Progress Academy: Powering the Next Generation of OpenEdge Developers

With the international demand for OpenEdge developers steadily increasing, we sat down with Tuna Erkmen and Farid Attamimi, two newly OpenEdge-certified graduates of the Hybrid Progress Academy for OpenEdge.

Read on to discover how they learned the fundamentals of OpenEdge development and Advanced Business Language (ABL) in just four weeks, what motivated them to pursue a career with OpenEdge and what they recommend to other aspiring developers.

What Is OpenEdge?

Progress OpenEdge is the leading platform for developing high-performance, high-availability business applications for use across any platform, device type or cloud. This is why it’s used around the world to develop, deploy and manage applications at the heart of healthcare, manufacturing, financial service, travel and other vital industries. Known for its reliability, scalability, extensibility and security, the OpenEdge platform is often regarded as the most dependable and affordable business app development platform on the market.

What Is ABL?

ABL, or Advanced Business Language, is the coding language the OpenEdge platform is based on. Offering flexibility in relational data management, ABL enhances developer productivity. Supercharged statements in OpenEdge produce the same output as hundreds of lines of code in Visual Basic or Java. With ABL, developers can quickly express and understand rich business rules and leverage data from various data sources and formats, making ABL a favorite of business application developers.

New OpenEdge Developers on the Scene

Meet Tuna and Farid, two young people from the Netherlands who wanted to become application developers. They discovered their new company on LinkedIn and each landed jobs that required them to learn programming in Progress OpenEdge ABL.

To help them learn as much as possible as quickly as possible, their company enrolled them in the Hybrid Progress Academy for OpenEdge.

The Hybrid Academy is an easy and affordable way to train people to become OpenEdge developers, whether they’re new to OpenEdge or new to programming. Over four weeks of instructor-led training and on-demand courses, students learn the fundamentals of business application development in OpenEdge.

The sessions that Tuna and Farid attended are a foundational program developed and delivered by Progress Professional Services experts to ramp up new developers, or developers new to OpenEdge, with essential programming skills, and have them designing enterprise-class applications with OpenEdge ABL in just four weeks. Course participants also get access to a Progress Developer Kit and earn an OpenEdge Developer Certificate for successful completion of the course.

A Q&A with the Graduates

Both Tuna and Farid have backgrounds in healthcare, but after working in those spaces for a few years, decided software development would be a better fit. They’re each self-taught in various programming languages, but when looking to start their second careers in software development, decided that Progress OpenEdge would be the best fit.

How did you find OpenEdge when there are so many other languages you could pursue professionally?

Tuna: I came across the Progress OpenEdge Jobs group on LinkedIn. I've watched a lot of videos about OpenEdge on LinkedIn and also on YouTube—I follow the Progress OpenEdge channel.

Would you recommend Progress Academy as a way for someone to start with OpenEdge?

Farid: Yes, of course. It's fun. It sometimes challenges you to think about how something happens or how something works. So yeah, it's fun. Really fun. With OpenEdge ABL, we have a special editor, Progress Developer Studio, so we can deploy the project very easily. That makes me really interested.

Tuna: We had a chance to ask all of our questions. At Progress Academy, we made a variety of applications and implementations which was very gratifying. I appreciate that I can write less and achieve more.

What makes OpenEdge unique to you as a developer?

Tuna: The most important aspect is that it’s easy to write. You can see the results on-screen. It’s one of the most attractive things in my opinion. Seeing the results on the screen makes me happy. In addition, the communication between the business logic and the database is faster than others, as it is connected to the database in an organized way, plus the database itself is focused on high performance with its indexed and highly normalized rules for building tables.

What do you like most about OpenEdge so far?

Farid: Progress OpenEdge allows us to build and deploy applications very easily.

Tuna: I love coding with OpenEdge because, compared to other languages, it's really easy to write. It's like reading a normal text. Another great part of building an application in OpenEdge is the robust database integration. It’s a huge advantage, especially if the application requires complex data handling and management.

What advice would you give to new developers who are learning OpenEdge?

Tuna: We all need to be patient and also enthusiastic about learning new skills. It takes time to be able to understand all the logic behind the application. And I love that, because it’s really easy to manage the application, and the transaction between the backend and the frontend. That's one of the most important and beautiful features of the application. And practice. The more you practice, the more you will be able to understand the program. It’s the most important thing—for other languages too. Coding is a lifelong learning process.

Find Developers Who “Speak” Your Language

There are several ways to recruit and network with OpenEdge developers. Keep an eye open for developers of other languages with an interest in creating business applications and remember that Progress offers in-depth training through the Hybrid Academy.

The public Progress OpenEdge Jobs group on LinkedIn is the perfect place to post open roles for OpenEdge developers—and maybe even find a Tuna or Farid for your company.

Our OpenEdge World Tour is also a great opportunity to connect with other OpenEdge customers, share development stories and swap recruitment strategies.

Help Your People Develop the Skills They Need

If you need talent who can build business applications using your OpenEdge platform, the Hybrid Progress Academy for OpenEdge is a great way to arm new hires with the basic skills they need to get started quickly.

To learn more about how Progress Academy can help you or your developers learn to code with the OpenEdge ABL, visit our website.