PowerHouse (programming language): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:16, 4 February 2014

Revision as of 09:30, 6 February 2014

Line 9:

== History ==

PowerHouse was introduced in 1982 and bundled together in a single product Quiz and Quick/QDesign, both of which had been previously available separately, with a new batch processor QTP. In 1983, Quasar changed its name to ''[[Cognos]] Corporation'' and began porting their application development tools to other platforms, notably [[Digital Equipment Corporation]]'s ''[[VAX]]'', [[Data General]]'s ''[[Eclipse MV]]'', and [[IBM]]'s ''[[AS/400]]'', along with the [[UNIX]] platforms from these vendors. Cognos also began extending their product line with add-ons to PowerHouse (for example, ''Architect'') and end-user applications written in PowerHouse (for example, ''MultiView''). {{Citation needed|date=February 2007}} Subsequent development of the product added support for platform-specific relational databases, such as HP's ''Allbase/SQL'', DEC's ''[[Oracle_RdbOracle Rdb| Rdb]]'', and [[Microsoft]]'s ''[[Microsoft Microsoft_SQL_ServerSQL Server| SQL Server]]'', as well as cross-platform relational databases such as [[Oracle_DatabaseOracle Database| Oracle]], [[Sybase_SQL_ServerSybase |SQL Server|Sybase]], and [[IBM]]'s [[IBM_DB2IBM DB2| DB2]].

The PowerHouse language represented a considerable achievement.{{SaysAccording whoto whom|date=March 2011}} Compared with languages like [[COBOL]], [[Pascal programming language|Pascal]] and [[PL/1]], PowerHouse substantially cut the amount of labour required to produce useful applications on its chosen platforms. It achieved this through the use of a central data-dictionary, a compiled file that extended the attributes of data fields natively available in the DBMS with frequently used programming idioms such as:

* display masks

* help and message strings

Line 17:

* help and information texts.

In order to support the data dictionary, PowerHouse was tightly coupled to the underlying database management system and/or file system on each of the target platforms. In the case of the HP3000 this was the ''[[TurboIMAGE | IMAGE]]'' shallow-network DBMS and ''KSAM'' indexed file system, and the entire PowerHouse language reflected its origins.

Once described in the data dictionary, there was no further need to describe the attributes through any of the applications unless there was a need to change them on the fly, for example, to change the size of an item to make it fit within the constraints of a defined item.

Line 56:

Around 1999 ''PowerHouse Web'' was released in order to support the development of [[World Wide Web|web-aware]] applications.{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}} Products like ''Business Intelligence'' and ''Financial Performance Management'' that run on commodity architectures and high-end ''UNIX'' servers now form the core of the Cognos product line.

Cognos was acquired by IBM on January 30, 2008.

The PowerHouse Application Development Tools including PowerHouse server, Axiant 4GL and PowerHouse Web [http://www.unicomglobal.com/news1/powerhouse/ '''were acquired from IBM'''] by '''[http://unicomsi.com UNICOM Systems, Inc.]''' a Division of [http://unicomglobal.com '''UNICOM Global'''] on December 31, 2013, and UNICOM continues to support the worldwide customer base for the products.