PBT: Techné’s PowerBuilder-to-Java™ Code Translator

Techné’s PBT is a highly automated, PowerBuilder-to-Java™ code translator that captures and converts the business rules inherent in legacy applications without any human interpretation.

By doing so, this compiler-like translator eliminates the risk of misinterpreting a legacy application’s business rules—or worse, not capturing and converting them at all—which serves to preserve the intellectual capital investments already made in the application. At the same time, by eliminating the risk of misinterpreting the business rules and logic, PBT is able to eliminate the risk of complete project failure or that of errors occurring throughout the process

In fact, because PBT is so highly automated, it actually guarantees successful conversion results every time, while generating an exact functional equivalent of the legacy application in Java form—from its look, feel and function right down to its application design.

As such, PBT offers several key benefits to organizations requiring a successful conversion that is guaranteed and delivered at a fixed price, on a fixed date.

PBT Benefits
Technical Details Summary
The New Java Application Summary

PBT Benefits

Minimized Risk
Converts business rules and logic without any human interpretation, reducing the risk of errors to near zero, guaranteeing a successful migration.

Minimized Disruption to Users
Produces a Java application that is identical in look, feel, function and design to the original, eliminating the need for users to be re-trained and as a result, eliminates re-training costs. Allows the Java application to co-exist with original PB applications and access the same databases, simplifying large-scale deployment to the new environment.

Minimized Disruption to Maintenance Staff
Duplicates internal design and encoded business rules, leaving programmers familiar with the new application based on their understanding of the business logic.

Faster Migration
Reduces elapsed time for the migration project due to the high-level of automation offered by PBT.

Guaranteed Results
Guarantees the migration project with PBT’s high level of automation.

Technical Details Summary

• All PowerBuilder source code (including DataWindows) is automatically converted.
• Any non-portable features are converted semi-automatically (i.e. OLE or DDE specific functions with no direct Java equivalent.)
• Each PowerBuilder object is converted to an equivalent Java class. Non-visual objects become a single Java class. Visual objects become two Java classes (separating GUI painting from business logic).
• A pure Java library, PBJ™ extends Java to add needed PB functionality.
• Database access converted to Standard JDBC or J2EE-based Remote Connection Object.

The New Java Application Summary

• The generated Java application consists of well-written and well-structured native Java code.
• Can be maintained with any standard Java IDE (Eclipse, JBuilder, WSAD, JDeveloper) and a host of 3rd party Java technology tools.
• Simplifies the learning curve for the maintenance team as it duplicates the original PB code design and can be maintained using PB concepts or native Java programming language concepts.

© Techné Knowledge Systems Inc., 2003