Archive for May, 2009

Gen – is it visual ?

Several things are happening as I write this -

• I’m in the garden (wireless laptop)
• I’m reading the latest edition of Visual Systems Journal

• ..and thinking – “Is Gen visual ?”

VSJ is a journal about programming and it centres around enterprise-scale systems delivered in so-called “visual languages” ranging from Sliverlight through to VisualPython and MS-Office programming.

It strikes me that Gen satisifies the criteria to be included in the discussions in the magazine – it is visual in that modelling takes place in a visual manner (diagramming tools etc), can be used to build enterprise-class systems, and is able to generate reusable components in technologies that can be used in SOAs etc

So – should Gen be included in the discussions in the magazine? I think so – maybe I’ll contact them and write an article for them – what do you think ?

Get Involved in the Gen Community !

I notice that there are a number of user events coming up in EMEA – we should support these by either attending, or presenting – after all – these groups are USER group for users to exchange knowledge.

For example : get involved with EDGE EMEA 2009 here, CoolProfs customer day here,  and the UK & Ireland User Group here.

 I’ve been at a few of these and found great knowledge is transferred between users to the benefit of all !

See you at some of them !!!

UK & Ireland CA-Gen User Group Day

The UK Gen PLC will be holding its 2nd 1 day seminar for all UK-based CA-Gen customers at CA’s EMEA Headquarters at Ditton Park, Slough on Thursday 18th June 2009.

The seminar will be free to all attendees. The agenda (which is still being finalised) will be varied and interesting, and includes presentations from a number of CA-Gen users, all of whom have differing experiences of the product, both vendors and users.

The day will also provide opportunities for CA-Gen users to meet and make contact with other CA-Gen users in the UK, and form useful relationships, which will help both them and the product grow and develop into the future.

If you would like to present a session at the CA-Gen PLC Day– after all, it’s a USER Group – please volunteer using the info@gentalk.biz email address for a discussion.

If you wish to attend, please send an email to info@gentalk.biz.

Please let other UK-based  CA-Gen users know in order that we can grow the community!

Also, there is a PDF version of this note available here for download and printing if you so wish.

Wouldn’t it be good if…

…I could take the SaaS (Software as a Service) model and apply it to CA-Gen ?

Which bits of it would I offer as a service ?

• The deployable artifacts, such as executables (so we would have a new paradigm here) – not new generators, but a new packaging option, maybe).
• The encyclopedia – so the code repository could be shared amongst several organisations, each having their own “View” of it.
• The toolset itself, so that nothing is ever installed on the local workstations at the organisations’ base?

All interesting possibilities !

Gentalk is 2 Years old !

May 4th 2009 marks Gentalk’s 2nd birthday, so I will be looking back at the two years since the site was launched and comparing what the Gen arena was like in 2007 with the Gen arena in 2009.

The first comparison is obviously how Gen has evolved since the first moves into Eclipse in Gen 7.6 (see here). With the announcements that Gen would be moving to Eclipse for its design tools, it clearly started a trend which will continue with r8.

Second for this post is the rise of other sites related to CA Gen on the internet – both QAT and IET have started blogs and have regular articles on CA Gen and other related subjects (both feeds are carried through Gentalk).

A lot has happened in the last two years – thanks for the support and readership – wonder what 2011 will be like !?