The visual tools support a rapid application development model while the underlying ESL language provides the benefits of scalability and maintainability.
ESL is well suited to large organizations that need to build complex mission-critical, multi-layered applications. ESL provides:
- GUI tools for designing & building the user interface
- Efficient access to enterprise wide databases
- Robust, optimised, integration of PCs, hosts, servers and networks
- Application partitioning between client and server
- Adaptive architecture based on the requirements of your application
- Seamless access to popular desktop applications
- Integration of new or existing C, C++ and COBOL code
- Easy transition from procedural programming environments
- Desktop integration of current and legacy systems
Platform Support
ESL is currently available on Windows and has been tested on platforms up to and including Windows/Vista.The Presentation Manager version of ESL is still available and is supported on OS/2 warp 4.0.
Connectivity Options
ESL supports a wide range of connectivity options - as shown in the following schematic.
- DB2 UDB
- Oracle
- Sybase
- SQL Server
- APPC
- CICS
- DDE
- DLLs
- FTP upload and download
- EHLLAPI (Rumba, PComm & Attachmate)
- HTTP (including URL encoding and decoding)
- ODBC
ESL for Windows is a set of native Windows development tools for the powerful ESL language. The language enables both statically and dynamically defined screen objects to provide the ultimate in User Interface flexibility. With the ability to externalise strings, it is possible to develop a truly multinational application.
ESL QuikStep
As both an ESL source code project manager and an interactive source-level debugger, ESL QuikStep provides you with a robust, flexible visual testing environment for your ESL for Windows applications.ESL Layout Editor
The ESL Layout Editor for Windows enables developers to construct the graphical interface of an application. Developers can create and modify the full range of ESL and dialog objects.ESL DB/Assist
ESL DB/Assist is a graphical tool for generating the SQL portion of an application. You can create and edit SQL statements, execute and view the results of SQL operations, and generate ESL language code for integration into ESL applications. The benefits of ESL DB/Assist include:- Support for DB2 UDB, which includes support for static SQL, permitting pre-compilation of multiple SQL operations for high-performance online transaction processing (OLTP). In addition, dynamic SQL support provides flexibility for developing executive information systems and decision support systems
- Access to all SAA DRDA databases via DB2 Connect
- The ability to group SQL statements into access modules that can be shared across the enterprise
ESL SQL Wizard
Create and test SQL statements in a point-and-click environment and then generate source code fragments to include within your application, or complete applications, which will be able to:- Display
- Insert
- Update
- Delete
The ESL Language
At the core of ESL technology is the high-level ESL language, rich in programming constructs for developing graphics, communications and database access routines. The ESL language is:- Nonprocedural: changes are easy to make because development is modular
- Event-driven: responses are assigned to objects selected or data received from applications; no execution sequences are necessary
- Object-based: objects can be grouped into classes, inherit attributes based on ancestry, and be modified with simple, individual commands
Last modified: 21-Jul-2010.