This is a refresh of an old blog post. The more I look at Oslo and contrast it with what I have been working on I’m trying to verify that NBusiness isn’t actually redundant or made obsolete by Oslo. Obviously the two will be competitors, but what I’m trying to figure out is what actually is the difference between the two and more importantly why is NBusiness the more correct solution to the problem?
I would like to start out by saying that Oslo and NBusiness are both DSLs and core to any DSL is the transformation of the metadata into more concrete code, be that a less abstract DSL, actual executable code or something else entirely. So what I’m calling Code Generation is essentially that transformation process. Additionally what used to be called an “intermediate format” I’m now simply calling Metadata. To me, in this context, metadata is simply the name for the actual DSL declaration for a given application.
So here are those rules again, to be reframed into the context of Oslo and how I feel it may violate those rules.
1. Code generation is controlled through modifiable templates.
Translation of your metadata into another form should never be done through a black box. I’m not entirely sure how customizable the SQL generation of Oslo is but from what I understand it’s pretty opaque. In fact the entire system of translating MGraph into another form should be completely transparent and built such that it is very easy to be shaped into any form. If anyone can explain to me how Oslo translates M into sql and show me how I can do it myself, and alter the SQL that is generated then I’ll be happy to change my mind on this one but it feels rather opaque to me at this moment.
2. Code generation is done during the build process.
I would like to add an amendment to this one and specify that code generation can also legitimately be done dynamically as well. So the new rule could be more accurately changed to “Intermediate forms of metadata should never be persisted”. Not that you couldn’t write it out to temp folders but the point is that the integration of a DSL into an application should be seamless, you shouldn’t have to have multiple manual steps to get it all integrated. Whether this is done at runtime or at build time is irrelevant. Presumably the many command line apps that come with Oslo in order to transform your DSL into something that goes into the repository will be streamlined but this is the sort of thing that should be avoided.
3. Code generation is done from an intermediate format.
I would like to amend this rule to instead be “Metadata must have a single source of truth.” I think that Oslo has a pretty good system for the intermediate format (M) but it doesn’t follow the single source of truth rule. M is simply translated into the Repository, which is the real source of truth but is not necessarily synchronized in the reverse with the original M code (as far as I know at least).
To me Oslo violates this rule simply by the existence of the Repository. The repository is essentially a “second source of truth” and can be edited from multiple sources. To me the DSLs should be the single source of truth and the repository should be essentially a temp file or part of the output of the build. Editing the repository should simply be a matter of editing your entities.
4. The intermediate format is under source control with versioning.
I would like to amend this rule also to specify that only deltas must be part of each revision. So maybe this rule could be simply changed to “The metadata declaration must be versionable and mergable”. Which, usually means that your DSL needs to be textual. I would be willing to buy into a binary format for metadata but only if it had the ability to be versioned with my preferred source control system as deltas not just a giant binary blob and as long as it didn’t break any of the above rules in the process.
5. The code generation templates are also under source control.
This is to place the same constraints on the transformation system as the metadata itself. This will usually translate into the idea that your templates should also be textual. Again, if you want it to be some binary format then there needs to be ways to allow source control tools to persist only deltas. So this rule could be changed to be “The transformation templates must be versionable and mergable”.
Summary
Here is a summary of these revised rules:
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Metadata transformation is controlled through modifiable templates.
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Intermediate forms of metadata should never be persisted.
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Metadata must have a single source of truth.
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The metadata must be versionable and mergable.
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The transformation templates must be versionable and mergable.
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