David Beavon (Software) asked a question.
Third Party OpenEdge Vendors (Technology)
Is there a list of vendors in the OpenEdge ecosystem (ie. creates technologies that enhance or complement OE database and ABL)?
I'm not talking about ISV's that create their own turnkey solutions on top of it (where you may not even know OE is the platform). I'm primarily interested in the ones that create libraries or extensions - things that enhance the experience of other software developers of OE.
I think there were some in the past, like "Bravepoint" who got absorbed into Progress, for their "pro2" product. But what about today?
There are only a few that I know off the top of my head:
- Whitestar for protop
- Riverside for VS code plugin
- Riverside for PCT
- Roundtable TSMS for source control in PDSOE
I think the riverside ones are 100% free but I'm not sure.
I found this list, but it is generic.
https://www.progress.com/partners/partner-locator?BusinessModel=TAP&Location=United+States
Not all the vendors aren't closely aligned to OE, in the same way as whitestar or riverside. Eg. Microsoft, AWS, and Red Hat are listed.
You can add Consultingwerk to your list, with their SmartComponent Library, Telemetry Toolkit, and OAuth2 Toolkit for OE, and probably other things I'm not aware of.
There are many other vendors in the industry; like the folks you see sponsoring conferences or giving commercial talks. You can see a list of some of them here on the PUG Challenge web site, or look up past commercial presentations in the archive.
I agree it would be helpful to have a comprehensive and curated list. That raises the question of who would curate it, and how. I don't have a good answer for that.
Thansk for the reply.
Yes, the libraries you mentioned seem very relevant. (from Consultingwerk)
We should probably mention any github projects with large amounts of sample code that are available to be borrowed (via the Unlicense, or the MIT license). I was just using one from Peter Judge the other day.
Given that the OE AVM is not open source, I think that makes it harder to draw in participation from outside parties. In contrast, there are other opensource runtimes (like JVM, .Net CLR, python, wasm) have vast ecosystems with countless participants. I don't know if the OE AVM will ever be open source, but I wish it would... if only for the sake of a larger ecosystem of participants.
>> That raises the question of who would curate it, and how
Maybe we can just post a list here in the community once a year, and anyone can add the tools or extensions or libraries that are notable.
You can add Baltic Amadeus in the list. They recently build an extension for Progress DB browsing.
https://github.com/BalticAmadeus/ProBro
Thanks for mentioning us @Rob Fitzpatrick (White Star Software)
For free stuff, I'd also like to mention the VS Code extensions from Baltic Amadeus, Wayfare and from us. Many are in @Carl Verbiest (CCE NV)'s extension pack: https://github.com/cverbiest/vscode-openedge-abl-pack
I think a central and community maintained overview here on Communities would be really helpful - @Nichol Goldstein (Progress) I am sure that @Rob Fitzpatrick (White Star Software) and I could be convinced to maintain such a list.
If you're looking for an AI supported developer framework that dramatically increases the modernization of ABL GUI and TTY applications, don't hesitate to reach out :-)
I wish we could draw more participation into this ecosystem. I'm pretty sure that open source runtimes can create much larger communities.
It is not possible for Progress to meet all the commercial needs of software developers nowadays. They do enhance the platform one step at a time, but they cannot possibly address all customer scenarios.
EG. For years I've been waiting for some relatively simple things that aren't likely to EVER happen, even if we wait ten more years. Eg. There might never be a "Pro2" that replicates OE data to a cloud-hosted lakehouse. There might never be any AMQP 1.0 client library for ABL. There might never be an Xpath functionality within ABL's XML.
... Often times we find that the only way to build a modern app is to create "side cars" all over the place, or use the "CLR bridge" on windows. But there can be a tipping point where a given app might be spending more time in the non-AVM codepaths than what it is doing in the AVM.
Hi @David Beavon (Software),
I can share some encouraging news on the Pro2 front. The idea of replicating OpenEdge data to a cloud-hosted lakehouse is already being tracked here: https://openedge.ideas.aha.io/ideas/OPENEDGE-I-1641
It's under consideration today, so hopefully this is one item you won't have to wait another decade for. 😄
While I can't speak about timelines, it's definitely an area that's getting attention, so stay tuned!
Thanks,
Talha
It might not be a full decade. But that idea (1641) is already about two and a half years old. And the votes aren't yet over 100. It might take another two years for the votes to accumulate above that threshold.
FYI, there are probably a LARGE number of customers who could independently create a github project for a Pro2-Databricks (and Pro2-Fabric), if the CDC triggers were part of our normal (Enterprise) DBMS licenses. It wouldn't be as challenging as when Bravepoint first did it, because they already blazed a trail. For example, they introduced the faster version of CDC triggers, and they set the precedent for replicating data based on internal ROWIDs (not something others would have been comfortable with, had we not seen Progress doing it first). At the end of the day, I think the OE community would like to be able to create our OWN software solutions if we were empowered to do that. In addition to community projects, the number of commercial vendors in this ecosystem would probably grow as well. Those sorts of things would happen faster if Progress saw this as a priority, and were willing to remove some of the many guardrails.
Please check out ORM for OpenEdge used in Node.js based projects https://github.com/RealJavascriptKid/orm