Developing large client/server database GUI programs with Powerbuilder on NT4WS

Hm. I can't really help you with that one, since I don't know Powerbuilder. For me, the main pain with proprietary builder tools is always that the editors they have suck so unbelievably. Therefore, I have had to come up with a standard method to circumvent this. Basically, it works like this:

• Install decent editor of your choice.
• Make macro to copy whole file/buffer to clipboard and bind to key of your choice (e.g., Ctrl-A for interoperability with other Win32 apps, see example code below).
• Edit only in your editor. Get used to switch to other apps with this sequence (given key binding from above for editor macro): Ctrl-A, Alt-Tab, Ctrl-A, Ctrl-V. (To paste edited text in.)
• Use cygwin tools to achieve decent command-line productivity.
• Use a versioning system for all of your code (now that you edit it in a decent editor, this becomes a handy possibility and will save you countless hours).

Writing zillions of lines of SQL (using the RapidSQL Editor) for stored procedures using a Sybase ASE database

See procedure from above. Especially the part on the versioning system. CVS works great with Windows Clients, too.

I am not so much in favor of generating SQL statements with GUI tools. Usually, I am much faster typing them in directly. If it comes down to generating SQL for pre-existing objects (e.g., from GUI specifications), then of course a generator is cool. See Chapter 17 (Template Driven Code Generation) of Advanced Perl Programming. But for real SQL programming, a nice set of editor macros tailored to your needs is much more efficient then a generator, IMHO.

Routinely having to diff our DEV and TST directories to see which procs we've made changes to on the DEV side that have to be copied to TST and then also compiled on the test database (this one, of course, screams for a program that can manage all of that)

AHHHH! Horrors! Use CVS! This is exactly what CVS handles very well. And, use automated build procedures (Makefiles, Ant, your own scripts, whatever you want) to rebuild any system state. For me, make (or rather, nmake on Win32 systems) is a real saver. It is easy to program (I think), it is widely available, and coupled with your special scripts (e.g., for a database rebuild) can do almost everything.

Another thing I found very useful is including a link to the following DOS batch file in the send-to folder (this saves the content of a file in the clipboard):

@perl -MWin32::Clipboard -0777 -e "$c=Win32::Clipboard(<>);" "%1"
[download]

Example code for editor macro saving whole buffer/file to clipboard:

Emacs:

(fset 'my-copy-whole-buffer "\C-xh\367")

(global-set-key "\C-a" 'my-copy-whole-buffer)
[download]

vi (gvim):

" this is the mapping created (for command mode)
" like gvim shows it in response to :map command
" <C-A>        yggvG<Esc>

" this is the actual map command as you type it
" less-than and greater-than indicate key to type
" :map <Ctrl-V> <Ctrl-A> yggvG <Ctrl-V> <Escape>

map 
 yggvG
[download]

Christian Lemburg
Brainbench MVP for Perl
http://www.brainbench.com