original: http://viai.habrahabr.ru/blog/84811/
Reality confirms Fred Brooks words: still there is no programming technology, which usage by itself would allow order-of-magnitude improvement of software development (No Silver Bullet, 1985). Programming today reminds car manufacturing before Henry Ford who offered the pipeline. The car gathered manually was extremely expensive (though found its customers), and today the car is affordable to everyone who has a head and hands.
My idea may remind (very indirectly) the mechanism, which, like the pipeline, delivers needed elements to the collector and he makes a finished product of them in a few minutes. Program construction is, perhaps, more precise expression. Though I trusted in possibility of such constructor for many years, only half a year back, after two small projects, the picture of a future mechanism, rather simplified prototype of which I wish to bring to your attention, began to appear.
So, about the idea.
There is a set of standard elements, from which it is possible to compose a program, that responds the majority of the common requirements in the given area (at present – management accounting). Product construction represents development in real-time mode – the customer says that he wants, and you immediately embody his words in a reality (which certainly is limited, as well as all realities).
Advantages of such "programming" are obvious: detailed problem statement is not so required (with saving of each word and gesture of the customer), the concept of engineering process is absent, «here and now» deployment, support ceases to be a nightmare for the executive (though, we must confess, rather profitable nightmare).
Main principles of program construction:
— Definition of objects;
— Definition of operations over objects;
— Setting of links between objects and operations;
— Construction of reports based on objects and operations;
— Construction of documents based on operations and reports.
Objects of constructor are subjects of observation: clients, goods, warehouses, banks, employees, currency, etc. Data import/export from/to Excel is possible.
Operations of constuctor define actions made over objects: goods/money receipt/expenditure, moving, processing, etc.
Links between objects and operations define interaction of objects with other objects (the goods in warehouses/lots, currency in cashes) and objects with operations (the data about arrival/selling of the goods, financial operations with the client).
Report documents are constructed on the basis of MS Word templates which contain names of operation fields and are replaced in MS Word document.
Some other possibilities of the constructor:
— Customisation of access rights of user categories to the data (including user interface elements);
— Addition of any number of images to each record of the object;
— Networking capability;
— Filtering on
any field.
At present, about 20 projects are made on the basis of the given constcructor. Some of them:
— Automation of the real estate agency;
— Automobile sales centre automation;
— Computers and accessories trade management;
— Automation of cafe / restaurant;
— Consumables trade management;
— Video hire shop automation;
— Lease accounting;
— Automation of training center;
— Financial control in private enterprises.
Constructor prerequisites:
MS.NET FrameWork 2.0 dotnetfx.exe – 22.4Mb (link) and MS SQL Server 2005 Express Edition sqlexpr.exe – 54.7Mb (for Windows XP SP2) or sqlexpr32.exe – 35.9Mb (for Windows XP SP3 and higher) (link). Be attentive: installation of sqlexpr32.exe on Windows XP SP2 may cause problems!
For fast installation of MS SQL Server I recommend to set following parametres at program start sqlexpr.exe/sqlexpr32.exe: «/qb ADDLOCAL=ALL INSTANCENAME=TRADE ADDUSERASADMIN=1 SECURITYMODE=SQL SAPWD=111». Thus installation will pass in an automatic mode and the named server instance will be created (TRADE), which you specify then in program settings.
For old Windows version WindowsInstaller-KB893803-v2-x86 – 2.5Mb (link) may be needed.
Constructor consists of two files: directly Valon.Trade.exe and sql-script Valon.Trade.sql which serves as "key" for a data control.
Download constructor (1.4Mb)
Download archive of demo projects (1.2Mb)
I will be grateful for help in idea development and marketing.
