Abingdon, Oxfordshire-based Erros Plc has launched Erros, a rapid application development tool and object-oriented database for the AS/400 as its first product. The company says that with Erros inexperienced users can rapidly create complex applications that are infinitely scalable. Erros is claiming application development speeds up to 60 times faster than those achieved with other tools. The key to the ease and speed of development lies in the fact that the database contains all data and application definitions: it acts as a database management system, dictionary, repository and application environment with a single copy being used for all applications. Storing of everything in one place means that the 35,000 lines of RPG/400 occupy less than 1Mb. Chairman Rob Dixon developed the concept of the database functioning as the application about 15 years ago when a friend of his needed software to catalogue a collection of 17th and 18th century prints and engravings. Nothing on the market at that time was adequate so Dixon, who had sold mainframes for IBM Corp, tried his hand at developing something. Thus the concept was born, but Erros as a company was only formed in 1993 with Dixon and his art dealer friend bank-rolling the company. It now has 60 shareholders, with Dixon as the main shareholder. It still employs just four people, but has won a worldwide marketing agreement for Erros with IBM. Erros will be raising some more money in the near future through a placing on the London International Stock Exchange. Although the technology has generated some interest, the choice of the AS/400 has been questioned. The market for development tools for the AS/400 is very crowded with the likes of Synon Corp and its Obsydian tool, dominating.
Interesting curio
Analysts suggest that unless Erros comes out with a strong marketing strategy worldwide its tool may remain an interesting curio with the IBM deal unlikely to aid any massive market penetration. Nevertheless, Dixon said the speed, ease and simplicity of Erros will attract many users. He said Erros does away with what he believes is the artificial divide between rules and information, with data and application definitions linked. Erros, which stands for Expert Real-time Relational Open Systems, creates neither code nor programs in any conventional sense, although some programming might be necessary to solve new problems. The database at the heart of Erros is defined using semantic bi-directional relationships. Each item is stored as an independent entity that can then be linked to other entities in the database in a forwards and back-ards fashion so that if one were developing an application to track pat-ents sent by family doctors to consultants at a hospital, the bi-directional relationships would be between both types of doctor and between them and the patient. So a family doctor treats patient, patient is treated by family doctor. And both doctors and patients are individuals. The Application Creation System is the actual Rapid Application Development tool and enables users to type their business model, in the example the relationship between the doctors and patient, into the database. The relationship, a kind of diagram, is entered in any everyday language. As long as all developers uses the same language, attributing the same meaning to words, Erros can integrate any extensions or amendments. Dixon says this type of linkage enables users to navigate from one diagram to another. Also, these links, definitions and parts of di-agrams can be re-used indefinitely. For example, once ‘name and number’ as an identifier is entered into the database it can be re-used for subsequently entered individuals or entities. Dixon reckons one of the beauties of his system is that a developer need not have a great depth of understanding about how the business is run: applications for one part of the business can be created and extended, even when live, with the database automatically integrating all amendments. If an error is made, Dixon says, it is simple to break the lin
ks and erase the error. He added that all changes are journalled, making audit straightforward. Maintenance of the applications developed is said to be minimal because programs are not actually created – all there is is a series of relationships linked in a database and the user makes call to the database to run the application. A graphical interface is optional. It is available on the AS/400 only at the moment but Erros plans versions for the PowerPC AS/400, OS/2, Windows NT, AIX and Windows versions. It costs ú2,500 for the Application Creation System for one user and is out now.
