Rogue Wave without Limits
Like the component software market, Rogue Wave Software Inc. (www.roguewave.com) is evolving. The company recently announced that it is expanding its horizons by adding a component framework to its existing software components product line.
"We eventually want to be able to go from modeling to component assembly tools, provide a set of components, provide tools to build your own components, and then give you an application framework on which those components will live," says Tom Kim, a product manager at Rogue Wave. As a result, he adds, Rogue Wave will be able to provide solutions earlier in the development cycle than it has in the past.
The first product in this new framework is RW-Metro, which includes a set of customizable tools for mapping C++ class definitions to database schemas. Kim explains that RW-Metro tackles what he calls the "model mismatch problem -- components developed using relational database models don’t work well with components developed using application models, which focus on behavior."
RW-Metro can import the object hierarchy and definitions a developer creates into an object-relational mapping tool. The generated map enables those objects to persist in a relational database. According to a Rogue Wave white paper, developers creating object-relational maps are often forced to convolute the object model to suit the relational model. As a result, the object model becomes bound to the specific relational model that existed when the mapping was done. If the relational model is changed, the object model would have to be changed as well.
According to William Blundon, executive vice president of the Extraprise Group Inc. (www.extraprise.com), an e-business consulting firm, RW-Metro will extend Rogue Wave’s market reach, "by making [its] technology more accessible to an IT organization, not just the sort of rocket scientist people in the past that have been doing object-oriented development." Blundon agrees that developers have been struggling with object-relational mapping, and that RW-Metro can provide them with a strong approach to mapping components to legacy data in relational databases.
Future plans for RW-Metro include integration of a reverse (relational-to-object) mapping tool called DBFactory, generation of Java source code, support for XML, CORBA and transaction processing monitors, addition of an application server framework and integration with modeling tools, such as VisualCase from Rogue Wave’s Stingray division and Rational Rose from Rational Software Corp. (www.rational.com). Rogue Wave also plans to announce additional products that will fill out its frameworks product line.