Question Many analysts consider the programmerless application the "Holy Grail" of software. Can you comment on that?   Answer Although I say that the technology is codeless, I do not like the term programmerless. I have seen several development environments that claimed that they were programmerless. Most of these were visual programming tools that still required knowledge of programming concepts and generated code. This technology is special because it reduces 90% of business application functionality to data, not because it removes programming. There are still some unique business rules, such as legacy application rules, that exist as code and must be executed outside of SOA4 on the database server or middle tier. For the 90% of the business functions that the application can handle, there are configuration tools that non-programmers can use to create and evolve their applications. While some training is required for more sophisticated configuration tasks, a knowledge of programming languages or development concepts is not needed. When specialized business logic is needed, we can either interface existing business rules, or code new program units to do the job. Most clients will only need the 90% of the business rules we cover. In my opinion, it's really the codeless application, not the programmerless application, that is the "Holy Grail."   Question You made reference to the "middle tier." Does the SOA4 technology use any middleware products?   Answer Yes, we do. SOA4 uses middleware to provide application connection, optimization, and business rule deployment options. We are working with several leading middleware products, but are not currently tied to any of them. Prev | Next