Retro Vibes and the Rise of the New CASE Age


I’ve been digging through the archives recently. While pondering a style refresh for this blog, I found myself searching for the exact vivid colour scheme used for the classic Synon manuals and diskettes back in the day.

That trip down memory lane reminded me of a post I wrote way back in 2010: A Retro Look Back. 


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Looking at those original hues now... wow. You might need sunglasses for this one! They are incredibly vibrant—and perhaps a little too garish for the modern update I have in mind—but time will tell.

(Side note: I’m also looking to co-host away from Google soon. No matter what I try, the site isn't indexing properly, which I suspect is a legacy Blogger template issue I've been battling for a year. Stay tuned for moving plans!)

Re-reading that 2010 post, something specific caught my eye. Near the end, I predicted an uptake in "code generation tools." At the time, my mind went to snippet generation, CRUD automation, basic auto-complete improvements, and deeper code generation within CA Plex and Synon 2E.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have foreseen the current boom in AI-centric development. Tools like Lovable, Cursor, Claude, and Base44 are achieving staggering levels of abstraction.

It makes you wonder: with business users now able to describe what they want and watch systems generate in real-time, are we finally witnessing the true realisation of what the Synon pioneers dreamed of in the 80s and 90s? The ultimate promise of CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) might just have become our daily reality.

Thanks for reading,
Lee
The Synon 2E and Plex Emporium (A Developer Blog)


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2E Hidden Gem - Action Diagram PARMS

It's always nice to learn something new every day!

Today, whilst navigating a functions' action diagram, I was presented with the following screen showing numerous NLL fields.

F15 Filter Image 1


Usually I page down looking for the field I wanted to view or update, and as you all know, on some files this can be quite cumbersome.  That is until I read a request in the 'Ideas' section from Broadcom's support portal. A user had requested a filter for NLL's or in Peter's parlance "Meaningless" :-)

I thought to myself, that's a neat idea I'll up vote it!!!!

Broadcom Idea


After clicking the "Thumbs Up" button and anticipating the AI to build the feature and email me a PTF, I noticed that the idea had already been implemented......  I quickly fired up a 2E session and went looking for it!!!!

F15 Filter Image 2


"Lo and behold" (The English equivalent of "Mamma Mia"), there it was, albeit slightly hidden.  You see the toggle is F15 and the label was stating "Undefined parms only" (First image).  However, the toggle is a triple toggle and a third option to remove the NuLLed fields was just another key press away!  

This little feature makes scanning for used data fields way easier.  What do you think?

On a side note, this also works for unentered fields during file maintenance or if PARMS have been added to a function.  The F15 options' initial toggle will show any unmapped fields.

F15 Filter Image 3


Thanks for reading the Synon 2E and Plex Emporium by Lee Dare (A developer blog). 
Lee.

p.s. Perhaps I should start a hidden gems series in the blog.
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Another tool to the list - Outsystems?


My New Year resolutions:-  

  1. Learn some new stuff.
  2. Finish my personal projects (Arcade, game development and writing).
  3. Try and get better at golf!
Let's kick off #1 :-)

Revisiting Outsystems: Free Developer Tier and Familiar Parallels

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I’ve been experimenting with Outsystems on and off for a while.

  • First tried it back in 2019.

  • Revisited in March 2025.

  • Challenges: environments only lasted 10 days (though there were workarounds), and everything was in a shared space—meaning my work was visible to other newcomers. At one point I even accidentally updated someone else’s tutorial models!

Hot News

As of October 1, 2025, Outsystems now offers a 100% free developer tier that doesn’t expire. Even better, it’s your own private environment—not shared. As long as you revisit it periodically (no exact timeframe specified), your training instance will remain available.

This feels like the right time to revisit the technology, both personally and professionally.

Pricing Caveat

Once you move beyond the free tier, Outsystems is priced for enterprise use. The entry point is around $36k, with additional costs for resources, capacity, user counts (internal and external), and multiple applications. Think of it as a pricing model similar to Salesforce. If you’re coming from Synon or Plex, the structure will feel familiar.

Observations While Exploring

1. Community Energy The Outsystems community reminds me of the old Synon days in the mid-90s. Take a look at the conference and the energy.

https://www.outsystems.com/events/one-conference/on-demand/lisbon/mainstage/?wchannelid=pxt6wekkkm&wmediaid=09cga6kg83

I remember attending Synon Europe in London around 1997, with Vigil on stage talking about advanced patterns. The energy in the room was incredible, and it looks like Outsystems developers are experiencing that same buzz today.

2. Architectural Parallels The concepts, approach, and terminology in Outsystems development tools feel very familiar to anyone from the 2E and Plex ecosystems. I’d even hazard a guess that there’s some crossover of ideas. You can see more in their evaluation guide.

https://www.outsystems.com/evaluation-guide/developing-with-outsystems/

Looking Ahead

I’ll continue exploring Outsystems and share direct comparisons to Synon 2E and Plex where appropriate. Some tutorials (like the Horse Racing Model) aren’t available, but overall I’m impressed with what I’ve seen so far.

Subscribe to the blog for updates, or follow the Outsystems label. After this, I may also look at other low-code platforms—Appian, Salesforce, Mendix—and see how those ecosystems align.

Thanks for reading the
Synon 2E and Plex Emporium by Lee Dare (A developer blog). 
Lee.

👉 Have you tried Outsystems or another low-code platform? Share your experiences in the comments—I’d love to hear them.

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CA Plex - Model API related posts

CA Plex - Model API related posts


Quite a popular series of posts on this blog were to code with the CA Plex Model API

To make things a little easier, this post summaries all the related posts.


Model API Overview


Using the Model API in a c# project (Tutorial)


Entity Creator project.  What I developed with this knowledge.

Thanks for reading the
Synon 2E and Plex Emporium by Lee Dare (A developer blog). 
Lee.
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Synon 2E Internals - Steve Hinzmann Synon User Group 1991

Synon 2E internal file structure

I have a few posts (see below) where I discuss the Synon 2E internal files.


This all stems from the awesome work presented by this legend, Steve!!!

Steve's guide 2e Model



OG presentation scan.



Warning query these files at your own peril!  However, this knowledge is awesome for things like generation of data dictionaries and source code pre-compilations.

Thanks for reading the
Synon 2E and Plex Emporium by Lee Dare (A developer blog). 
Lee.
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