Hi Fred I agree, it is possible to build a fully-normalized data structure in Remedy, although it is not easy to do and is not 'encouraged' by the admin tool/dev studio. If you have a search menu on your form, your data structure is probably not normalized.
For example, in Remedy to link a person (contact record) to an expenses record for instance, you would normally add a field to the Expenses record to store the contact name, and add a menu that queries the contact table to populate it. That is not normalized as it is storing the contact name in the expenses record. The 'normalized' Remedy version of this would be to store a foreign key for the contact record, and have an active link fire on display to pull back data from the contact record into display-only fields. So, in Remedy to normalize this simple structure you need to add both display-only fields and workflow to populate them. That's inefficient and a lot of extra effort. The more complicated your application the larger this overhead becomes and it quickly becomes unmanageable. In Mendix you define an association between the 2 entities (contact and expenses) and define it to be 1 to 1, 1 to many or many to many. You can then display any data from the contact record in your expenses form using the association without any additional workflow. The association is displayed as a drop-down menu or a pop-up select form as needed. (In the database the association is actually stored in a third table containing the foreign keys of the two records that are linked, but this is hidden from the developer and managed by the API). So in Remedy, you have to try really hard to normalize a data structure; in Mendix, the reverse is true and you would have to write extra code to de-normalize the structure. David Sanders Solution Architect Enterprise Service Suite @ Work ========================== tel +44 1494 468980 mobile +44 7710 377761 email david.sand...@westoverconsulting.co.uk web http://www.westoverconsulting.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 3:06 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Overlay and Applications One item I must question... Your statement about "fully-normalized data structure". I believe you are mixing the ITSM canned application versus the Action Request System. I have several applications in my pure custom AR System that are fully normalized. Fred -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of David Sanders Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 7:23 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Overlay and Applications Theo ARS is not the only rapid development platform. For example, take a look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWUb_4XqHcw&feature=player_embedded This is Mendix (http://www.mendix.com) which is an example of the new breed of agile development tools. Source control, yes; PaaS, yes; SaaS, yes; Cloud or On-site deployment, yes... etc. Windows, Linux, yes; migrate between platforms, yes; proper permissions modelling, yes; scalable, yes ... I'm a good Remedy developer, but I can develop apps 2 or 3 times as quickly on this platform as I can in Remedy. We have a full ITSM suite written in both ARS and in Mendix - virtually identical functionality. Some things are easier in ARS, many more are easier in Mendix, and one of the things I really like about Mendix is that it has a fully-normalized data structure. Not scripts for workflow, but visual modeling, but with full version control. There are other platforms out there too - so if what you want is rapid and agile development tools, take a broader view of what's available in the Market, it's not just 3GLs Regards David Sanders Solution Architect Enterprise Service Suite @ Work ========================== tel +44 1494 468980 mobile +44 7710 377761 email david.sand...@westoverconsulting.co.uk web http://www.e-servicesuite.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Theo Fondse Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 10:31 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Overlay and Applications John, Firstly, the 3/4 GL differentiation is important to appreciate in this regard, and therefore, relevant. The Action Request System platform *IS* a 4GL and as such it is not fair to do direct comparisons to functionality or ways of working that we find in 3GL environments such as Java, C, VB or even .Net. ARS allows someone with no programming background whatsoever, to create working, usable applications within a matter of hours. No 3GL does that. ARS just sits in a different niche of the market. Secondly, my open challenge still stands to any 3GL platform to develop a working functional and customisable client/server workflow application from scratch, in less time than with ARS, that (to name only a few) a) can run on Windows, Linux and Unix and be migrated between all these within a matter of minutes b) has a native and web front-end capable of Query-by-Example or advanced search criteria c) is capable of full customisable application and data permission structures d) is capable of handling more than 200K records in all tables (meaning integration to a mainstream RDBMS and not using ODBC) e) is integrateable to other systems using an open API amongst about 19 (or more) other mechanisms. Even Java can try with EJB's... ____________________________________________________________________________ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
