Archive for April, 2009

New whitepaper from ARIKAN – code restructuring

APG has produced a new paper in which they discuss code restructuring as part of a reverse engineering and modernisation exercise.

Code restructuring can be done in an automated fashion only if the meaning of the code is understood, rather than a line-for-line code transformation process.

ProgGen is such a tool – it can understand the semantic meaning of the code that it parses and allow the meaning of the code to decide what restructuring can be done. The power of the code restructuring toolset is that it takes the 3GL type code – PL/1, Natural, COBOL etc and creates a metamodel out of it, which can then be used to change the paradigms and indeed the language that the transformation is directed at.

This paper can be downloaded from here.

It is really worth a look, and demonstrates the power that APG can bring to bear on your Legacy systems to modernise them and restructure them into the bargain.

Code snippets

Talking to some of my colleagues yesterday – we thought – “wouldn’t it be great if we could have a feature in Gen which would be like a list of common code snippets that we could insert into a Gen action block or a procedure step to do common things ?”

Yes, I know we have action blocks which we can call, but sometimes you just need a small few lines of code that could do a small job, that we could simply “add” with a click of a button.

Not sure how this would work in practical terms, with different view types and so on, but I’ll give it some thought – any ideas from the readership would be appreciated !!!

MayMainframeMadness – r8 !!!!!

As part of CA’s May Mainframe Madness, there will be a webcast on May 21st, which you can get more details of (and sign up to) here.

CA Gen will be one of twenty six separate webcasts in May related to CA’s new mainframe strategy called Mainframe 2.0. Learn how CA Gen is a key technology in the implementation of Mainframe 2.0 as well as how Mainframe 2.0 will benefit CA Gen customers.  Get a firsthand look at the features in CA Gen r8, CA Gen’s evolution to Eclipse and how CA Gen continues to assist customers in making transitions to web-based architectures and SOA. CA Gen is part of CA’s Mainframe 2.0 initiative, showing a commitment to CA Gen as part of their flagship strategy to make mainframes easier to manage. 

I’ll be tuning in to see and hear it and take part – and get a glimpse of CA Gen r8!

EDGE Conferences 2009

EDGE wants YOU to present this October!

• EDGE EMEA 2009 will take place October 10-13, 2009, at Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam, Netherlands
• EDGEucate 2009 will take place October 28-30, 2009, at the Collin County College in Plano, Texas, USA

• 50% off of your registration fees to EDGE EMEA 2009 or EDGEucate 2009 or (A Value of €450/$250)
• Recognition as a featured presenter in 2009 marketing campaign and Web sites
• Exciting networking opportunities for you and your company

More performance considerations

Picking up on a thread from QAT’s blog  about performance considerations when moving from a CBD approach to a J2EE approach within Gen, its also worth noting that moving between platforms can cause a significant difference to performance.

Tuning the application and performance testing is a must, especially if changing the middleware (moving from, say, Client Manager to Direct TCP connections, or more radically from Tuxedo to Transaction Enabler).

Notable things to consider and be mindful of are memory requirements for the load modules, and the calculation of how much should be allocated to the application and how much to the OS, for example. Possible changes in the way the database engines work (assume you are changing database too!) will change the performance profile of the application – online and batch applications often have different performance curves.

The issues can be resolved – by performance testing and tuning early on, and before even that – considering the performance of the existing application on the existing platform and working out the differences in architecture on the new platform to see at least WHERE the effects will be felt if not what they are.