The OpenEdge Hive

Changing the programming culture can eliminate many problems, without the need to develop skills and expertise for a new tool.

So, follow the call to revolutionize your development department's culture and usher in a new era of productivity and quality...

Abe Voelker drafted a beautiful write-up about how to switch away from OpenEdge.
Cure for the Plague: A Theoretical Progress OpenEdge ABL Migration Plan

He suggests to use JRuby (or maybe Groovy, or Java), because they are OS and data-store independent, modern (i.e. OO), allow easy CRUD data-access, and support Web application development.

I admire his energy, the extended effort to research, and the kindness to share his insights with the world.

I am a bit surprised, though, by his dislike of the ABL. I L-O-V-E it!

Many companies are contemplating to use AppServer, but are deadly afraid of doing so. Here are some thoughts about how to make developing and maintaining AppServer applications easy and very feasible.

There are three main issues I encountered over the years:

a) Increased Development Time:

I used to think, that the top-main issue that AppServer novices run into is the amount of time it takes to get a program working, if the back-end is on the AppServer, which the front-end is using to access data.