Gen Terms – invitation to collaborate!
There is a new “Gen Terms” page – it will expand over time to include as many “Gen” terms as possible – both current and past terms – if you can contribute, please leave a comment, containing the terms and a definition (or a correction to an existing one) and it will be added to the list (and your contribution credited).
If we can build up a list of these terms it’ll make life easier for the Gen community, especially people and organisations new to the toolset.
Categories: allfusion, ca gen, composer, gen features, Main Tags:
AllFusion Gen / CA Gen natively consuming web sevices.
New “mini-series” Native Web Service Thoughts page !
It’ll evolve over the coming weeks, but not interfere with the main thread of the blog!
Categories: allfusion, ca gen, composer, gen features, SOA Tags:
EDGEucate 2007
There’s still time to participate as a speaker at EDGEucate 2007! The Official Call for Presentations has been extended until Monday, July 2, 2007 and EDGE wants you to take advantage of this opportunity to share your CA Gen experiences and expertise with a captive audience who currently rely on or are considering incorporating CA Gen into their business. EDGE is looking for abstract submissions on a variety of CA Gen topics including SOA and Application Modernization.
EDGEucate 2007 will be held October 29-31, 2007 at the Collin County Community College Spring Creek Campus in Plano, Texas. If your presentation abstract is selected to be delivered at EDGEucate 2007, you will receive the following speaker benefits:
50% off of your registration fees to EDGEucate 2007 (A Value of $250)
Recognition as a featured presenter in EDGEucate 2007 marketing campaign
Exciting networking opportunities for you and your company
Also, if you submit your presentation by July 2 and it is selected to be included in the program, your abstract will be highlighted on the Web site and in conference materials! Please submit your abstract/intent to speak to XXXXXXX (address removed as date expired) by Monday, July 2, 2007.
Jumar Solutions updates website and Gen complexity analysis
One of the most prolific CA Smart Partners (Jumar Solutions ) has updated their website with complete new look – Go and check it out !!
Why am I “plugging” a company in this blog entry rather than waxing lyrical about Gen ?
First of all, let me say that I have no connection with the company, save from experiencing them as a client (they have performed several tasks and delivered many training courses for the company that I work for).
Ok – down to the real stuff – I recently had reason to examine the complexity of a bunch of Gen procedure steps.
We looked at a number of mechanisms to determine the complexity of the code – using CRUD matrices, lines of code, etc etc. None seemed to give the right results. By “right” results, I had a feeling for what should turn out to be complex, what should be medium and what should be regarded as being simple. None of the metrics that I used effectively measured complexity and ranked the procedure steps in the order that I was expecting. One could argue that:
a) I should be using a tool to measure complexity and relying on what the tool says rather than “fixing it” by using my own intuition
b) Complexity is a very subjective term anyway, so what’s the use
In fact, the reason we wished to categorise the transactions in this way was to simulate loads on a new system by taking a small number of procedure steps and simulating a load of small, medium and complex transactions, slowly ramping up to a break point.
The reason that I mention Jumar here is that they have a tool which does EXACTLY what I wanted.
Jumar:Xtras has a model reporting module which we looked at an yes – it does what it says on the tin – it reports on your models!
It uses MS-Access and MS-Excel to store data which it culls from your model. It allows an analyst then, to look at the data and compile it and cross-reference it in many ways. Thus, you have a flexible, non-intrusive (i.e. it doesn’t tie up your encyclopedia) mechanism for reporting.
Anyway, the complexity of a procedure step can be analysed in whichever way you need – for exmaple:
CRUD
Number of Action Blocks called
Levels of nesting
Number of loops
Number of views
Number of entity types
Number of mathematical operations
….
….
and many others besides.
The point here is that the analysis is not down to the tool – the tool provides the raw data (which is so difficult to get from a CSE – note that it also works on a HOST CE too) and then the analysis can be done in a way that suits the organisation.
In summing up, then – Gen provides a model which contains all the code, definitions, window designs etc. This is a good thing as a single repository for a “system” is then accessible in a SINGLE way using toolsets. This lends itself to add-on tools, since ALL the information that you need to analyse when looking at that system is there in ONE PLACE – this is where Gen scores above most other development environments. To get back to the complexity question then, we developed a notion of what contributes to complexity which worked for us – maybe other things work for other organisations – whichever way you go, the model is the place to start, and there ARE tools out there to analyse it in MANY different and unexpected ways.
Categories: allfusion, ca gen, gen features, Jumar, Main, performance Tags:
Is is “Cool” to be “Cool” anymore? – can we be Certified “Gen” ?
Does anyone remember this:
This was the “Certified Cool” logo that Sterling Software introduced in 1998 to allow people to get certified in Gen a-la Cisco or Microsoft Certification.
As far as I remember there was one level of certification – you either had it or you didn’t.
Not long after the CA takeover the programme was pulled.
It seems to me that most “big” software products or architectures have a certification programmer nowadays. It gives them credibility and allows the practitioners to give potential employers a level of confidence in their abilities.
While I will admit that a single qualification is rarely of any use, perhaps there could be a graded set of qualificationes – much like the Sun Java path from Certified Java Associate though to Certified Java Architect.
Perhaps displaying “Certified Gen Architect” on one’s CV could eventually carry some kudos and show the world that CA is serious about the product and its’ future. I for one would welcome discussions on the Certification programme and its syllabus with a view to presenting a framework to CA for discussion.
Any thoughts ?
