Ahead of the curve

Objecto 1.0 goes gold.

Just a quick note to confirm we have released Objecto Framework 1.0. All those who signed up for the confirmation email will be getting a notice from me later today. Many thanks for all the feedback. Please keep it coming in.

The Objecto 1.1 and 1.2 Roadmap

We're still getting Beta 1.0 of Objecto to release status, but I thought I'd let you know what we plan for version 1.1. Some functionality is invariably missing from a 1.0 release, and sometimes some features get cut due to time constraints, so I thought you'd like a heads up for what we are planning for version 1.1 and 1.2

• Results filter. When looping through corresponding query results, you often only want to consider the results where a property is a certain value. In version 1.1, the Results class will include a Filter(IColumn) property so that the collection iterator only returns items with the matching property value
• Left/Right joins. When joining queries, you may occasionaly want to perform a left/right join. eg You may want to include all Customers in a customer address join, even if they dont have any address's on file.
• Reflexive joins. With Objecto 1.0, you cant join a query to itself. Sometime you may want to create a regressive data structure where an object instance can join to another object instance of the same type. For version 1.0, this can only be achieved by joining each iteration to a seperate View<>. This limitation will be removed in version 1.1
• Abstract classes. A class should be defined as abstract and parsed correctly by the reflection engine. This will be improved over v 1.0
  
• Programmer's Guide VB.NET examples.
  

Version 1.2 will include the following new features:

• Script engine (Enterprise Only). Although the logic that makes a business object special is very important, its usually only a very small amount of code. And dont you hate it when you need to change it. Recompiling and deploying a set of classes for a small logic change is not only a chore, its unproductive. Beginning in version 1.1, we'll be releasing a scripting runtime whereby you can attach code to various Objecto objects that gets dynamically compiled from a source file at runtime. If you need to change some logic code, change in the script file and the business object will automatically adjust.
• Query build options. Sometimes you may want the query builder for a particualr provider to optimaise a query procedure using a temp table, or some other technique. Query options will provide a flexible interface at the generic level to access provider specific options through a new interface.
  
• OracleProvider. For customers wishing to access Oracle databases, the oracleProvider will provide an optimized strategy for persistence to Oracle database technology.
• LocalProvider. What if you wish to persist objects in a human readable and single user environment, without the hassle of a fully fledged relational database. The LocalProvider will persist all objects to XML files to provide a high performance local data store for objects. This should prove popular for test projects and configuration files, or very small systems where only a small amount of data is stored centrally.

We go live with the Objecto Beta!

Im really glad to let you know that on Friday 1st December we released the Objecto Framework (as it is now known) to public beta. Why (another) name change? we wanted something that conveyed that the product was all about building objects, linking them together easily and of course reusing them. Although ObjectSql was a good name, it didnt really mean that it was object-orientated for us. Objecto is the name that stuck.

The past few months have been incredibly busy. We've made sure the product has been unit tested via our comprehensive suite of tests, we've been documenting the classes and we've been writing the programmer's guide. We've updated our site and we've come up with new logos and images that we think reflect the nature of our products and our company. Duncan, our guru for all things design has done an excellent job all round. Watch out for our banner ads and our showcase article on http://www.codeproject.com.

Im really excited about Objecto, even after spending so much time with it, and I invite you to download a try out the beta. Please let me know what you think.

http://www.crainiate.net/products/objecto/