Construction Assistant

The Construction Assistant automates the steps of module selection, impact analysis, code generation and installation in an integrated, easy to use tool that speeds up code generation and installation using the CA Gen host or client/server encyclopaedia generators.

Easier...

• The objects that are to be generated are scoped into a development update The development update can be stored for as long as required, so it can be reused if the modules require regeneration -- it is equivalent to aggregate sets for construction.
• The objects are selected from a list, based on associations to other objects or from a ‘when changed’ list. For example, the objects changed by a developer over the past week can be selected and then the objects that use them included in the scope to ensure that all affected load modules are re-linked.
• Integrated impact analysis tools enable you to quickly mark affected load modules for installation when common action blocks are regenerated.

Faster...

• The steps are executed in the background on the server, thus freeing the developers workstation for other tasks.
• The generation parameters are saved in the Construction Assistant database and are separately defined for client and server load modules. They therefore do not need to be changed when switching from generating clients to generating server modules.
• The installation tasks are automatically invoked, so that the developer does not have to logon to the server to perform the server builds.
• If the installation has to be performed on a different machine to the encyclopaedia, for example generation on a Windows CSE for a UNIX server, the source code can be automatically moved to the target server and the Construction Assistant will execute the install steps on the remote server.
• Automatic status checking reduces the effort in checking the results of the generate
• Restart logic reduces the time taken to re-select objects that failed to generate or compile.