GeneXus 4GL Environment Continues to Evolve

Published: July 11, 2006

by Alex Woodie

While the bulk of the software development world concentrates on the battle between Java backers and Microsoft's .NET strategy, a small software house from Uruguay continues down its own path, adding new functionality to its fourth-generation language (4GL) environment called GeneXus. ARTech, which develops the IDE, isn't hurting the big players in the development tool market, but with more than 50,000 licenses sold over the past 25 years--about half of them OS/400 shops--GeneXus is a success story few know about.

First released in 1989, GeneXus is an integrated development environment (IDE) that is used to create business applications. In the beginning, the IDE generated native RPG and COBOL code from its high-level language, and over the years, the company gradually added new code generation capabilities for Visual Basic, Visual FoxPro, Java, C#, and HTML. The company also added tools to surround the core code generator, including a workflow editor, a Web portal, a query engine, and a data warehousing component.

In the latest release of the tool, version 9.0, which shipped in December 2005, the company added support for AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML), which isn't a new programming language as much as a promising mash-up of existing tools. The next release, version 10.0, will be a complete overhaul of the IDE, company officials say, and will add support for two up-and-coming scripting languages, PHP and Ruby, in addition to better integration with Microsoft applications. A preview of version 10.0 will be available at the company's annual conference, which starts September 18 in ARTech's hometown of Montevideo, Uruguay. The event is expected to eclipse last year's attendance of 3,500 people.

Live and Learn

What makes GeneXus different from other development tools is that it does not require developers to rip out the underlying data model as they adapt to the inevitable new development ideas that surface as time goes on,, according to Veronica Buitrón vice president of GeneXus USA, the ARTech subsidiary based in Chicago, Illinois.

"The people who started GeneXus were consultants. They were project managers in South America--Uruguay, but mostly Brazil," Buitrón says. "As they were building a process, a methodology, they realized the current methodology wasn't right. They were following the waterfall development model--design the data model, then program specs, then program.

"However, the database methodology was wrong because when you got to the specifications of the programs, you have to change the data model," Buitrón continues. "They did not let us accommodate changes as we learned. So the main thing in GeneXus that makes it different than anything is the philosophy that it's built upon. It allows you to build systems that are easy to change as the developers learn."

With the GeneXus IDE, developers get started by describing the process, not the data model. "If I'm going to build an invoicing system, I start by describing the invoice. I'll create an object that encapsulates the data structure, the business logic, and the interface," Buitrón says. "GeneXus, based on that, infers the data model. The data model is a byproduct of that description."

A Worldwide Presence

GeneXus started to grow in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the popularity of the AS/400 started to bloom, and most of the early customers were AS/400 shops. However, GeneXus isn't restricted to the OS/400 and i5/OS stack, and can support Windows, Unix, and Linux operating systems, as well as the most popular open- and closed-source databases and Web application servers.

GeneXus has tallied a strong list of customers, and today the company boasts an installed base of 5,500 customers, about half are OS/400 shops, or independent software vendors or consultants that target the iSeries. The company has sold more than 50,000 licenses for its development tools, and says more than 5 million people use its software.

There are between 500 and 600 organizations using GeneXus in North America, according to Dane Drotts, president of GeneXus USA. "Most customers are in South America. We have a huge base in Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil," he says. ARTech has six subsidiaries such as GeneXus USA, and relies on partners in 30 other countries where GeneXus tools are used.

Among the companies using GeneXus are Software Information Systems (SIS), an ERP software developer based in Lexington, Kentucky; Mize Houser, a Kansas-based developer of software for the insurance industry; MaddenCo, an Evansville, Indiana, developer of software for tire dealers; PayPlus, a Ridgeland, Mississippi, developer of accounting software; and RJS Software, a developer of document and content management software for OS/400 and Windows systems, and an advertiser in this newsletter.

High Praise

The GeneXus IDE drew the praise of Doug Fulmer, the former worldwide sales executive for e-business infrastructure at IBM before he left last spring to take a job at OS/400 CRM software developer Clear Technologies.

"I think ARTech has one of the best 4GL tools in the marketplace today to generate code for the iSeries platform," Fulmer is quoted as saying. "There are a few partners that can really play at the level that GeneXus can play. Today you have a very large installed base, an exceptional user community, a great technology, and a worldwide presence."

Fulmer continues "… you have all the qualities we really love to see in a partner: worldwide presence and good products. You are moving in the same direction that we are, which is moving to Java, and to open standard-based computing. . . . You also have very good back-end database connectivity, probably the best of the 4GL in terms of back-end database connectivity, so for customers, you give them total freedom of choice."

Moving Forward

Java and .NET development grabs most of the headlines these days, and GeneXus will generate Java and C# code, but that doesn't necessarily translate into what people are doing in the real world. "We have new customers ask for COBOL," says Drotts, adding that the 40-year-old language is still a vital part of some businesses.

It can be challenging to get an OS/400 shop to try new technology, GeneXus says. "We see [the difficulty in getting customers to upgrade], especially in the AS/400 industry--they try to ride the RPG wave as long as they can," Buitrón says. "Some of them jump [to other platforms], but we sense that in almost every case, they're adding Web components to their existing applications. We're still seeing the AS/400 moving along."

While there's definitely something to be said for tried-and-true technology, everything changes eventually and successful companies will roll with the changes, while unsuccessful companies will be run over by them.

"We always strive to help clients embrace new technology," Buitrón says. "If you like, we're an agent of change as we try to promote our clients to use the new technology. In any type of industry, we believe that nobody can stay still for a long time. You have to move. You have to use pieces of new technology that are advantage of business."

Licenses for GeneXus start at $4,800 per developer, which gives the developer the capability to generate Visual Basic, Visual FoxPro, and HTML. The OS/400 license, which includes the RPG and COBOL generators, costs $12,000 per developer. The PC packages, which include Java and C# generators, cost $2,000 each. Unlike some other 4GL environments for the OS/400 server, there is no runtime fee. For more information, visit www.genexus.com.