I assume all of us here, having read Rocky's book and adopted his model, believe him when he says that Business Objects should model Behavior, not Data.  Can someone explain something to me about this tool?  I can't get my brain to see how you'll allow me to accomplish this task.  Code generation is trivial for lists and editable roots, so I may just be missing the boat by viewing the examples. I'm more concerned about the cases where a database table doesn't neatly match the properties of my objects.

Can someone point me to an 'Advanced' tutorial, or would it be best for me to pose a few scenarios, and allow you to tell me how you would infer the appropriate DB model? 

Also, what if I already have my database?

I love the idea of using the VS DSL Tools to work with the model, but I think it is going to be hard to adopt unless it can work in both directions.  By that, I mean having the ability to create the Database Schema when appropriate, and allowing the developer to create models 'Based On' the database as well.

Kevin

Thanks, Marcel.  I do agree that if you run a tool against a relational database, and let it create classes that are 1:1 with your tables, you'll be in trouble. (Although, that approach often works just fine in simple content management systems for websites, for example).  I'm just not so sure that the reverse approach works completely, either.  In other words, I don't know that you can completely infer an accurate and performant database model from a DSL model built to serve as a class diagram.  One issue is that any changes that need to be made to the DB structure after generation would somehow need to be managed and tracked along with the project(s) as well. Another issue is that versioning and multi-developer use of this system is going to be difficult. (I'm thinking about source control here)

I really think to make this thing go from useful to brilliant, it needs to be 2-directional.  One would need to be able to map properties in their objects to fields in the database.  There is a great tool for CSLA that's been around for a while.  It pulls in the database model, and lets you create CSLA objects by selecting fields from tables, views, or sproc result sets.  It has support for Authorization, Business Rules, Lazy Loading, Active Objects (an excellent implementation of the observer pattern), and more. It even navigates the relationships in the DB to generate the CRUD sprocs. [CSLAGen - http://groups.google.com/group/CslaGenerator] 

I'm not promoting them, just suggesting that the tool is incredibly useful, as yours will likely be.  Why is it not Brilliant? No visual model.

You are left with a list of objects, and no way to see the relationship between any of them.  Of course, those relationships are there.  You use the property grid to select objects that are child properties of other objects, for example.  There is just not a visual aid. So while it can let you build the entire behavior focused BO Library from an existing, well designed, purely relational database, it can be very difficult to see the big picture.

Just food for thought.  V2 maybe.

Best wishes on rolling out something soon!

Kevin

Hi Marcel

I am a new registrant ot your project and just wanted to understand your motivations regarding this project. It looks like your group has poured lots of blood, sweat and tears - never mind the time and money :-). Have you explored the MDA world and especially the Eclipse Modelling projects? These are the evolution of many years of vertical generation projects (M2T - model to text) into standards based approaches that can save years of development! There is a large model-based development community out there. I would highly recommend your investigation there as many of the issues, questions and features discussed here have been discussed and perhaps implemented. Regarding model validators, importers and other utilities - these are implemented in M2M (model to model) pipelines supported by the most modern tools. As are model transformations between systems, visual representations, text representations and modeling standards such as MOF and eCore.

This is NOT a criticism of your project. I think it is powerful and forward thinking. I just wanted to point you to what is IMHO the state-of-the-art in MDA and DSL thinking to perhaps expand your vision.

Reuben