Applications supplier JBA Holdings Plc is readying a new application framework generator, named Constructor, scheduled to ship in June. Using a template infrastructure, JBA claims Constructor can be used to build applications using pure objects and/or legacy code with Microsoft Corp ActiveX wrappers in a component format. Users design the view of the business and the processes that need to carried out, and when satisfied, Constructor generates the code. Applications can be customised for corporate idiosyncrancies if required. Constructor can only be used in association with System 21, the firm’s corporate application environment, which runs on IBM Corp AS/400s and RS/6000 machines. JBA’s group marketing director Allan Davies naysays object-oriented technology purists and says his company believes in a practical approach to object and component development. After five years of object investigation and development, JBA has decided to take a phased approach to objects, believing commercial organizations do not have enough time to have theological discussions on the relative merits or demerits of object technology, when what they really want is a product and technology that they can use now. If this means that all attributes associated with pure object-oriented environments are not included then that doesn’t matter, he says.
