Look, It's VB -- No, Wait -- C++

Rick Grehan

It had to happen: a visual development environment undergirded by C++ yet so similar to Visual Basic that you have to stop and look closely to distinguish the two. Powersoft's Optima++ brings VB-style form-based programming to C++.

Is it a Delphi killer? That's part of it. Sybase's SQL Anywhere product is well integrated in Optima++. Add to that bound controls and the bundled ODBC support provided by Intersolv's DataDirect ODBC drivers, and Optima++ becomes a formidable client/server database foundry.

Is it a VB killer? That's part of it, too. When you launch Optima++, you'd swear you've launched VB. Up pops a blank form window, bespeckled with a placement grid. You can drag visual controls from a tear-off toolbar to populate a form. O ptima++'s Object Inspector is the spitting image of a VB object's properties window.

Is it RAD? That's another part. You can, at almost anytime in the development process, select Run from the menu and see how your work is progressing. All the compiling and linking are as unobtrusively automated as I've ever seen.

Say you've just deposited a command button on your form window, and you want to specify its behavior. When you right-click on it and select Events from the pop-up list, a mini-menu opens, showing the events that the object responds to. Select an event, and an editor window opens.

Here's the interesting part: Whenever you're in the editor window, you can move the cursor over to the form window, select an object, and drag it back into the editor. This opens a reference card that provides quick access to all the methods that object understands. Furthermore, the reference card can actually "write" code for you.

I did all my explorations with the Developer edition of Optima++. Int roductory pricing is $199, which will probably last through September. The Professional and Enterprise editions that will add team development, Internet tools, Java, and more should appear later this year. I'm keeping the sectors warm on my hard disk for their arrival.

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Where to Find

Powersoft

Phone:    (800) 395-3525. 
Fax:      (519) 747-4971 
Internet: 
http://www.powersoft.com


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