Need feedback on a new Model Driven Platform

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Permalink Reply by Andreas Leue on June 28, 2011 at 14:51

Hi Walter,

 

I watched the video, nice and smooth presentation! The font is a little tiny, which is ok for a first impression.

Of course, to give profound feedback, I need to know more details.

 

Andreas

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Permalink Reply by Walter Almeida on June 29, 2011 at 8:40

Thanks for quick feedback Andreas

And yes this is a basic video showing only basic features of Fenomen. More to come. Idea was to demonstrate the main principles: full web based, model first, full generation/deployment of a working application (100% generation). Modeling can be done by functional experts who know nothing of development.

And... full generated source code available.

Of course (not shown in this video), easy to include specific components and code to extend the platform.

I am quite curious to see if other companies are doing the same.
The closest I've found is force.com, the salesforce technical platform - However they don't generate source code, therefore there is a strong vendor locking which we don't have with fenomen.

Do you know any similar approaches?

Any comment about weither this approach can work business wise? pitfalls and limitations, suggestions?

Kind Regards

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Permalink Reply by Andreas Leue on June 30, 2011 at 11:06

I just thought it's difficult to give a fair and balanced answer without knowing more details.

 

Based on what I see, you can in a nice browser based UI create a working application.

Sure, at a first glance, there are similar approaches. E.g. how do you position your solution against all those "Application Design" tools (MDx or not)?

 

To sell a solution in a business context, a good UI is definitely a big plus. Nevertheless, to sell it more than a few times (leaving dissatisfied customers behind), you should pay much attention on the intrinsic values.

 

There are many aspects to consider. Since I think this question of MDx comparison deserves some attention, I'd like to raise it explicitly in a followup post.

 

Andreas

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Permalink Reply by Walter Almeida on June 30, 2011 at 16:11

The other "Application Design" tools I see which are kind of similar are:

Mendix, force.com (from salesforce) -> those two don't generate code but are following an interpretative approach + Mendix is not full browser based but needs a desktop app. Fenomen is fully web based and uses a generative approach thus resulting applications don't have any vendor lock in.

Outsystems, WebRatio do follow a generative approach. However they are desktop apps, not full web. And I am not sure they could be directly used by business guys. + WebRatio generates Java code, we generate .NET code so different technical target.

The full web approach associated with code generation and business first focus is innovative and will allow new business cases and oportunities. Well this is our guess:)

Good point about considering ways to compare MDx approaches. Will check your post!

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Permalink Reply by Andreas Leue on July 1, 2011 at 9:13

@business first / pitfalls & limitations

 

I think this can and should be addressed on three levels:

 

- user friendlyness (gui, browser based, guided, validation)

- willingness of users

- abstraction levels (more domain vs. more system oriented)

 

As for willingness, there are scenarios where people eagerly want to get a grip on the software and therefore are happy to learn, and others where people try to avoid to take responsibility (typically in the larger enterprises). As the case may be, sales opportunities vary and strategy should accordingly.

 

Abstraction levels are equally important! People have always been promised flexible and easily adoptable solutions they can configure themselves, long before MDx, MDA, CG, CASE,whatsoever, our experience is that next to noone believes in such promises anymore, because far too often under a shining surface was nothing else but "programming", plus the clumsiness of a tool, then. The challenge now is to communicate these intrinsic values (provided, of course, they do exist, which I assume here).

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Permalink Reply by Walter Almeida on July 5, 2011 at 5:48

For willingness, the best case scenario is to really offer a very high/immediate return on investment that's measurable in days. Will make people happier and faster to decide and buy.

 

And yes the challenge is to communicate and to convince people who often have a negative picture of all tools which are supposed to help them develop faster/better. Just because of past experiences. Again: if you're able to quickly create a real/enterprise application in days, it will make the challenge easier and you could even invest yourself the time for prototyping as pre-sales...

 

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Permalink Reply by Luis Molina on June 29, 2011 at 10:49

Hi Walter, my generator does something similar but not in web but a desktop app.

Excuse me but there are some things I dont like about your demo:

 

- you create your app and then a form with a contacts list, then a page, then add the form to the page, then the menu..., while my generator does all that automatically and then the programmer choose what elements to show or not touching the code in the project, your idea its good if the app its gonna be created and then published and you dont want to touch the code, but I found it difficult, usually you will need list and edit contact pages for administration....

 

- I miss the part of adding components, I think can be interesting.., for example how can I create a flow  (I get a web service, get a list of contacts from it and then process the list and only insert some contacts from these in my database)

 

- I see so much code in your app generated and it seems silverlight, I dont like Silverlight, it can't be rendered in Iphone for example..

 

nevermind, your project looks good, if you want to talk with me please email me ...

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Permalink Reply by Walter Almeida on June 29, 2011 at 10:59

Hi micuentadecasa

Thanks for your feedback!

- Yes you're right, could be nice to generate a default app including forms, grids, master-details, navigation etc. by default. It is something I am actually working on. Allows very fast creation of first app and then the user can do further cutomization

- My idea is: you can create and publish straigth ahead an application, not writing a single line of code. Allows business users to use the tool. And then developers can touch the code, afterwards to extend the platform and then back to the business users etc.

- Adding custom components is supported but not showned in this video. I will prepare more videos.

- So much code because we generate a proper enterprise application that scales. with data layer, business layer, service layer, presentation layer + projects to include custom components. This target architecture is using a silverlight presentation layer yes. We are working on a full html 5 + ajax version :)
Then it is up to the user to select its prefered user interface

Any information about your tool ? a web site? demos? woul be interested!

Kind Regards
Walter

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Permalink Reply by Luis Molina on June 30, 2011 at 8:58

Hi Walter, my generator is in http://code.google.com/p/magicapps/ , its for internal use only, it works in two modes (app creator and code snapshot modes) and it creates c#, vb apps for winform, webform, etc... from a database (sql server, mysql, access, excel, etc) or odbc source.

I hadnt time in these years  but now I want to create a visual editor to expand my generator.

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Permalink Reply by Luis Molina on June 30, 2011 at 9:07

Ok Walter, I like your idea. But I will create an initial structure with all the pages, for example the administration back stage should be there, another thing is the front stage that should go your way.

 

Of course if you want to talk about these topics send me an internal email. Please send me the code of an app made with your generator I will like to see it...

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