Philosophy: Developers shouldn't write applications? - Cotsec Forms

D

David Ford

Cotsec has released a cross-language/cross-platform rapid development
environment that significantly cuts down general development costs for
desktop,web-based and mobile applications.

Cotsec generates Java applications using a Requirements Driven
Development (RDD) approach in which Business Analysts (BA's)
createrequirements of the application to be created, and then use an
application generator (such as Cotsec) to generate and maintain large
portions of the target application. This is in line with Cotsec's
philosophy that developers shouldn't write applications - they should
primarily create architectures, frameworks and code generators - and
share these in a community of similar developers.

Cotsec has released Cotsec Forms - a framework for generating Forms
based applications in:
- Swing
- Struts
[via CMP 2.0 EJB's, or a
user-defined persistence framework such
as Hibernate]
- Eclipse SWT
- .NET Windows Forms
- .NET ASPx code
[bound to automatically generated .NET web
services in .NET standard fashion]

Cotsec is seeking interest from both potential clients (end users or
developers interested in utilising the framework in their environment)
and developers interested in extending the Cotsec framework in an
"Open Source" fashion. Please email mailto:[email protected]
([email protected]) for further information.


Screenshots -- http://www.cotsec.com/screenshots/index.html
Products -- http://www.cotsec.com/product/index.html

==== Development Philosophy ====

Cotsec aims to share code, processes and expertise across it's
widening base of developers - effectively creating a cross between a
large multinational consulting agency and a large multinational open
source project. It's envisaged that much of the work that would be
completed at customer sites would enhance the code generation
framework (the model compiler), and that extensions to the model
compiler would be shared amongst participating Cotsec developers and
companies - making it easier for them to either perform their in-house
development tasks or to win new customers.

========= Developers don't build applications =============


1. Developers build model compilers instead. BA's build applications.


Business analyst
|
|
V
+-------+ +-------------+
| model | -->( Model compiler ) --> | application |
+-------+ +-------------+


Business analysts create a model of the application:
* Input forms
* Validation rules
* Business logic/calculators
* Reports
* Menu structures
* Security/permissions information

This model is then compiled into an actual application. At the moment
application generators exist for:

* J2EE desktop (Swing) applications (bound to Enterprise Javabeans
to a DB)
* J2EE JSP pages (Struts)
* .NET Windows Forms applications via Web services to a database
* .NET ASPX C# web applications via Web services to a database

More are coming. Cotsec is currently on:
* Delphi
* VB
* Perl (available with two weeks)

mailto:[email protected]

== Cotsec is a company owned by developers, for developers ===


1. Cotsec is a cooperating group of development consultants who each
run their own consulting businesses.

2. Each Cotsec developer sells Cotsec product (only Cotsec developers
are permitted to sell Cotsec product)

3. Any enhancements made to the Cotsec model compiler are owned by
Cotsec. The application model is owned by the customer


4. Customers are free to use the source code to enhance the
development of their application. The application can be sold, but
not the Cotsec model compiler.


= Developers share in the profits of sale - not a Venture Capitalist =


1. Profit share: Cotsec developers get a report of the allocated
number of hours they worked on Cotsec features, and receive a
percentage of product sales based on their percentage of the total.
This is measured in terms of "equivalent Dollar(USD) effort", or
"EDE".

2. Profit share: Business. The Cotsec source code base will become
more valuable as it improves. BEA have Weblogic as their primary
revenue generator - some USD$800M per year, $4.3Bn market
capitalisation. One program. Cotsec developers will share in both
revenue and company shares when we float as a percentage based on
their EDE.


============== Benefits to developers ==================


1. Improved ability to obtain contract work in J2EE at reasonable
rates

2. Open source style improvement in the development project (improved
product => improved ability to obtain contracts)

3. Complete sales "pitch" with demonstrations of the development suite
to improve contract "hit" rates

4. A long term goal to sell the framework to an appropriate end client
for a "reasonable" sum of money - certainly in the millions.


======= The pitch to a potential Cotsec customer =============


1. (You): "Out of your total code base, you're probably spending
around 40-50% of your effort on architecture componentry. This
componentry is pretty much the same as your competitors. The rest of
the other 50-60% you're spending is on your own business logic and
pages. We can give you a complete architectural solution for nothing
- and it's far better than your current one, or your competitors."

1a. (Business): "50-60% - you mean that I could develop applications
twice as fast by using this?"

2. (You): "Probably faster. Because the architecture is better, it
allows common business processes like defining input forms to be done
in an afternoon by a Business Analyst, rather than a developer"

3. (Business): [Disbelief setting in] "Faster. Right. Ok. (stunned)"

4. (You): "Let me show you: here's a database table... (walk briefly
through defining a new form, adding some simple validation, and
sending this to the server)... And here's a completed form - in 10
minutes. Ask your developers how long it would take to design and
build the form using Struts, link it to a new table in the database,
and then allow navigation on the page. With your current architecture
it's unlikely to be under a few hours. With testing and deployment
it'll be even longer"

3. (Business): "When can you start."

Best regards

David

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