NetKernel News Volume 2 Issue 24

Thank you for the videos on the nCode toolkit. Those are really going to help. I am however missing one - for me - important link.

When I build a module 'by hand', I start with a small template, make some rootspaces ... blah blah blah ... make sure a basic (I call it 'index') endpoint is working, documentation is there, unittests ready to go ...

Yes, I do know the "New Module Wizard" can do all of the above for me, but I want to understand why it does what it does, so I still do it by hand quite often.

Then I add functionality.

The documentation you've provided focuses on the 'adding functionality' on a module that is preset for nCode 'inserts'. It also focuses on the 'exposing functionality' (palettes). But there's little on the presetting part. Yes, I do know the "New Module Wizard" does it ... and if all it did was provide an import (like a layer1 import or something), you'd not hear me pipe up.

It does more than that however. Stuff that makes me "scared" to touch the module.xml afterwards. And maybe that's the point of the whole nCode thing (the "no touching" idea that is), but I'd be surprised if it was.

So, any documentation in the pipeline on that ?

Thanks Tom - this is good feedback - its not missing by design, just because we had rather a lot to get done and concentrated on the priority pieces. We'll certainly cover the nitty gritty you want. As I'm sure you guess - there's no magic, its all just basic ROC patterns.

Watch this space!

In the mean time I'd like to know if this tool helps you explain things to people - that's the real key we're hoping for - since its all well and good knowing and learning ROC - but we don't have the luxury of reverse engineering everyone's brain to get them to understand. So we're hoping this tool will give guys like you a very succinct and powerful way of showing the power on offer from the ROC domain.

We certainly don't expect nCoDE to the be primary development environment (yet, if ever?). But its part of the journey of separating architecture from code. You are an architect and you want to know about the whole world. We see nCoDE as the tool you give to the "handle turner" operatives - who's job is to complete a specification by piecing together the lego.

Look around for candidate operatives - offshore developers in India, local management and ultimately C-level executives (the chief handle turners). All could be given suitably constrained palettes and be given the ability to solve their own problems. You, as an architect, can concentrate on the tooling, the integrity, the constraints, the operations etc etc. The dynamic business information engineering can be separated from the operational mechanics.

A dangerous vision no doubt - but this is what businesses ultimately need if they are to minimise their time to change and to increase the quality by shortening the distance from "information intent" (the desire of the business knowledge owner) to the "information execution" (the actual IT state).