After lunch Next came a lab by APG, demonstrating the power of their ProgGen software which can take COBOL programs, and create fully working CA Gen models out of them (yup – really !!! I’ve seen the technology before and it STILL amazes me!). It doesnt stop there, since it also works with PL/1, Adabas/Natural and other 3GL Languages.

This was followed up with a session on the CA Gen proxies and how they can be used to extend Gen’s reach and make its functionality available to other technologies – a major benefit of the CA Gen technology.

Last of the day was a session from Ryan Johnson of Response Systems – his take on the upgrade process in Gen – traditionally a process fraught with danger. Applying careful thought, it can be de-risked and made less painful (together with the latest release of CA Gen – which aims to make upgrades easier of course!).

There are some truly smart people out there in CA Gen -land !!!!!

…. but Gen has been doing it for years!

Seriously, though, Model-Based-Development may have “come home” this year with many conferences such as QCON London and  CodeGeneration 2010 happening and focussing on it, together with an increase in interest from Microsoft.

I hope that this will be an increase in focus on CA Gen and what it can provide to the enterprise.

They will be promoting their technology at CodeGeneration 2010 in Cambridge, UK.

I’d urge anyone with either an academic or professional interest in Model Based Development as a whole to attend this conference and hear what they have to say.

To connect with like-minded people to discuss Model Based Software Development, a great place is the SOMOMOSOEN group. There are some very informative papers which can be downloaded there.

There are a number of tools and services out there that allow businesses to migrate away from so-called Legacy platforms on to “newer” or “hot” platforms like Java etc etc, but why would anyone do that from Gen ?

It seems to me that one would consider platforms to migrate TO that were more cost-effective that the current platform that the business were on, otherwise why would a modernisations be required in the first place (such as CA Gen) ?

Checkout APG’s ProgGen for examples of organisations that are using modernisation techniques.

SOMOMOSODE, or “Software Modernization and Modelbased Software Development” is a new interest group that’s been set up on the Xing social networking platform. It’s being spearheaded by Mustafa Arikan of APG, who produce the excellent ProgGen software translation tool. Its a forum for people to discuss and network with a common interest – Model Based Software Development.

APG specializes in CA Gen. Their technologies contribute to the success of CA Gen in software modernization,state-of-the-art tool integration with Eclipse Modeling Framework and additional generations like UML2 diagrams.
Read the full testemonial here at CA’s partners site.

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.

* for a reminder how YOU can post to this site AND the Gen Village during CA World 2008, see here *

APG was a vendor who I first became aware of 18 months ago. I’ve looked at their technology, and have been lucky enough to visit their offices in Vienna, and made some good friends there.

The technology that has been crafted by this skillful team needs to be seen to be believed – and you can at CA World 2008 !

This time, at CA World,  APG will have their own labs.

Labs allow you to see  the power of the tooling and what is possible – they give a first hand experience of what the tools can do and how they really to bring systems from years ago right up to date with Gen !

You can find APG at their stand (number 422B) in the exhibition hall – let them know you’re a Gentalk reader – in the meantime read more about their labs here.

MG115SN: ModelCVS: Legacy Renewal – Transformation from a PL/1 system into CA Gen
Date/Time: Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
MG120LN: ModelCVS: CA Gen Enhancements Lab Part I
Date/Time: Tuesday, November 18, 2008, 9:45 AM – 10:45 AM
MG121LN: ModelCVS: CA Gen Enhancements Lab Part II
Date/Time: Tuesday, November 18, 2008, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM