accessing Progress 4GL database for webdevelopment

Question

Currently we develop our webapps using webspeed that comes with the progress development tools. But since the current switch to progress 10.2b we can develop software that uses .net components. Now we would also like to upgrade our webdevelopment tools.

So my question to the good people on SO is ...

Do any of you know if there are good environments like APS.net/RoR/Django to easily connect to the progress databases? If there are connectors available, if there is good support for it and where i can find it ;)

thank you.

Answer 1

You can connect/communicate to Progress using a couple of ways.

• ODBC/JDBC connection, doing standard SQL Statements. (Note that you will not be able to execute any Business logic written in Progress 4GL code).
• Web API made with Progress Webspeed (ex.: REST Api, or event your own) (Progress 4GL code).
• Web Services (SOAP) with Progress AppServer and AIA (Progress 4GL code).
• .NET/Java Api using Progress AppServer. A tool called Proxygen creates proxy .NET dll or Java classes to include them into your development. You can then call Progress AppServer directly. (Progress 4GL code)

I don't think there is any "connectors" out-of-box available. It's just a matter of putting pieces of puzzle together.

Answer 2

Have successfully developed a couple of ASP.NET MVC web systems that use .Net dll’s (Generated by ProxyGen) to access OpenEdge datasources via Progress AppServer.

Be warned though, it appears the ProxyGen tool requires the .Net 2.5 SDK to generate said .dll’s – which becomes problematic as this is not support beyond Windows 7!