stem database of books, authors, and customer orders. With our test applications, users browse a database of 50,000 existing orders, enter new orders, and run simple and complex reports.
In our tests, PowerBuilder and Centura come out close together. PowerBuilder is a little easier to use and a little more powerful, but Centura builds better-performing applications more quickly. In the June review, Delphi showed itself to be several times faster than Visual Basic, which in turn was several times faster than its other competitors. Centura and PowerBuilder have narrowed the gap, but Visual Basic is still a solid second.
Using NSTL's overall ratings scheme, Centura's greatly improved perform
ance and PowerBuilder's much better versatility move both products within striking distance of Visual Basic. In fact, on the 1-to-10 scale we use, a mere 0.2 delta separates the three runners-up. Though it's a good performer, Visual Basic is clearly on a tier below the other three products in terms of features. Delphi, though it has the steepest learning curve, is still the performance and features champ.
Most of the features and architecture that have made
PowerBuilder
popular are still in place in version 5.0. You still use interfaces called
painters
to create the various parts of applications, and DataWindows allow easy implementation of database access. InfoMaker, the report generator, looks and feels much the same as in PowerBuilder 4.0, but it's now available as a 32-bit application. Developers can create reusable components called
user objects
, which can be based on built-in components or other user objects and inherit their properties.
B
eyond the familiar features, however, version 5.0 moves the product into the next generation of client/server development by introducing support for a three-tiered architecture. This capability is already available in Visual Basic and Delphi, but PowerBuilder is the best of the three products at providing step-by-step instructions for developing client and server applications that communicate with each other. Powersoft introduced nonvisual user objects in version 4.0. It extended the capability in version 5.0 to allow the nonvisual objects of one program to be executed by another.
Users familiar with PowerBuilder's Library Painter will go through virtually no additional learning curve with the new version-control system, ObjectCycle. Once you set up an ObjectCycle Server, you simply register the contents of a library with ObjectCycle. From that point, you check components in and out as in earlier versions. Setting up the ObjectCycle Server is effortless. This is amazing given that the system must create a
client/server database to store project data.
The company that was formerly known as Gupta has adopted a completely new identity, renaming both its flagship software package and the company itself. Inside the new package, however,
Centura Team Builder
is essentially a version upgrade of SQLWindows. You still develop applications by writing code in the familiar Outliner interface, using the same SQLWindows Application Language (SAL) commands and functions that earlier versions used.
Developers can avoid the Outliner to a large degree by using QuickObjects, which generate forms and other objects automatically based on input supplied by the developer. This isn't a new feature, however, having been introduced in SQLWindows 5.0. The Team Object Manager is essentially Team Windows with a new user interface. Centura's much-touted Application Server, the tool for developing three-tiered applications, won't be available until later in the year.
The earlier version's annoying details
are also still in place. To enable access to remote databases, you must still edit configuration files manually. Team Object Manager, like the earlier Team Windows, still leads the field in maximizing the power of the client/server environment for repository-based applications management, but it's still poorly integrated with the main development interface. Also, while QuickObjects produce applications and components more quickly than writing code in the Outliner, it is difficult and confusing to change properties after you generate them.
With all these holdovers, why did we bother with Centura? Its major new feature is that it now supports the development of 32-bit applications, a change that significantly improves performance (see the section below). In addition, the package incorporates Centura Ranger for database replication. Many leading database vendors (e.g., Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft) support replication. Centura's strategy is to approach the issue from the client side, providing heterogeneous
replication between a variety of database formats. At present, however, it supports only SQLBase and Oracle databases; replicating Oracle databases requires buying an additional product from Centura.
Performance
NSTL ran PowerBuilder 5.0 and Centura Team Builder through the same benchmark suite used in the June review, with the identical configuration: We executed applications on a Dell Dimension XPS P90 with 24 MB of RAM running Windows NT 3.51, accessing a Microsoft SQL Server database. This allowed us to compare the results directly to those of the June review, where PowerBuilder and SQLWindows trailed Delphi and Visual Basic by significant margins.
Both products are markedly faster, but Centura is by far the more significantly improved. This is due largely to its 32-bit capability; the previous 16-bit version was at a disadvantage to the other three products in the earlier review. However, data retrieval is dramatically improved as well. The time to retrieve a 50,000-record d
ata set is 80 percent shorter. Report generation takes a third less time for a complex report, more than half for a simple report. These improvements are enough to move Centura ahead of PowerBuilder, though it's still well behind Delphi and Visual Basic.
PowerBuilder has introduced a new machine code compiler. By Powersoft's own admission, however, the benefits for such operations as data retrieval and screen drawing -- which are, after all, the central facets of an on-line database application -- will be minimal at best.
Nonetheless, PowerBuilder 5.0 shows a consistent 20 percent to 30 percent increase over version 4.0 on most of the tests. Report execution times are reduced by more than a third, largely because the InfoMaker report generator is now a 32-bit application.
In the final analysis, PowerBuilder beats Centura (despite the latter's improvements), and neither beats Delphi for features and performance.
Where to Find
Centura Team Developer 1.0....................$4995
(486 or better, 8 MB of RAM, 80 MB of
disk space, Windows 95 or Windows NT)
Centura Software Corp.
Menlo Park, CA
Phone: (800) 444-8782
Fax: (415) 321-5471
Internet:
http://www.centurasoft.com
Circle 1004 on Inquiry Card.
Upgraded C/S Tools: How Much Better?
