basically focusing on the DEVOPS area - the real measure of your potential application's longevity. If WPF can give me that then great, I'm all in. If not then who cares in the big picture.  ;-)

  Appeon needs to also figure out if the long-term IT trend is towards native applications or a browser based world. Maybe the pendulum is swinging back to the middle of this and a balance of both web and native applications will be the trend. Right now, I would have to say that 90%+ of all Canadian Government applications are web only. However, there is a distinct difference between "Joe Public" Internet applications that must work on most common browsers today (hence the focus on HTML5 + JS) vs Intranet (aka internal) web applications that don't care about how the browser application runs - even when a plug-in is required. Since the business owner pays the IT bill and their satisfaction is the priority, its most often the resulting application's ability to support the business user that drives the show. Basically, technology be dammed ... install it IT or else <BG>! That being said (if that is true world-wide) ... what the new PB development tool needs to be and/or what Appeon needs to do to PB Classic to morph it into something that can deliver the above - that is some soul sourcing questions that need to be asked & answered.

  I may also disagree with some of your opinions Andreas, but it's always a great pleasure to read your views and exchange ideas & experiences too! Its these kind of respectful information exchanges that needs to happen, facilitating open communication back to Appeon. They need to understand what makes PB what its is and what could even make it better. Now that Armeen has opened the future vision door as well - what we (the PB Community) need to do is also help Appeon position / revitalize PB for today's modern IT world & be successful at it.

Highest Regards ... Chris