This tool would be a tool that would import ANY level of schema (say from Composer 4.0 upward) and convert it to any subsequent level of schema. This tool would take the import code from the main toolset and add it to a separate tool each time the schema was upgraded.

Why would this be a good idea?

Well – for a customer that needs to upgrade, say from Composer 4.0 to Gen 7.6, several intermediate steps would be required since there are restrictions on import and upagrde (current schema -2 levels). Having a separate (optional tool) available would mean that customers who are behind (and let’s face it – there must be a few) could purchase it and use it on a one-off basis. Having it NOT as part of the main toolset means that the main toolset then doesn’t get bloated.

Any thoughts – either post them here or come along to the Gathering on 25th June and voice them to the community.

• Audio (downloaded times), or play it here:
• Powerpoint Presentation Slides (downloaded times).
• eBook (downloaded times).

You can find out more about Jumar Solutions’ approach to Legacy Modernisation by going into Second Life, and clicking on their “Project Phoenix” banner at their stand at the Gen HQ, or by visiting their website. As you can see from the pictures, it was a record attendance!

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!

Many thanks to Thomas for sending them in, and I hope that you all get enjoyment and possibly bringing back memories from the past by looking at them !

EDIT: See the request from Thomas for old installation media: can anyone help ?

This loosely links back to one of my earlier posts on database independance, I suppose. Most of the performance issues that I have come across seem to be with database access. I know that a lot of performance issues are to do with badly written code, such as calculations done many times within a loop, that only need to be done once etc…, but aside from removing that sort of stuff, which, really can be considered the first stage of performance tuning of any app – not just Gen ones, what more could Gen offer ?
Well, I suppose that from a point of view of hacking code to modify SQL statements to dump their execution plans to a flat file, then it would be nice to have the ability, not only to generate with trace, but to “generate with stats” – which would, at the very least, switch “explain plans” on for all SQL statements. Also, those stats could contain “timing points” which could be inserted (possibly as new statements ???) into the code, and enabled through the “generate with stats” approach. These timing points would dump time information to a file, so that application engineers could see what was going on, and how long it took.

I understand that any collection of statistics modifies the way an application works, but used carefully could aid the performance engineer no end.

Disclaimer:
This kind of approach should NOT be used without the safety net of other methods of performance tuning – proper database design, proper configuration of machines etc etc!!!!

At present, the gentalk.biz name works, and everyone should start to use the new name – there are a few comments that need to be migrated to the new site, but that should happen in a few days.

Watch this space and thanks for continuing to return here – I hope its entertaining and worthwhile.

As an aside, the RSS feed will change, too – it will be http://gentalk.biz/blog/?feed=rss2 , or using feedburner, it’ll be http://www.feedburner.com/Ca-genWordsAndThoughts

If any one should note any problems, or have any criticisms, or in fact, anything to say about the new site, please leave a comment!

I have had some feedback which I am working on, and will hope to iron out the buglets as soon as possible !!!

CA’s President and CEO John Swainson speaks about the value that CA Gen brings to global organizations, trends in the market, CA’s commitment to CA Gen and the strength of EDGE as a user community.

Play it here:
Duration: 3 minutes, 8 seconds

John Swainson, President and CEO of CA, has great influence over the direction and evolution of CA Gen. This 3-minute informational podcast includes a discussion focusing on why he supports CA Gen and EDGE. He also discusses how CA is actively working on CA Gen release 8. Listen to John share his thoughts on the future of CA Gen and how you can make a difference in this plan by attending EDGEucate 2007, October 28-31 .

Don’t miss the hands-on labs, the exciting product updates from CA, and the more than 20 technical sessions focusing on Service-Oriented Architecture, Web Enablement, Legacy Modernization and more. In addition to the education, EDGEucate 2007 has great networking opportunities in store.

Don’t forget…Early-bird rates for EDGEucate 2007 end this Friday. If you register by 8/31, you’ll save $200! EDIT: Expired Offer

Download the Advance Program today for complete event details and to access the faxable registration form.

Also, registration for EDGE EMEA 2007, being held September 30-October 2 at Ditton Manor, UK is live. To sign up for this International event, go to www.eventbookings.com/ec2096.

To learn more about EDGEucate 2007, e-mail or call EDGE at +1.312.245.1589.

I think that it’s important that this strong message gets through to all the organisations that use Gen worldwide, to reinforce that Gen has a rosy future, and will support all new technologies, platforms and infrastructures going forward.

EDIT:   Also check out the EDGE’s new podcast site ! Next podcast will be EDGE members talking about EDGEucate 2007 and EDGE EMEA 2007.

I believe that he says this because he is an advocate of Domain Specific Languages, and that for each specific role in a large enterprise, a specific DSL should be chosen, and that they be integrated by standards-based connectivity. Gen is, as he puts it, entirely self-contained. He advocates replacing the model with source code control.

I would put it a different way.

Source code control, to me is a backward step, and model-based development is a forward step ! I do agree with what he says, though on standards-based connectivity between disparate technologies. DSL’s have been around for years – haven’t they ? We used assembler for the low-level, fast, intricate stuff,with COBOL for the bulk data-processing elements of the system.

What was missing then was the standards based connectivity between parts of systems. Now we have that, all is well, since as long as Gen can adhere to the standards, then Gen can be part of the “new world”.

Gen (in my mind) could be considered a DSL, BEST SUITED for enterprise-scale, reliable data processing operations.

In addition, Bill thinks that a code and model approach is also required, presumably with a two-way interaction between the model and the code and the code and the model. I don’t believe this in a Gen environment, since Gen’s strength is NOT allowing the developers to see the code, and allowing them to violate model constraints – also, having direct access to the code assumes a specific target platform – how many of Microsoft’s tools can deploy the same piece of business logic on a mainframe, PC or Unix server ???.

Microsoft’s way forward with these tools assumes a Windows environment – there is a world outside Windows !!!

Here, I’m focussing on the front end of things – i.e. the developer IDE.

Is there a place for an alternative IDE for the Gen tool ?

Certainly, portions of the toolset leave a lot to be desired, and some parts of the tool have already been re-engineered (the diagram trace facility as an Eclipse Rich Application), and alternative reporting tools and support tools like GuardIEN have matured.

BUT the user interface to the core development tool still leave me a little cold.

With the new releases of Gen, the advance into Eclipse has gathered momentum, but is that enough ?

There seem to be two opposing camps here – the Microsoft camp and the Eclipse camp. For me, used to a Microsoft-centric approach, it would seem a good move to me to adopt some of the Microsoft ideas, however there are those who favour the Eclipse approach would say that using Eclipse as a grounding for a development environment is the way forward.

But is there space for a third approach, a hybrid of them all ?

If CA were to keep control of the fantastic encyclopedia API and allow other developers to develop DEVELOPMENT interfaces to the tool, like they have done with other aspects, then 3rd parties could take the best of both worlds, and leave the worst of those worlds alone, and develop a dynamic, easy-to-use, productive, Gen-centric interface, with which to work.

 Maybe Gen could evolve into something which isn’t a tool, but a framework into which others’ tools slot in to produce the most effective working environment for the developer.

Those tools could include 3rd party interfaces, reporting tools, generators, and oher supporting items, all seamlessly integrating into a single framework, so that the developer/analyst/designer isn’t aware that they are using different vendors’ products.

Since the new versions of Gen are going to be Eclipse-based i.e. based on a freely available framework – which sort of builds upon the current developer trend for adapting frameworks for use with plug-ins, what if there were a published “Gen Generator” API into which 3rd party generators could be produced?

 This would reduce the time to market for new languages and frameworks to be supported, whilst still giving CA the chance to market the tool and the superb encyclopedias for code repositories.

Look at the success tools like GuardIEN have had – no-one uses the native Gen tools anymore to migrate and control versions – nearly all the big sites use GuardIEN – but this has not reduced CA’s marketing collateral in terms of selling Gen licenses !

If publishing an API for the generators, or a plugin-style architecture could be considered, then many more languages and frameworks could be supported by development teams (either in the freeware, or open source or commercial spaces) as well as by CA themselves.

Potential candidates for generators could be Ruby, other .NET languages that appear, Python (possibly for smaller systems). Additionally, generators for different platforms (still C, COBOL etc etc) could be produced in this way.

Of course, there will still be support issues to consider, but potentially if a good generator for, say, C on a MacOS platform were to be developed, or possibly a Symbian OS target, then it could be adopted by CA as a de-facto and supported.

I suppose what I am saying is that by splitting the product up into the developer interface and a back-end generator, the people that build generators could be used as “incubators” to add to the target platforms later on when the generators are formally adopted …..

This could only strengthen the “write once, deploy many” argument that IS Gen !