My top five enhancements for CA Plex.

We all know by now that CA Plex 6.5 is in the R&D phase and some technical previews have occurred with more planned. If you are short of knowledge in this area then take a look at Rob’s presentation at the CA Mainframe Madness Week. (www.ca.com/mmm).

I understand that Rob’s presentation has all anyone would need to convince your management about deploying your applications using .NET technologies and code generated by Plex. I have been snooping around (hassling Bill  :-)  ) and I am told that there are no less that four demonstrations for us to enjoy.

If it really floats your boat you can also look at the older presentations from Florida 2009 on the Plex wiki (see links on the side of my blog) which touch on Plex and 2E futures.

I though that I’d put it out there what my top 5 enhancements for the products could be and I tackle Plex first. I will tackle 2E another time.

Disclaimer: These are my opinions and I have been proven wrong on more than one occasion in my life. Just ask my wife (first wife) if you require additional information.

In no particular order.

One: New UI for the tool. I know that the tool is first class and that it enables hundreds of companies around the world to build first class enterprise systems. I feel that a little spruce up of the IDE Look ‘n’ Feel will go a long way to deter the doubters. A Ribbon bar here, a glass effect there and 64x64 icon in that corner, you get my drift, will go a long way. IMHO.

Two: Native XML Input/output. Pretty self-explanatory. I want to be able to choose how my service functions are called/exposed and how the data is passed.

Three: More native Action Diagram commands that replace the Technology API’s. i.e. Upper, Trim etc etc. I would prefer to have these as native action diagram commands rather than calls. I would like Plex to handle the new code when a new generator is released rather than me.  This will also help with my model management, especially when generating for multiple platforms which is one of the tools key differentiators.

Four: Visual Studio 2010. I want Plex to be aligned to the most recent releases of Microsoft’s leading IDE within 6-12 months. When I say that C++ generation needs 2005 for compliation I get shakes of the head from the MS 3GL guys at my shop.

Five: Patterns. The ultimate flexibility but somehow we seem to struggle to exchange these. Would be great if CA lead an initiative for pattern exchange and contribute by providing additional business solutions via a website on a regular basis.

Six: ‘Hey. You said five on your list.’ I know I did!!!! However.  I do like the idea of overhauling enhancing the diagramming and help editors with perhaps an automatic creation of diagrams from the model and easier editing and additional deployment options for generated help.

That’s my list for Plex. What do you want? Perhaps I can compose a blog of all your replies.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.