Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Progress Dynamics Basic Development

Benefits of the Repository

The Progress Dynamics Object Repository stores data for several purposes. Because Progress Dynamics represents most application objects as data stored in the Repository, you do not need to create, compile, deploy, and maintain source code for them. A dynamic window can contain a dynamic toolbar instance, a dynamic browser to display multiple records from a query, and a dynamic viewer for displaying and updating fields from a single record. Progress Dynamics represents all these objects as data in Repository tables. Progress Dynamics realizes them at run time with standard 4GL procedures that each know how to create objects of a specific type: window, toolbar, browser, or viewer. Each object type has a single one of these driver procedures that instantiate and manage every instance of that type.

Managing an application in this way greatly reduces the amount of Progress 4GL code in the application. This fact results in a smaller application footprint and less r-code to deploy to client workstations running the application. You have greater flexibility in how you use and maintain applications. For example, altering a single driver procedure can change the way an entire aspect of an application looks or behaves without needing to modify or even recompile many existing procedures. Finally, an abstract, Repository-based definition of an application supports its deployment to a variety of client platforms.

Note: When you develop your application, there are many good reasons to place your code in a new Repository and keep it separate from the main Repository, which contains all the framework code. The Progress Dynamics documentation distinguishes the framework Repository from other repositories with a capital “R.”

Cascaded attribute values

Object inheritance, and thus performance, have been improved by streamlining the implementation of cascaded attribute values. One performance improvement is the elimination of the overhead of cascading attribute values when creating objects and object instances. Another performance improvement comes as a result of the reduced volume of data, particularly in deployment.