Code Generation with ?Visual Modeller?

Abstract

?Visual Modeller? is a CASE tool that permits end-users to model business processes, using the associated method ?Visual Modelling?. It is also able to generate the database and a ?front-end? application from this model. Although this generation looks like an integrated process to the user, an intermediary step exists. From the model of the business process, ?Visual Modeller? first builds a model of the application that will be generated (ie a model of the future system), and then from this model, generates the database and the application. This document describes the code generation process in ?Visual Modeller?. How, from the business process model, it builds a model of the application, called the generic application. The generic application is greatly independent of the implementation environment; in fact, it is not built for any particular environment, but rather in a generic environment, which characteristics are predefined, independently of the characteristics of the implementation environment. This document describes why this approach adjusts to the particularities of the user-centred method carried by ?Visual Modeller?, why it brings some benefits in dealing with the best design and development principles, why it optimises the capability of ?Visual Modeller? to generate some code for different environments.