This 29-Year-Old Developer is Broadening His Progress OpenEdge Knowledge with Free Training

Progress OpenEdge allows Lucas Santos Bicalho to easily build enterprise-level applications.

With a degree in statistics and 12 years of professional experience, Lucas Santos Bicalho has had the opportunity to work in many different industries, meet great people and work in various roles.

Lucas decided to change careers and transition to software development in March 2019 after gaining experience programming scripts in R/Python and creating automated applications within Excel using VBA. Lucas now works as a software developer for Equiplex, a pharmacy industry owned by the H.Egidio Group. Equiplex uses TOTVS ERP that is built in Progress OpenEdge. With their database and application in OpenEdge, the ERP enables them to develop new applications attached to it in order to meet the specific needs of the business.

Day-to-Day as a Developer

Lucas spends his time programming in the Progress OpenEdge Developer Studio (PDSOE), an integrated application development product that allows him to quickly create business logic, control application data sources, test them for errors and distribute code.

He first learned about the OpenEdge ABL programming language from his coworkers. Afterward, Lucas was able to start solving real-world problems and developing applications to meet company demands. To continue growing his expertise and knowledge of OpenEdge, Lucas is currently working through the Basic OpenEdge Developer Learning Path and Certification Exam.

And the best part? He is doing it for free!

What Training is Lucas Taking?

The Basic OpenEdge Developer Learning Path and Certification Exam bundle includes eight self-paced training courses and five assessment exams. This content will assist you in starting or expanding your OpenEdge Developer skills.

Lucas is currently halfway through the training, and he can fill in any remaining gaps with ABL, fix misconceptions and learn the language's best practices and new features.

Training Experience

When asked about his experience learning ABL, he said, "My experience has been great because all the materials are very well written."

He goes on to explain that a lot of text, images and exercises help him better understand the basis of the language. Additionally, Lucas took note of how the courses helped him correct any misconceptions about the language and learn how to skillfully treat any errors that can occur in an application.

"Since I started this course, I changed the way I program here at work, and I can solve problems that I couldn't solve before,” says Lucas. “After being on this course, I have more knowledge and can solve problems independently. So, it was great, and I am very excited to finish the course."

Top Three OpenEdge Features Important to Lucas:

1. The ability to design new databases and tables. A major high point for Lucas is that he is able to interact with the data in the same place where he can write his code.

2. The language manages the multiuser and record locking. It can be annoying for a developer to manage this, but ABL provides this naturally, taking a lot of pressure and stress off of the developer.

3. The basic syntax. With this, it looks like you are reading a text in English. You don't need to write code to understand what is written. It's easy to learn, understand and maintain in other developer programs.

Would Lucas Recommend OpenEdge?

“OpenEdge allows developers to build distributed enterprise-level applications with a multi-user environment and incredible performance to write and retrieve data from the OpenEdge database. Aside from that, ABL is easy to learn, with a basic syntax and a great IDE that brings productivity to the software engineering team,” says Lucas. “For those new to this language, I can say that ABL is not just one more technology that arises and falls in the IT industry. With 40 years on the market, I feel confident that you can jump into the OpenEdge world and have a great future as a developer.”

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