Its always better to not have fat clients and put as much of the logic on the server side.
You say that this is a webapp client? So that means that your forms are static. So your only choice is to use script language that runs on client machine. This is also a bad thing. Since you don't know much about the client machines. I'm not familiar with this PowerBuilder but it sounds like a 2 tier system where most everything is in the client side and some database in the back. like .asp or php... I would have instead of translating all logic to java, also reevaluate and create a new structure. Its like when you translate a human language you don't do it word by word you also look at grammar and other contexts... Finally if your client code MUST have a lot of build-in logic then perhaps a web client is not a good solution for you. Maybe a Java application is better. It can have event handling for your fields but the logic could remain in the server side. You could for example use RMI for communication. Another option may be web services and XML... > We have a fairly large client/server app that we converted to a java > webapp. > The original app was in powerbuilder. there were 2 types of rules applied > to > field rendering: > > 1) any rule that could be handled when the screen loaded was handled via > screen level events, e.g., if a screen had fields with default values, or > hidden fields under certain conditions, then these would be applied at > screen entry via an onchange event for the screen > 2) computed fields were handled via onChange events on the field, e.g., if > field x changes, change field y > > The 'field rules' could be any valid powerscript expression > > What we have done is mimicked this in java. we process the same way as > above, except we dynamically convert (very painfully) the powerscript into > java syntax, then run the rules as above, by passing the converted rules > to > an embedded java interpreter (BeanShell) > > The problem is if you have sophisticated rules, or rules which affect many > different fields, e.g., if field x changes, change field y, but if field y > changes, change field z, etc... This becomes very slow - up to 15 seconds > for a screen to render or change completely. Not to mention the complexity > of the rules management. > > Is there a better way??? > > John McClain > Senior Software Engineer > TCS Healthcare > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > (530)886-1700x235 > "Skepticism is the first step toward truth" > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
