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PDFLiveBase, a revolutionary platform
The LiveBase platform is the only business-grade development environment (as far as we know) that does not force its users to deal with the dynamic aspects of the system they want to build (such as events and actions), and with the notion of algorithm (in terms of list of steps, sequence of actions, flow-chart diagram, etc.). Some key advantages of LiveBase over its competitors are listed hereunder.
Data-centric approach.
Our competitors strive to deliver powerful, general-purpose tools allowing to precisely define user interfaces and algorithms, thus requiring a considerable programming expertise. We have taken the opposite approach, in that we have conceived a simple environment effectively usable by non-programmers and extremely efficient at creating data-centric information systems. Focusing on the information to be managed make sense because it's generally more stable and better understood than business processes and workflows, especially in small businesses.
Conceptual modeling language
Our approach to modeling is purely conceptual and definitional, thus much simpler and more powerful than our competitor's traditional GUI-driven approach. Based on the UML class-diagram notation, LiveBase leverages the impressive amount of work done by the OMG to make this standard intuitive, expressive and learnable. LiveBase modellers don't have to deal with user-interface components, data structures, database tables and dynamic issues like events, actions and algorithms. A state-of-the-art code generator takes care of that.
Tools for cooperative modeling.
Thanks the simplicity of the underlying language, LiveBase models can be customized, merged, decomposed and recombined easily and effectively, thus enabling a truly cooperative approach to modeling. LiveBase subscribers can pick different models made and published by other subscribers, merge them and use / publish the resulting model with unrivalled easy. Subscribers can also rate the published models, thus helping others in finding the best ones for each applicative domain.
Iconic interface for life-cycle management
The level of integration we achieved between our modeling environment and our hosting environment is unrivalled: no competitor makes code-generation and application deployment as transparent as we do. By consistently using a small set of iconic metaphors, we made application life-cycle management just as simple and intuitive as dragging and dropping icons (users, applications, databases) across different execution environments (e.g. validation and production). No competitor is even close to this level of power and user friendliness.
Draw, deploy, manage
From the developer's point of view, LiveBase has many strong points with respect to any existing development environment: it has a fully conceptual, visual and model-driven (UML-based) approach inspired to the MDA paradigm and providing support for multi-level compositions, binary and reflexive associations, run-time enforced min/max cardinalities, multiple execution environments (e.g. validation / production), advanced class-based and group-based access control for multiple user profiles, and much more. No coding is required to generate complex, enterprise-class database applications.
From the administrator's point of view, LiveBase provides a wide array of web-based tools to manage the life-cycle of generated applications (start / stop, configuration control with automatic versioning, application & database upgrade and deployment across different execution environment by a simple drag & drop, etc.) databases (scheduled / on-demand server-side backups & restores, download of database images via browser and email, etc.) and users (subscriptions requests management, accounts creation / deletion, selective enabling, auditing with advanced log-browsing tools, etc.)
From the end user's point of view, LiveBase is a solid platform on which it is possible to share a common structured database with a very efficient application-level locking system, state-of-the-art data browsing interfaces with advanced grouping/filtering/sorting capabilities, and innovative collaboration tools allowing to subscribe events on database classes and individual objects.