Month Year Issue

April 1998 Issue: 1

Journal of Conceptual Modeling
www.inconcept.com/jcm

Editor's Notes: Welcome!
by Scot A. Becker

Welcome!

Welcome to the premiere issue of the Journal of Conceptual Modeling! Please allow me to introduce myself: I am Scot Becker, a Principal Consultant for InConcept and editor of this journal.

As you will probably be able to tell, we are still playing around with the format and delivery of this journal, but we wanted to get content out right away, so some of the edges may be a bit rough yet. As always, we would appreciate any feedback you could give on this journal.

This is the "From the Editor" section. I'll use this area to rant about things, ask for help, talk about some news items, and promote some things now and then. I'll also provide a synopsis of each issue (see that last section below). I've got a lot to cover for this issue, so this edition may be a bit longer than normal.

And Now A Word From Our Sponsor…

This journal is sponsored by InConcept so that it will remain a free resource to our readers.

On behalf of InConcept, I would like to thank everyone who took the time to write an article for this premiere issue, and we look forward to your future submissions. This journal is a great place for modeling professionals to exchange ideas and we are proud to be a part of it. And we do mean "a part"; without submissions from other talented professionals, we don't really have a journal. We hope our readers gain valuable information from this medium, and we hope you will be inspired to contribute as well.

Thank you in advance!

A Call For Articles

We are always looking for quality content. Would you like to contribute to the Journal? If so, please check out our author's information area.

A Few News Items

Visio Acquires InfoModelers, Inc.: In case you've just tuned in, Visio has acquired InfoModelers, Inc., maker of the ORM CASE tool InfoModeler. Most regular users of InfoModeler would probably agree with me in saying that while we are slightly nervous when such a change happens, we also feel this is a great opportunity to "spread the gospel", so to speak. Personally, I look forward to the increased market share, increased marketing dollar, and, hopefully, and increase in the drive to make enhancements while keeping the price much lower than previous versions.
Workshop Announcement: Sharp Infomatics is hosting a Natural Language Modeling seminar at the end of April. John Sharp shows us a bit about NLM in this issue, and you can find a link to the seminar information at the end of his article.
1998 Visio Solutions Conference: Check out the Visio website to find more information about this conference held May 11^th to the 13^th. Your friends at InConcept will be there. In fact, we are even hosting a propaganda booth in the exhibitors area. If you go, stop by and introduce yourselves! Aside from the fact that we would be glad to meet fellow professionals, everyone who stops by our booth receives a business card and a piece of candy: absolutely free! <g> Mention this newsletter and receive two pieces of candy!

Check out the Forum!

Want to debate an article, ask a question, or maybe even answer one? Then check out the InConcept ORM forum!

Chat Online!

InConcept has a couple of chat areas set up on the internet that are available to the public to discuss issues presented in this journal or any other related topics. The first is a World Wide Web based chat engine. To participate, you'll need a modern browser (one that supports frames and Java) and not be behind a firewall. The second option is an IRC based chat area, which many Internet users are probably familiar with. This will require client software to connect to the chat server. More details and links to free chat software can be found at the following URL: http://www.inconcept.com/ormchat.html.

Please feel free to take advantage of these areas at any time. We will try to monitor both areas when we are online as well. I'm also thinking about having scheduled group chat times and possibly some sort of Q&A or lecture format as well. Any ideas for a "lecture" or any suggestions for good times to hold scheduled chats are welcome.

And now, the editorial. I plan on using this section in a few ways. First, it's a good spot to announce things, post reminders, talk about the latest news, and etc. Second, I'll use it as a preface to the issue in general (see the last section, below). And third, it's my personal soap box. This may just be a place for me to insert a rant or two. I'll try to keep it topical, however. However, please remember, of course, that any opinions expressed are solely my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I will most likely use this area to interject my dry (occasionally sarcastic) humor while making my point. Thus, I'm sure I'll get into trouble occasionally. I'm also open to discussion, and I am mature enough to admit it when I'm wrong. So, if you like to see people squirm, keep an eye on this section! (In honor of one of my favorite sarcastic pundits, John Dvorak, I will bold a few things here and there to annoy you while you read this article and make it impossible for you to just skim it.)

This issue would have been a good spot to inject a rant or two about the acquisition of my favorite CASE tool, InfoModeler. However, due to time constraints and the fact that Visio is remaining pretty tight-lipped about the acquisition and integration of InfoModeler technologies, I don't have much to rant about. I'll try though:

Rant One: I've had a few people contact me trying to get a hold of the evaluation edition of InfoModeler 3.1, which Visio has discontinued. I don't know why they did this, but I am hoping that they will continue to offer such an edition. If they fail to do this, a reasonable substitution would be a good, kiosk style, interactive demo showing all of the features. Really, this may even be a better idea. How many times have you downloaded an evaluation product only to glance at it? A good demo would show all the features and hopefully give the user a reason to buy the product. While I realize that many people already own Visio (which is much cheaper than the full version of InfoModeler was) thus mooting the point of an evaluation edition, I still think it will help accomplish rant two:

Rant Two: I'm not as concerned with selling the product as I am concerned with selling the method (ORM). I would think most people out there have at least seen Visio and thus could guess as to how you would connect an ORM object to a predicate, but ORM itself is still relatively unheard of. Spread the gospel, brothers and sisters! ORM is far superior to any other data modeling technique (Don't believe me? Import ERWin's sample data model into InfoModeler and see how many errors you get when you try to generate the logical model. Still use manual normalization? Model the famous "Puppy Farm" example in ORM and easily find the error). Hopefully, Visio's acquisition of InfoModeler will make it the best CASE tool on the market (why else would they acquire it?). Now, we just need to convince our clients/employers. InConcept has a kinda funny technique for doing this: A client wants the model done in some package, usually one other than InfoModeler. So, we use InfoModeler and ORM to generate the initial model, then import it to whatever tool they use. Close to the completion of the modeling process, the customer usually notices how complete the final ER implementation is. That's when we open the curtain and show them the real wizard. They usually get "converted", or, at least, seriously consider using ORM next time.

Rant Three: What will Visio do with ActiveQuery (a.k.a. ConQuer)? I can see the acquisition of InfoModeler and a few other tools being a stab at the CASE market, but I can't help but wonder what they will do with the conceptual query tool they inherited as well. I bet most of you have no idea what I am talking about, right? ActiveQuery was "released" right around the time of the acquisition. ActiveQuery used the ConQuer conceptual query language outlined in more than one paper by Drs. Halpin and Bloesch. This language uses your conceptual model to drive the (GUI) generation of a query. As a former DBA, I am very excited about this. I was constantly explaining joins and physical schemas to my users. ConQuer will allow me to only explain what the users should already know: the business. In navigating through the conceptual model, your users manipulate things they are familiar with (customers, products, people, etc.) and don't need to know about joins, nulls, where clauses, group by's, and etc. I also just found out that you get this "prototype tool" when you buy the Visio Preferred Customer Edition of InfoModeler. I beta tested this product before it's "release". While I found a few alarming bugs, I was nevertheless impressed. I hope this product doesn't get lost in the shuffle. Speaking of the Preferred Customer Edition....

Rant Four: Visio has released an interim version of InfoModeler, the Preferred Customer Edition, but I am told there are no significant changes to it other than some fixes. However, if you don't own InfoModeler or are currently sitting on a Personal Edition and want to upgrade to the enterprise edition (all the big database drivers, and little ones too) you may want to get a hold of this version, as it is a great bargain. Last I heard, the preferred version was around $500. Plus, you get a free (ahem...beta) copy of ActiveQuery.

Rant Five: Be heard! Some folks have expressed concern about the future of InfoModeler. While I feel trepidation is unnecessary at this point, I can see why some are nervous given Visio's stoic responses thus far. I maintain that if you are worried, then it is time to be heard. I personally witnessed this work a few times with Microsoft's Visual FoxPro. At a time when VFP developers were worried about the fate of their preferred development tool, they made themselves heard, and Microsoft changed their tune. Also, take the example of American politics: the majority rarely gets attention, it is the usually the minority opinioned express in a loud, obnoxious manner that makes the news. Now here's where I back-peddle, as I have friends in Seattle: I am not suggesting that you be obnoxious. I am suggesting that you contact those at Visio if you are worried or have questions. Therefore, if anyone at Visio is attacked by an angry mob, soiled with fake blood, beaten profusely with rolled up paper diagrams of conceptual schemas, or splattered with a cream pie, it ain't my fault! One more way to be heard: join in on our public InfoModeler wish list. We started this idea on the forum and I would be happy to collaborate everyone's thoughts into one document. If you want to share your thoughts on improvements, send me an e-mail.

Rant Six: If this issue is any indication of future issue, you will want to book mark this site and check it out every month! Further, if you know of anyone who may be interested in reading or contributing to this publication, please pass along the URL. We'll do a little bit of initial promotion, but we don't want to glut the various internet forums with regular reminders. Thus, we need you to help us spread the word!

And I thought I'd have nothing to rant about!

Preface

We have some outstanding content for our premiere issue. Dr. Anthony Bloesch was kind enough to supply us with a bunch of great InfoModeler tips, tricks and shortcuts. Pat Hallock will show us how our conceptual model doesn't need to change between relational mapping and Oracle's object database implementation. Dr. Terry Halpin wrote an excellent comparison between UML and ORM. I begin the first in a series of common data models. John M. Miller begins his regular column on beginning ORM and data modeling. And, Dr. John K. Sharp shows us an example of Natural Language Modeling.

Scot A. Becker is a software consultant and the founder of Orthogonal Software Corporation. He is also a certified ORM consultant and trainer, a certified Visio trainer, and former Editor of the Journal of Conceptual Modeling.

Contact Information:

Scot A. Becker
Orthogonal Software Corporation
scot@orthogonalsoftware.com
www.orthogonalsoftware.com