Powerbuilder in the modern Age vs C#/Java/C++ for a CS student

Question

this is the first time I ask something here. I've read a few topics of Powerbuilder.

I personally hate the language, it makes me more "stupid, less logic, more laziness".

Anyways, I'm a CS student (not from US/Canada), I'm from Panama, we're supposed to learn powerbuilder for two semesters, while we spent less time with java/C++.

Now I need opinions if my university should stop using powerbuilder (10.0) and switch to C#. I heard they won't update their license, but they have installed VS 2010 full, just to teach C++/VB, without exploiting the other programming languages C#.

Most of students had to piracy PB to maker their homework at home, because the trial version won't last enough for the two semesters, I instead went in rebellion and started to use C#.

What I want to know this from all of you:

• Should we start to use another language
• Is powerbuilder powerful for other things (Driver, game making, etc).
• It is a waste of time to learn it
• Why the language suck or why it rocks
• Finally, do you think the school is rude for using a non open source or free alternative IDE's so the students can work better.

And yeah, there's a big group that is hating PB at the moment, so we're ready to give any evidence to the dean and the university owner so he change the study plan for the next semester, since we still have time to change the language, and it would be useful to have your opinions.

Thank you

Answer 1

I have worked with PB7 and PB10 nearly 2 years and it was rather painful. Now I am very happy with C# for 3 years and I would never come back to PB.

• PB is old and not very well designed. E.g. support for OOP is loose; there are no “modern” functional features at all. Even there is no support for short circuit evaluation in the language so your code must be composed from deeply nested if statements in some cases. I cannot luckily remember any other language shortcomings but they are there for sure:). IMO PB forces you to use bad practices and it is very easy to make a big ball of mud from a larger project. There are definitely better ways how to learn programming than PB.
• The worst PB part was IDE in my eyes. It was horribly buggy and not very stable so I had to restart it frequently. Source code is stored in binary PBL files and cannot be edited in more reasonable tool so you are jailed in terrible IDE and the way to the freedom is difficult.
• PB is quite handy for simple data driven business applications but I can hardly imagine how to use it for anything else. I see development of nontrivial game as frustrating challenge (PB 11 with binding .NET could change something) and you cannot develop any drivers because PB program is executed in PB virtual machine. No experiences with web application development.

I do not know anything about the newest PB11. Something could be better there but the future is somewhere else:).