Abstract:
A Greek Information Technology company has created ADE, an object-oriented environment, developed under Centura SQL Windows, coupled with a proprietary Development/Maintenance Methodology. ADE consists of highly developed Centura object classes and powerful development and maintenance tools that form the basis for developing sophisticated object-oriented client/server applications covering the Information Systems Development needs of private companies having ADE license agreement.

Description:
ADE (Application Development Environment) is an object-oriented environment, developed by a Greek Information Technology company in Gupta SQL Windows, coupled with a proprietary Development/Maintenance Methodology, and consists of the following parts:

1.Private System Tables, where the properties of objects are stored. They are an extension of the Database System Tables. ADE stores in them all the information needed to design an ADE form. The Developer can store them in a separate Database or add them to the Application's Database

2.Libraries containing the functionality of all classes used to design the form windows and their child windows. ADE's libraries make extensive use of the object-oriented principles of Inheritance, Encapsulation and Polymorphism as they are available in the Centura Environment. They contribute to less programming time and effort, and to high-quality applications. The ADE libraries contain:
a) Object Classes: Definition of shared data structure and behaviour of objects. All the basic operations on a database application are defined once in the classes, thus avoiding duplication and repetition of code for that data and behaviour in each object, and providing data independence
b) Functional Classes, supply behaviour through their functions

3. Private System Tables Management Application and Development Tools. Maintaining an ADE application mostly refers to tasks that the developer performs in order to change/extend the forms and to add new functionality to an already existing application. The Development Tools and the Private System Tables Management Application support the maintenance of the developed applications.

4. Application Wizard. It is a tool for the automatic design and implementation of a prototype of an ADE Application.

The ADE environment delivers the power the developer needs to create high-performance, widely deployable business applications. ADE's unique ease of use and powerful architecture allow development teams to rapidly construct, maintain and extend robust, reliable and fully functional applications.

Innovative Aspects:
1. ADE Wizard: A novice developer can develop powerful applications of a very high quality at lightning speed. An experienced application development facility can use it to rapid-prototype applications for user feedback with virtually zero-effort. Given an existing database and the ADE Wizard:
- The Developer a) selects the database tables to be managed by the required application, b) is guided to build appropriate data sources for those tables, based on Foreign Key definitions and to specify the contents of the required Form Windows, c) gives the final touch to the look of the application and compiles it.
- The Wizard automatically creates lookup table calls using Foreign Key definitions and a prototype of a high-quality application.
- The End User gets a top-quality, professional application with extensive functionality.

2. Selective Information Propagation: ADE suggests that a large percentage of the functionality of the client-server applications refer to the simple ?management? of data stored in a RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). ADE implements the methodology of ?selective propagation of information?. It uses the metadata of the RDBMS in order to produce a prototype of the application. ADE can manage it by creating new metadata from the already existing ones and selecting appropriate objects in the screen. The developer can interfere at each step of the ADE methodology, and force different selections from the ones proposed by ADE. In addition, the developer can add his own functions or alter the already existing ones. The essential innovation lies in the capability of the environment to reproduce the application by embodying modifications of the metadata, and to propagate them to the application so that only the properties where the developer has kept the selections proposed by the system will be overwritten. ADE comes up with the essential problem of the existing case-tools that do not allow embodying possible modifications of the Database model while simultaneously maintaining the modifications of the developer.

Main Advantages:
The main advantages of the ADE Environment are:
1.Simplification of the development of client-server GUI (Graphical User Interface) applications
2. Isolation of the communication specifics of different databases (like SQL Base, SQL Server, Oracle, DB/400, Ingres etc.) from the final deliverable. Such issues are addressed by standard Class properties stored in libraries.
3. Improvement of the reliability of the developed applications.
4. Simplification of the maintenance of the developed applications, given that the programmer-designer does not have to write new code except for application-specific features. All the required functionality is provided by the ADE libraries.
5. Ease of extension. New functionality is added to the libraries and automatically made available to existing applications.

Description of the specialization of the organization:
SENA SA is a Greek Information Technology Company, founded in 1993 specializing in the following fields:
- Integrated Solutions and Information Technology Consultancy
- Distribution, Development, and Support of CASE Tools
- Research and Development

The Greek Information Technology Company addresses the Information Systems Development needs of private companies as well as the specialised requirements for utilisation of current high technology of organisations with an already developed infra-structure of use or production of Software.

Additional Information:
National Documentation Centre
Mr George Apostolopoulos
+30 10 7273920
+30 10 7246824
E-mail: gapo@ekt.gr