A layman's guide to the merits of Clarion
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

Why Clarion?

Because we demand the best and success is your primary goal!

Whether you are a Programmer, Information Systems Manager, Consulting Client or a Development Executive, Clarion is the most efficient, Professional and economical solution in the marketplace today!

You'll find that no other product or company in the industry can make your application development easier. Imagine spending less time on design, programming, implementation, training and maintenance. Simply stated, Clarion will make you and your team more productive and decrease the overall development effort!

• How can we decrease the amount of time we spend on software development?
• Can we reduce the time spent on maintaining and enhancing applications?
• Can we access all of the data we want, whenever we want it?
• Will we be able to run faster applications and save precious time?
• Is there an application development tool that is easy to learn and use... Simple, yet powerful?

Clarion Slashes Development Effort
The single most important benefit of Clarion is reduced software development effort. Clarion developers complete projects in a third of the time that would be required by Visual Basic, Delphi, or PowerBuilder developers. The reason is simple: The Clarion application generation technology creates source code that programmers don't have to write.

Like VB and Delphi, Clarion applications reuse code that is already written in the form of custom controls (.VBX and .OCX) or embedded objects (OLE). But unlike VB and Delphi, Clarion can generate major portions of an application automatically. This isn't "off the shelf" code. The application generation process can be finely tuned by the developer to create highly complex "made to order" software. This methodology takes a fraction of the time and effort that would be consumed by conventional software development tools such as VB, Delphi, and PowerBuilder.



Clarion generated code isn't "pre-written", but it is "pre-tested". A Clarion developer is virtually guaranteed that generated code will compile and run the first time. This is a very different experience from conventional programming, which requires a painstaking process of debugging one statement at a time.

Clarion Reduces Maintenance
Most application generators, such as the Delphi Forms Expert can only be used once. If you change generated source code, the application generator will wipe out your changes if it is used again. That leaves developers with a "Hobson's choice": a plain vanilla application or a major maintenance headache.

The Clarion application generator can be used for the entire life cycle of an application no matter how heavily customized it becomes. Clarion applications reside in two repositories: a data dictionary and an application model. The Clarion data dictionary is unique. Most data dictionaries contain information about how data is stored and accessed. The Clarion data dictionary also contains information about how data is displayed and processed. If a database changes or its rules of behavior change or its presentation style changes, a Clarion developer simply corrects the data dictionary, synchronizes the application model, and regenerates the application. What could be easier?

It is just as simple to modify or enhance an application. The same methodology is used to maintain a Clarion application that was used to create it. This is possible because a Clarion developer never changes generated source code. Source code is embedded into the application model so it can be emitted along with the generated code every time the application generator is invoked.



Maintaining applications in design repositories like the application model and data dictionary has the side benefit of standardizing and documenting the applications. Clarion applications never become obsolete-they are self-illuminating. If the original developer of an application is not available to make revisions, the project can be assigned to another Clarion developer. The data dictionary and application model will instantly communicate the underlying design.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

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