I would like to see some kind of object model in Servoy such as:
actual database (Sybase, etc.)
||
database layer (Servoy dataproviders)
||
object model layer (this would be new)
||
user interface layer (Servoy layouts)
This would allow the binding of your layouts to your object model instead of directly to your database layer.
It would allow binding a list view to a list of objects in your object model such as: customer.phonenumbers. And data fields directly to object properties (like get???() methods in Java or properties in C#) such as customer.firstName.
Value lists could be bound to lists of objects.
Calculations would be replaced by object methods or properties.
The current Servoy system of tables, relationships, calculations and table methods is a very disjointed way of presenting some aspects of an object model. A true object model would be much easier to work with and also encapsulate code in an organized manner.
Object code could perform validation and could also present edit and formatting masks and/or allow binding not just of object properties (to get the data) but also of edit and formatting masks.
To get some idea of what object models are all about, please see:
http://www.service-architecture.com/database/articles/object_model_concepts.html
and
http://www.db4o.com/about/productinformation/whitepapers/
I hope this feature request starts a discussion!
Thanks!