Thursday, June 24, 2010

Integration, Separation and CA Plex

Plex has always been a valuable tool for ISV’s or systems integrators. With the patterns, multi-platform code generation and dynamic application partitioning good integration and logical separation can be achieved very quickly out of the box.

Numerous technologies are supported to allow Plex to integrate/interoperate with other applications and platforms. See the main ones below.

  • COM Connectors and COM Import
  • ActiveX
  • EJB Connectors
  • .NET WCF Service generation
  • Handcrafted Source Code Support
  • Websydian TransactXML

Plex has always had the capability to separate the business, database and presentation logic aka a MVC pattern should you wish to implement your projects that way.
 
I have become aware of an exciting new development here in New Zealand where a project utilising the skills of ISA Ltd http://www.isa.co.nz/ for Plex consultancy coupled with an industry leading business rules engine from Idiom Software http://www.idiomsoftware.com/ to create a funds management application.

In summary Plex is being used to create the database, the UI and the database Create, Read, Update and Delete (CRUD) logic. Idiom’s code generator is being used to implement the business rules. The synergy between Plex and Idiom is fantastic. Both support Java and .NET (C#).
 
Idioms’ principal focus is on the business rules that automate decision making. Many of us are aware of the effort required by developers to amend business rules in any application, and we know that Plex and 2E with their model based development paradigms makes this very easy. But it is still a developer task that involves changes inside the core application - that is, it is still a techie task that the business perceives to be 'over the wall'.
 
Now the fusion of these two technologies allows a developer to build the core application and the business consultant to build the key business rules.
 
Idiom offers something new - an ability for the business (or at least a business analyst/consultant) to take direct ownership and custody of this decision making logic. The IT developers lose a whole bunch of complexity and responsibility that significantly improves their productivity, while the business willingly takes on this load. The bottom line is that the business logic is now being managed as content within the IT managed core application. IT keeps the ultimate control and delegates out selected components for business control. The business delivers fully tested decision models to be called dynamically by the application.
 
It is a win-win.

At last, is this finally fulfillment of the original promise of CASE technology!!!!! IT developers AND business users creating the software. I am aware that the development of the application and rules are being done in parallel thus reducing the overall timeline to deliver the project.

However, enough from me. The guys at Idiom have decided to blog about their experiences using Plex as the application builder and Idiom for rules execution. The results make excellent reading and you can track their progress as they move through their project.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three
 
Until next time.
 
Thanks for reading.
Lee.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Webcast Bonanza

Just a quick one today.

Many of you who use Plex will have heard of the guys at http://www.websydian.com/.

They have products like WebsydianDeveloper Patterns, TransacXML and in partnership with ADC Austin pioneered the WebsydianWebClient.  They also have other tools for 2E too.

Now they have done it again with an update to the Websydian patterns.

Join Anne-Marie and the team for this much anticiated technology preview/demonstration of the integration of Websydian patterns and the ExtJS library.  http://www.extjs.com/ or should I say www.sencha.com/ as they are now known (14th June 2010) - http://www.sencha.com/blog/2010/06/14/ext-js-jqtouch-raphael-sencha/ for more information on that merger.

To join this webcast follow the instructions found at this link.

http://www.websydian.com/wsyweb20/site/websydian

See you all there.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Anyone got a ROADMAP I can use?

CA Plex & CA 2E roadmaps published.

Great news!!! The latest roadmaps for CA 2E and CA Plex (dated May 2010) have been published on the CA website. The links are below:-

Note:- You may need to login into CA support to access these and if you haven’t got a support account it is relatively easy to register.



The key features as I see it are:-

CA Plex

  • Further research and development for the .NET WPF and XBAP client technologies recently demonstrated at the May Mainframe Madness event and Ft Lauderdale in late 2009.
  • Unicode support for IBM i DB2 database
  • Improved JavaBeans support for the Java client generator
  • Final version of the Code Library packaging wizard
  • Continued enhancements to the base product and focus on improvements for each of the main generators.
CA 2E

  • Improved Web Services support. I see this as meaning better WSDL naming and Result sets.
  • More functions over *Arrays
  • Logical deletion of functions in the model
  • Web Option and base tool improvements.

The main message across both of these roadmaps was ‘Enhancement Requests’ and CA’s commitment to be lead by its customer requirements. We play our part by getting them created in the first instance. So if there is something you want to see in the product then get creating.

I would have preferred to have seen more firm commitments and dates but I guess this is a case of working through the detail and then publishing to the community.  So I keenly wait to hear more soon.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.