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FROM THE COEDITORI’m Happy to Still Be HereWRITTEN BYBOB HENDRYIstarting reading PBDJ in 1995, justwhen PowerBuilder was becomingbig. At that time, only seven years ago,PowerBuilder was the most popularclient/server development tool. Thebuzz was incredible. Just mentioningthe word PowerBuilder would drawthousands of developers, speakers, andvendors to conferences worldwide.PowerBuilder had arrived.At users’ groups and conferences,attendees would soak up all thePowerBuilder knowledge they could. Tosatisfy this seemingly insatiable need,books were written, speakers lectured,and vendors marketed a blinding arrayof PowerBuilder-related products. Thismaelstrom of blinding enthusiasm hada center – PowerBuilder Developer’sJournal.Not only was this magazine part ofthe PowerBuilder boom, it defined it.Every serious PB developer would waitwith bated breath for the next edition – Iknow I did. The articles were filled withuseful advice from the world’sPowerBuilder experts. At one point, thismagazine was so popular it was stockedwith the other computer publications atmy local 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven!In the PowerBuilder world, the writerswere all household names, icons in theirfield, beyond gurus. Back in its heyday,PowerBuilder gurus learned from thewriters in this magazine. The writers literallydefined correct coding practicesin each article they wrote. On projects,we would code a certain way becausethat’s how so and so did it.The writing quality was incredible.This was the first computer-related publicationI really enjoyed reading. Whilemost other technical magazines readlike cookbooks, PBDJ was actually fun.In this writer’s opinion, it was the firstpublication to employ writers that lacedboring technical content with color, texture,and, heaven forbid, humor. My hatwent off to SYS-CON. They could havestuck with the dry technical tone of theday and the magazine would have beengood. But they didn’t, and it was better.After a year of reading PBDJ and admiringits writers, I decided I wanted to beone.I sent an e-mail to SYS-CON suggestinga Beginning PowerBuilder column.This column should run every monthand focus on beginner issues, which Ithought was a great idea. At the time, Iwas teaching about 20 PowerBuilderclasses a year and had the pulse of thePowerBuilder newbies. If there was oneflaw in PBDJ, it was that thePowerBuilder newbie did not understandmost of the content.SYS-CON liked my suggestion andasked if I could recommend someone towrite it. To no one’s surprise, I nominatedmyself. Two weeks later, I submitted awriting sample. Since that date, I’vebeen a regular contributor to this magazine.My original column doesn’t runanymore. Writers, like everything else inlife, must evolve to survive.Last month, John Olson asked if Iwould like to be coeditor-in-chief of thismagazine. I just about fell out of mychair. Me, a humble writer, was justasked to be coeditor of PowerBuildergeekdom? Say it’s not so! This magazinehas had a long line of great editors. Whatcould I possibly have to offer? I acceptedJohn’s offer and told him I felt like thelast Roman emperor. I almost asked himhow many others had turned him down.John has been a great editor-in-chiefover the years. Notably, Johnled the transition fromclient/server articles only toarticles that focused on othertechnologies – mainly Power-Builder and the Web. The transitionwas smooth; hardly anyonenoticed. This change inwriting content would havekilled most magazines. Butunder John’s leadership PBDJkept chugging along. After all thework John has put into this magazine,he needs a little help. The jobof editor-in-chief is a difficultone. I’m amazed he has gonethis long on his own.So here I am. I have manyideas that will hopefully restorethis publication to the success itenjoyed in its heyday. I realize thatPowerBuilder is a mature product, andmature products don’t generate thebuzz of newer, hotter technologies.To the strong, loyal core ofPowerBuilder users: this will always beyour magazine, I promise. ▼bob@sys-con.com4PBDJ volume9 issue4AUTHOR BIOBob Hendry is a PowerBuilder instructor for Envision Software Systems and a frequent speaker at national and international PowerBuilder conferences. He specializes inPFC development and has written two books on the subject, including Programming with the PFC 6.0.www.SYS-CON.COM/pbdj/