Introduction to BBj Development

A hands-on course for experienced developers new to BBj — learn modern patterns, understand legacy code, and start building.

Understand inherited BBj codebases across all four generations — character UI, Visual PRO/5, BBj GUI, and DWC.

Learn current BBj patterns as the default way to write code, with legacy patterns explained as context you'll encounter.

Every chapter includes runnable BBj sample files so you learn by doing, not just reading.

Course Chapters

Course orientation, prerequisites, and how to use this material.

Set up your environment, write your first BBj program, and learn basic syntax.

Classes, methods, inheritance, and OOP patterns in BBj.

SETERR, THROW, ON ERR, error codes, and try/catch patterns.

Daily-use string and numeric functions: LEN, MID, POS, CVS, STR, NUM.

BBjVector, BBjHashMap, Java collections interop, and iteration patterns.

Record-oriented file access, string templates, and data channels. Context for legacy systems.

SQL connections, prepared statements, and BBjRecordSet.

Call Java classes from BBj, use Java libraries, and extend Java interfaces.

setCallback, event objects, the process_events loop, and common event types.

BBj IDE debugger, BEM, error codes, and troubleshooting techniques.

Deploy BBj applications to the web with the Dynamic Web Client.