Visible Unveils New Version of Model-Based Code Generation Product

Visible Developer 2.5 builds on the success of its predecessor by providing greater control in designing and developing distributed, Web-enabled applications

Waltham, MA (January 9, 2001) - Simultaneous to announcing its acquisition of 3tSoftware products, Visible Systems Corporation (Visible) released an enhanced version of the 3tSoftware model-based business component design and development product. Visible Developer 2.5, an updated version of 3tSoftware's VBMentor, adds features that further reduce software development time, improve code quality, and better align applications with business requirements.

Visible Developer 2.5 can import a database schema from the company's Visible Analyst application analysis and design tool. Now, databases designed in Visible Analyst can be imported directly into a Visible Developer model and become the starting point for application design and development. Developers map physical database tables to logical business objects and use design-time objects (properties, methods, rules, and views) to refine the design.

Visible Developer's model-based development results in reusable, technology-neutral business components. The current product includes code generation for Visual Basic. Future releases will include generation options for C++, JAVA, and C# from the same model. A synchronization feature keeps the business component design consistent with the underlying database.

New Features

In the just-released version of Visible Developer 2.5, rules and views are design-time objects, which means that developers can more accurately define, design, and document business objects. This gives developers better control when designing business objects, reduces the amount of custom code, and makes it easier to review another developer's model to understand the resulting code.

Another new Visible Developer feature is an enhanced user interface. The product now displays all design-time objects and provides multiple ways to view the relationships among them. Relationships between model objects are tracked, and internal consistency checks prevent accidentally deleting a business object referenced by another business object.

Visible's Vice President of Sales and Marketing Wolfgang Mueller commented: "Visible Developer has proven itself to be a highly competitive player in the automated model-based code generation market. The new features are particularly important in today's IT market, where both application demands and turnover levels are high. Because Visible Developer imports models from software design tools, programmers don't have to reinvent the wheel: once business requirements and rules are established, they are passed from the analysis model to the code-generation model. The result is tighter, more consistent, and more business-appropriate applications."

John Vosburgh, founder of the newly acquired 3tSoftware and now vice president of Business Development for Visible, added: "Developers spend most of their time solving technology issues rather than addressing business needs. The rapid pace at which new technology is introduced exacerbates this problem. Visible Developer's model-based approach to design and development shifts the focus to business requirements and leaves the implementation details to the code patterns. As technology changes, new code patterns make it possible to modernize applications without recoding them."

About Visible Developer

Visible Developer 2.5 is a software component design and development tool that generates fully functional three-tier applications incorporating the latest technologies: XML, COM+, and ADO. It maps the physical database design to a single logical business object. Developers use design-time objects to express business requirements in Visible Developer's model. Code patterns translate requirements into the Visual Basic classes, modules, forms and stored procedures comprising the applications.

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About Visible Systems Corporation

Visible ( http://www.visiblesystemscorp.com ), headquartered in Waltham, MA, is a leader in application development tools, training, and consulting. Visible has over 100,000 users of its products worldwide. The company's products include Visible Analyst, a powerful software analysis and design tool that supports UML, XML, round-trip, and structured software engineering in one integrated tool set; Visible Advantage, an architecture modeling and meta-data management tool for the planning and design of enterprise information portals; Visible Business Templates, which provides a fast-start approach to creating a quality data architecture for databases and data warehouses; and Razor, a full-featured configuration management system. The company also has an active consulting division that provides training and guidance on all aspects of implementing software projects.

Visible just added Visible Developer (an enhanced version of VBMentor) to its product line after the acquisition of 3tSoftware, Inc., of Reston, VA. Visible Developer rounds out the Visible product line, giving customers an end-to-end model-based enterprise application development solution.

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©2001 Visible Systems Corporation. All rights reserved. Visible, Visible Advantage and Visible Universal Model are trademarks of Visible Systems Corporation. Visible Analyst and Razor are registered trademarks of Visible Systems Corporation. VBMentor is a trademark of 3t Software. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.