Expanding its growing portfolio of products for DEC VAX/VMS users, Cullinet Software Inc, Westwood, Massachusetts will make its new KnowledgeBuild applications generator generally available in January. The product is designed to create high-performance applications using DEC’s RMS Record Management System database manager or Cullinet’s soon-to-be-released IDMS/SQL database management system. Key features of KnowledgeBuild are claimed to be a non-procedural application definition, the generation of complete applications, inclusion of easy-to-use integrated tools, and stand-alone versatility – which seems to mean that it is designed to generate complete applications rather than simply producing blocks of code. To create applications, developers paint a user interface, including screen and report layouts, using either VAX RMS files or IDMS/SQL for data storage. According to Cullinet, KnowledgeBuild then automatically translates these layouts into efficient Cobol, Fortran, or Basic applications to optimise run-time performance. It also reckons developers using it improve productivity by up to 100:1 over conventional methods as well as reducing training time and costs, and generate efficient code in high-level languages for maximum performance. The tools include an applications generator, a data-definition facility, a forms painter, a report painter, and a menu-maintenance facility. Currently in beta test, it carries a single-copy licence fee of from $2,000 up to $80,000 depending on processor size.
Content from our partners
