WebSphere Portlet Factory

Builders

At the core of the IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory Designer are software automation components called Builders. These Builders capture design intelligence and automate the creation of code. Similar to customizable robots in an assembly line, Builders perform specific automation tasks, based upon inputs or parameters specified by developers. WebSphere Portlet Factory ships with over 165 Builders that automate a wide range of tasks, such as creating HTML from a schema or integrating with common back-end systems (like IBM Lotus Domino, SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft, Web Services, JDBC-compliant databases, etc.).

Builders have easy-to-use, wizard-like user interfaces, which speed development, thereby masking the complexities of the underlying Java™ Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE) or portal APIs, as well as produce portlets that are SOA compliant. As a result, Builders increase developer productivity, reduce coding errors, and improve code quality.

Behind the scenes, a Builder is made up of a Java class that performs the appropriate automation task (like creating the JSP for the button) and an XML document that defines the Builder's characteristics. Since Builders are based on an open, extensible architecture, developers can easily create their own Builders to automate custom design patterns or to enforce compliance to company architectural and coding standards.

Benefits of Builders

• Builders take care of the repetitive programming tasks that developers typically do and re-do by hand, such as wiring up data to presentation. The net result is that Builders free developers from mundane programming tasks, allowing them to focus on tackling the hard problems that are of more business value to the organization.

• Builders help ensure the consistency and quality of the code, dramatically reducing the need for code reviews. In addition, Builders help make sure that programmer's don't make the type of errors that can sometimes take hours to track down.

• Builders can enhance developer's productivity because they automate complex programming tasks and can be reused across applications.

• Builders help shield developers from the pain of making changes to applications. For instance, a change made to one Builder can ripple throughout an entire application and set of related applications.

• Through Builders, architects and senior developers can enforce compliance to company architectural and coding standards.

• Builders enable iterative development, enabling developers to quickly and easily react to changing business and technical requirements.

• By creating Builders, Java developers can encapsulate and automate commonly used design patterns, best practices, and business processes. Less experienced developers can then more easily utilize these Builders to create standards-compliant applications and portlets. Builders thus help reduce the skill level needed to create robust applications.

In short, by leveraging Builders, both the developers and the companies they work for reap dramatic benefits, such as increased productivity, higher quality code, and the ability to quickly react to change.