Rinat Abdullin

Note: the old name of the “Lim” has been changed over to the “xLim”. “x” goes for the eXtensible and additionally yields better SEO.

xLim architecture is one of the approaches for building client-server applications that follow the requirements:

• Small and medium-sized information management solutions.
• Distributed client-server architecture with the automation engines (either in the server core or separate)
• Low cost and efficient development, development automation where possible.
• Rich desktop interface, efficient web interface and the support for other types of interfaces.
• Existing efficient development ecosystem for the software being produced.
• Efficient development due to the extensive usage of the proper components and libraries that aid the project.
• Proper separation of the concerns.
• Inherent extensibility and modularity (we all are using Inversion of Control and dependency injection, are not we?) for the components and UI elements.
• Overall configuration over the hard-coding (where it is appropriate).
• If the user can not break something by configuring it (grid layouts, filters, single editor layouts etc) then this should be handed either to him or the system administrator.
• Future cross-platform support for the mixed solutions.
• The solution server should be capable of working in the constrained environment of the IIS hosted applications (with the medium trust).
• Inherent support for any primary database engine that’s out there, efficient work with it, data caching
• Authentication, authorization, roles and permissions.
• Logging and exception handling.
• Maximum testability (unit tests, integration tests, live validation tests or “sanity checks”).
• Support for the workflows.
• Reports, exporting and printing.
• It should be fun writing it properly.

It is impossible to instantly build the solution that that does all this. But if all these things are considered up-front, it is possible to bend architecture and the logic in the proper ways. And then it will be possible to deliver all that efficiently.

The next  big post on xLim will be about the common development principles and guidelines that were enforced in the Landor Systems in order to allow for the efficient development of the xLim solutions.