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CA Gen Webcast on New Tools for Automated QA and Model Verification

Join CA and IET for an informative discussion on new automated QA and model verification tools for your enterprise.  This webcast discusses a life-cycle management approach for CA Gen consisting of tools & techniques that facilitate change & configuration management, auditing, links to enterprise Change Control Management (CCM) and now automated QA / model verification.

Learn how these tools will benefit you with

• Improved quality of applications because of the automated model verification and automated model management and build processing
• Improved auditing, compliance and control from the change control features and links to enterprise CCM tools
• Improved productivity from the automation of code checking, impact analysis and automated builds.

I would encourage ALL gentalk.biz readers to sign up to this webcast. The combination of CA-Gen and IET‘s tools make Gen a powerful force in software development. The link to sign up to this webcast on 11th March 2008 at 9am EST is here.

Does Gen have a Logo ?

Well – does it ?

Here are some well-known logos for development toolsets or products or the like:

OK – so the last time that I remember Gen having a “logo” was ….when ?

Could we consider the following as a logo ?

– well no – it’s part of the branding – rather than a “logo” that people recognise.

Maybe what we need is a logo that people can identify with – after all, Java got where it is today by being a “brand” around coffee – <controversy on> not by being particularly easy to use or productive <controversy off> !!!

The Gen product – as we all know – is VERY productive, VERY easy to use – so maybe it needs a logo that reflects that in a snazzy sort of way  ?????

Gen ecosystem’s ecosystem

Having taken an initial look at IET’s VerifIEr product (bearing in mind all I have seen is the brochure that’s on the website), it strikes me as a very useful product.

It would be really useful if the product could also generate a subset of items which fail a check (or group of checks), and either check it out, store it such that it could be checked out later for modification of the code to modify the code such that those checks were passed next time – since it appears that for a “job” of checks can be restarted, so that a group of checks isn’t run again – the checks could be run on the modified code.

I know it’s a small thing, but the product is about aiding productivity, so any small thing that aids productivity surely must be an advantage.

It may well be that the product already allows this sort of feature.

EDIT: yes it does have this functionality! – check out the post from IET here – and also there is a live WebDemo here which you can sign up for.

Additionally, I would hope that around the product, there will develop an ecosystem that people can construct new, additional checks which people will either place in the public domain for others, or give/sell back to IET to integrate into the product, or sell – again, we’ll wait and see !

Eclipse roadmap

I read recently that the plan for Gen r8 (in the context of the Eclipse Technology) is that there will be a few diagrams offered (the ERD and new webView diagrams) initially, in order that the users get used to developing in the new interface. The existing interfaces will remain for the forseeable future.

I think that this is a good thing, since it offers the seasoned developer the option of “sticking with what he knows” and also the newbie (possibly coming from an environment where he has used Eclipse previously) will find that the learning curve is not so steep.

Of course, none of this is set in stone until Gen r8 goes GA! – it could all change – but for the moment it seems a sensible step – offering a choice of interfaces, introducing them slowly, over time.

Hopefully, though, if the Eclipse-based diagrams are a success, more will be rolled out over coming releases.

Can’t wait !!!

Gen Collecting

A reader of this blog is an avid collector of old Gen installation media, specifically MVS. he is also interested in other Gen-related media – books, videos etc.

He kindly photographed his collection for inclusion on the Gen History in Pictures page.

If there is anyone out there who has spare media that he can have for his collection, please make contact initially though the Contact page of gentalk.biz, or email him directly (see this post)

 It’s interesting to see the development of Gen over the years, and it’ll also allow people to relive the past times!