SystemBuilder/SB+
SystemBuilder is the name of a 4GL development and runtime environment for the Pick family of computer databases/environments. SystemBuilder is comprised of U2 SB+ and U2 SBClient. The development environment enables rapid development and deployment of applications and includes a rudimentary GUI application environment.
Early history
System Builder was born in South Africa from the brains of brothers Derek and Desmond Miller where the popularity of the Pick database system, combined with a lack of a good development framework led them to develop a standardised menu and screen building tool.
The System Builder company was formed when the brothers moved to Sydney, Australia in the early 1980's. The product was very successful and after expanding into international markets and after a few versions they began to re-develop the product from the ground up. This was to become SB+ and was released in early 1990.
Traditionally, up to this time, Pick systems were accessed using dumb green-screen terminals but with the rise of the PC a new paradigm presented itself and so around the end of 1991 the product was enhanced with the addition of a specialised terminal emulation client called Termulator!. This was able to tightly integrate the server and the PC to allow for facilities like downloads direct from the server into Lotus 1-2-3 or the new kid on the block, Microsoft Excel.
Shortly after, the client program was renamed SBClient and the ability to render the server 'green-screens' as client GUI screens was added with a clever set of driver interpreters. Unfortunately, even to the present day, the client GUI never lived up to the expectations of the rapidly changing world of the PC desktop. A few staunch supporters of the GUI layer still persist using it for systems but it remains a slow, staid, inflexible, standards-lite, curmudgeon of an interface. (As at the current time, IBM is rewriting the GUI interface as an SOA for release sometime in 2007. Hopefully it will live up to the potential of the concepts underlying the server.)
Around 2000 the System Builder company was split up and the sister product Redback was split off. After IBM acquired the U2 family of database tools it soon acquired System Builder. This purchase was finalised in 2005 when System Builder development moved in with the U2 development team in Denver, USA.
The SystemBuilder Development Environment
System Builder/SB+ server environment is based around a few key tools and utilities. These leverage out to provide a powerful and comprehensive development environment which is, itself, built mainly from these tools. It is comprised of an application menuing system, screen generator, a programming language, an expression language, the GUI components and report writer tool.
Language:
- PICK BASIC - underlying database programming language.
- Paragraph Processes - small BASIC like functions.
- Expressions