Rinat Abdullin

DevExpress releases eXpressApp Framework

DevExpress has finally announced the delivery of their eXpressApp Framework. That’s quite a powerful business framework that utilizes the flexibility provided by the DXperience component suite v. 7.3.5 (pro-looking Windows.Forms and ASP.NET components) and eXpress Persistent Objects library. You should see the “Outlook done quickly” demo for yourself.

Basically it lets you create your first functional .NET Web Application or Desktop Client Application in a matter of minutes (I’m not kidding). You just need to code in the domain objects and the relationships between them, and the framework will try to do the rest.

On its first run the application by default will use the information from the domain objects to:

1. Create database structure (it is done by the XPO)
2. Create customizable layout for the table and detail views (this is done by the layout functionality, grid controls and some hardcoded magic) and all the relations. There also is domain model editor that lets you edit the intermediate configuration.
3. Then the application will be launched using the default modules to display all the UI (either in Web or WinForms)

Additionally the application by default provides default implementations for such things as security/permissions, logging, customization, printing, validation and reports.

The disadvantage of this approach is that everything is coded quite highly and only DevExpress pieces are to be used. Additionally there is no client-server separation of concerns (the application talks right to the database and we do not have server-enforced security, workflows, logging etc), no DI, IoC, CAB/SmartClient approaches. So basically the XAF is just a reference implementation that’s used to advertise the capabilities of the DevExpress products. Well, that’s natural.

PS: That’s no ad of DevExpress here, but rather the acknowledgment of the capabilities of their products. However they are not even close to being flawless. The problems that we have faced recently include those:

• XPO is promised to have full compatibility with the Mono compiler, yet it throws errors if analyzed with the MoMA and does not run well under Mono. What’s the point in compatibility, then?
• XPO’s distributed caching (good thing on its own) has to be wrapped with some hacks in order to be able to work through WebServices.
• Using DXperience components in the modular desktop applications (CAB and SmartClient principles) is not natural at all and requires quite a number of hacks.

Tags: DevExpress, XAF, XPO

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