About PowerBuilder
PowerBuilder is an object-centric graphical application development environment.
Using PowerBuilder, you can easily develop many types of applications
and components. PowerBuilder provides all the tools you need to build
enterprise systems, such as order entry, accounting, and manufacturing
systems.
Two-tier and multitier applications
PowerBuilder applications can
be traditional graphical client/server two-tier applications
that access server databases. A traditional client/server
application is a collection of windows that contain controls that
users can interact with. You can use standard controls–such
as buttons, checkboxes, dropdown listboxes, and edit controls–as
well as special PowerBuilder controls that make your applications
easy to develop and easy to use.
You can also build multitier applications with PowerBuilder.
A multitier application usually has a client application that requests
services from a server application or component. For example, your
client application could request services from a PowerBuilder component
on an EAServer or MTS server. The server component often requests
services from a server database and/or other server components.
Web applications
PowerBuilder applications
can also be Web based. You can create a new Web-based application
for the Internet or Intranet, or adapt or extend an existing PowerBuilder
application for the Web.