ProAce

Communicating Domain Models with Object-Role Modeling

jarnold — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:43:36 +0000

As I mentioned in my previous post, the ProAce team headed to ADNUG yesterday to speak about communicating domain models. While the talk was centered around the use of Object-Role Modeling (ORM) to accomplish this, I was really interested in hearing what others are doing in this area. One of the greatest things about our industry is the community that makes it possible. I’m a pretty big fan of the idea that there’s always a better way to do things and the idea of communicating models is something that seems to be neglected. It’s quite possible that I’m missing something huge that the community is doing. One of my goals for our talk last night was to start a dialog in this area.

Speaking at the Austin .NET User Group

jarnold — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:58:07 +0000

The ProAce team is heading to the Austin .NET User Group this evening to speak about Communicating Domain Models using Object-Role Modeling (ORM). We'll be presenting a culmination of our recent blog posts and will also dive into some of the details of using ORM.

External Uniqueness Constraints

Mike Weinand — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:12:08 +0000

External uniqueness constraints are very closely related to internal uniqueness constraints. The difference is external uniqueness constraints span multiple roles instead of just one. Since the concept isn’t too big of a stretch we’re going…

Mandatory Role Constraints

Rex Morgan — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:15:47 +0000

The Mandatory role constraint is used in ORM as a way to model that an entity is required to play a role in a particular fact.

For a quick example, this is what a fact looks like with no mandatory…

Technology to fit your business; not the other way around

Pedram Salek — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:08:43 +0000

Thanks to the recent advances in information technology, rich internet applications, mobile technologies, etc. businesses can now be exponentially more productive and enjoy tremendous marketing opportunities if they can identify and develop the right technology solution that best fits their…

Internal Uniqueness Constraints

Mike Weinand — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:47:54 +0000

The simplest and most commonly used constraint in ORM is the internal uniqueness constraint. This constraint basically specifies a one-to-many relationship on a role. The easiest way to show this is through an example. Let's use the following fact:The Student with ID 1 has Name 'Bob'

ORM Basics: Entities, Values, Roles, and Facts

Jarrod Peace — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:38:40 +0000

Object-role modeling is a fantastic tool that allows one to construct incredibly rich and complex information models. Because of this, it can be difficult to identify a starting point to jump in and begin learning ORM. At ProAce, we feel that identifying the primitive building blocks and working our way up is the natural way to begin teaching any new technique. For ORM, these building blocks are the fundamental types: entities, values, roles and facts.

Object-Role Modeling kickoff

jarnold — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:03:10 +0000

Our team has been having some great discussions on Object-Role Modeling this month and I really like the topics that we’ve covered. While ORM is a pivotal part of our internal process, it’s been very interesting to discuss how/when/where/why we actually use it. More importantly, discussing the pros/cons has been really enlightening to identify some of our inefficiencies and brainstorm over ways to help improve our process.

ProAce is hiring a software developer

jarnold — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:17:42 +0000

We are currently looking for a well-rounded software developer that is passionate about his/her craft with C# and web development experience. Candidates should have experience working in team environments and have a firm understanding of S.O.L.I.D. principles. While not required, experience with testing and participation in the development community is a plus.

Unique Constraints on Nullable Columns in SQL Server 2008

Mike Weinand — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:26:10 +0000

In earlier versions of SQL Server when you created a unique constraint on a nullable column, NULL would count as a value and you would only be able to use NULL once. The workaround for this was to create a trigger that enforced uniqueness for only the non-null values, but that is not necessarily an ideal solution. Luckily there is a cleaner solution offered in SQL Server 2008 that is also very flexible.