Competitors outside the GeneXus community just can't build systems that are at the same time complex and on the technological edge. Doing both things simultaneously is a unique opportunity, said Nicolás Jodal, ARTech's Vice-President. What matters is having both of these things taking place at the same time. He also said that having a large application that uses outdated technology or a cutting-edge application with little functionality is not enough, and that we (ARTech) can chip in with technology.
About industry trends
Regarding industry trends, Mr. Jodal highlighted Web-based application development -"and I mean the back office, because I believe that the back office should also be Web-based"-; the death of the client/server application that gives way to the predominance of the three-tier architecture; the appearance of multiple devices such as Tablet PC and cell phones; the existence of two main execution platforms (Microsoft.NET and Java), and the use of Web Services.
As for the evolution observed in the use of Web Services, Mr. Jodal made reference to two different trends. One of them has to do with publishing large Web Sites as Web Services themselves -such as eBay, Google, and Amazon- and the other one has to do with using Web Services as an intra-company integration mechanism. However, he also stated that we still have not witnessed the emergence of companies focused on the sale of Web Services.
In addition, ARTech's Vice President stated that regarding the two main execution platforms, "none of them is going to become totally dominant over the other; I just believe that the technologies that don't encompass them will disappear...I'd like to be straightforward on this: in the GeneXus world, this means that those who have applications in characters, in Visual Fox Pro or in Visual Basic will have to start thinking about migrating them to either .NET or Java."
Mr. Jodal also presented the new features included in the upcoming GeneXus 8.0 version (Olimar version), to allow the GeneXus community to adopt these trends.
In order to ease Web application development and integrate functionalities with a sophisticated graphic design, a new type of object (Theme) was created together with a parallel tool, the Theme editor. This editor can be used by graphic designers who handle the application's look & feel without this being a source of trouble for developers.
Moreover, GeneXus 8.0 includes features for Win-to-Web migration, such as "work with", plus field-to-field validations in the Java generator and GeneXus.NET.
"When I say that applications must be Web-based, I don't mean that Winforms should disappear," clarified Mr. Jodal. "I think that everything that needs high interaction or requires very sophisticated interaction with users should remain as Winforms, and we are actually releasing the .NET Winform generator in three tiers."
What's more, in this version we have worked on the GeneXus core. "We have powered the use of sub-types, and we relate this to one of GeneXus' unique characteristics: database reorganization. Since we expect an increase in the use of sub-types where sub-types do not exist right now, we have very sophisticated reorganizations: when sub-types are created, the data is also included in the reorganization," he explained.
We are living in a world where messages are becoming more important and more complex at the same time; therefore, it is necessary to define them in a centralized way. For this reason, this GeneXus version includes several innovations in terms of data structure: new data types (BLOB), listings, and automatic numbering performed by all the DBMS supported by GeneXus. And to ease the definition of Web Services in GeneXus, a WSDL editor (WSDL Inspector) has been included in GeneXus 8.0.
This GeneXus version also includes the new Pocket PC Generator. Mr. Jodal highlighted that, in the beta version, we already have clients who have systems in production.
Other ARTech products
ARTech's Vice President also commented on the plans for other ARTech products, such as GeneXus QUERY, which will -aside from the Excel interface- have a Web interface for querying the database. He said that we want the GeneXus-created database to be used by different databases, and the data output to be not only performed through Excel, but also through XML. "In the future, we want to have the QUERY as another component within a GeneXus application, thus reducing programming. This means including a query made with GX inside a WebPanel so that many queries performed by users become integrated in the GeneXus application, although defined externally."
Concerning GXPortal, the tool for creating portals, he highlighted that, "it is imperative for GeneXus software houses to have a portal," and for this reason, the tool was provided for free to members of the GXAlliance. Moreover, as part of the Web migration trend, he showed the advantages of GXPortal as the appropriate framework for back office application integration.
Mr. Jodal stated that GXFlow reduces procedural programming, provides higher dynamism, and is going to be used more and more. "It helps reducing the number of things to define and makes the companys business process more explicit," he added.
When ARTech participated in Microsoft .NET Early Adopters Program, "we saw that there was an opportunity for using GeneXus technology without GeneXus' value offer-being multiplatform- so we created DeKlarit: fully and only Microsoft, just for Visual Studio developers," explained Mr. Jodal.
Unlike GeneXus, DeKlarit does not generate 100% of the code, but it does generate the business framework (the server part) in a three-tier architecture. The markets of both GeneXus and DeKlarit are disjointed markets, since GeneXus users will perceive that by using DeKlarit they will have a lot of programming to do. "It is a product that we have launched with Visual Studio and is being tested in 135 different countries."
GeneXus' future: the Rocha version
For the future development of GeneXus we are expecting "to shift from a physical three-tier architecture -currently in place- to a situation in which the GeneXus analyst will also design in a logical way; this is the reason why we will make a change in the procedural language, which will be 100% object-oriented," announced ARTech's Vice President. This way, the business framework will be built more easily.
Besides, the development environment in GeneXus' future version will be re-written in C#, and this will allow us to achieve tremendous speed compared to C++.
The Workflow diagram and QUERY are also expected to be included in the GeneXus environment.
ARTech's Vice President also made reference to the intention of, in the future, facilitating distance development for several people who work on the same knowledge base; this means offering the possibility of defining a GeneXus application in any language as well as including cache techniques in the GeneXus application in order to improve performance.
ARTech's Vice President concluded his lecture by highlighting the remarkable opportunity that lies before the GeneXus community as a system. "Our strength lies in our being a group rather than an individual company. It does not lie in ARTech itself, but in all of the community that uses GeneXus. The more connected we are, the higher our value; this is why we have to increase our capacity to engage in alliances between ourselves. My dream is for the GeneXus community to become an application leader worldwide," he stressed.
Lecture material: http://www.gxtechnical.com/main/hdcenter.aspx?2,5,36,941