DEV Community: 1CDevNetTeam

Business Software Development from Scratch: traditional development vs. 1C:Enterprise

1CDevNetTeam — Thu, 24 Dec 2020 10:50:09 +0000

1C has been producing business solutions for roughly 30 years. In that time, the company's solutions have evolved from simple accounting and reporting programs to complex multi-user ERP systems. To improve its productivity and arm clients and partners with an effective tool for creating and customizing business solutions, 1C wrote its own platform 1C:Enterprise.

The platform includes a development environment, a runtime, and support and administration tools. The 1C platform proved its effectiveness by becoming one of the leading development platforms for business applications in the CIS region. The platform has been used to create more than 1300 COTS corporate solutions and an abundance of custom-made solutions, implemented in over 30 countries.

Let's look at the principal differences between the 1C platform and traditional methods when it comes to software development. Take this typical business task, for instance: your back-office system needs to be able to accept and process a new type of document, such as production orders.

Learn more about new methods and technologies in our blog

Build or buy your back-office software—is there a happy medium?

1CDevNetTeam — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 09:43:46 +0000

Picking the right software is key for a changing business. The first step is choosing the implementation model — build or buy.

How to choose the model right for you, and minimize its risks? – check out our latest blog!

Selecting Programming Languages Depending on the Task

1CDevNetTeam — Fri, 29 May 2020 08:45:52 +0000

Friends, let us bring to your attention the publication by an experienced 1C developer on Selecting Programming Languages Depending on the Task.

Learn how to navigate in a variety of programming languages from low-level to domain-specific ones.

Find out about the role and place of 1C in the full spectrum of programming languages.

Here is a full text of the topic

Low-code For Payroll Software Development

1CDevNetTeam — Fri, 15 May 2020 08:25:39 +0000

The payroll system is often the most complicated piece of software in a company. Its complexity is due to the periodic calculations that distinguish payroll from other business application tasks. It is periodic calculations that make it challenging to build payroll software without low-level programming. Nevertheless, it is possible to accelerate the development of such applications significantly.

Low-code Limits Customization Flexibility: Myth or Reality?

1CDevNetTeam — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 09:16:45 +0000

It’s not controversial to say that low-code has become a trend in the development of turnkey solutions for business.
However, low-code is not traditionally the first choice for developing systems that handle complex business tasks. One of the main drawbacks associated with low-code development is the limited functionality of applications created.
Often platforms do not provide an easy way to add custom code.

In this article, we will discuss if a low-code platform could be flexible enough to describe the logic of really sophisticated business processes.

What do you know about 1C?

1CDevNetTeam — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 11:29:21 +0000

This article for those who are not yet familiar with 1C software products. It describes the capabilities of the 1C technological platform and where this platform fits in among similar software products.

What does 1C produce?

I think the first thing the general public associates with us is the popular game series IL-2 Sturmovik. However, the 1C product range extends far beyond this series.

There's a system of applications called 1C:Enterprise that includes business application development tools and applications created with them. The 1C development tools using to develop some accounting applications, as well as CRM, ERP (tens of thousands of user deployments), and much more.

ERP systems are the most exciting and functionally equipped business applications, so let's explore these to see how 1C:Enterprise technologies compare with competitors'.

Existing types of ERP

What is the most valuable feature of any ERP system (and any business application)? Flexibility, that is, the capability to adapt to end-user business processes with minimal effort.

It is impossible to foresee all types of business processes when programming an ERP system. That's when parametrization is of great help; by enabling the parameters that may be changed by a user (advisor, or administrator) in the system options, we can easily increase its flexibility. The first ERP systems were parameter-driven, i.e. they were configured using parameters.

However, parametrized systems alone are insufficient to accommodate all business cases. When changing system parameters is not enough, you need to change the source code. That's when an ERP supplier needs to decide whether to change the code on its own and to release updates, taking into account the needs of the customer, or to supply the system with the source code for users to be able to rewrite the system as per their needs. The second option does not free the supplier from the need to release updates, as the system needs to develop and support new features in order to be competitive.

Another important question is the choice of a programming language for an ERP system. The major part of an ERP system is the business logic, for which regular programming languages (like C++) don't always fit well. Ideally, the business logic will be programmed in some high-level language to provide maximum comfort to the business application developer during the business logic development process. This allows the developer to move away from low-level details (peculiarities of working with databases, file input/output and print subsystems, tabbed UI subsystem, etc.). Of course, one would need to create a compiler/interpreter for the language and the development environment.

The full version of this article you can find here

Business application development: Low-code approach

1CDevNetTeam — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:27:01 +0000

Two things are true of business software systems. The first is that they need to be customized to work with a given company's existing processes and infrastructure. The second is that they needed to be ready yesterday. Or, depending on how long the seemingly disruptive process of upgrading and switching over has been put off, last year.
The takeaway is that business application development tools need to be fast, flexible, and, if we're willing to admit the third truth – cheap. High performance, scalability, user-friendliness are all critical. Modern corporate systems need to be able to work in different environments, support companies of any size, and be able to change on the fly. However, the best business software in the world is no good if you fail to deliver as per contract.
Thus, the best application development tools are those that can build robust software, tweak it to match the client's structure and workflow, and, most importantly for the developers, get it finished/integrated/deployed on time and under budget. Which brings us to low-code development tools? To meet the above criteria, the development of the system moves away from manual coding in the direction of building individual solutions from ready-made blocks and toolsets.

In the report of "New Development Platforms Emerge For Customer-Facing Applications", Forrester Research first introduced the term low-code to describe the category of "new app-delivery thinking." Gartner also used this term for reports and forecasts regarding the evolution of business application development.

"By 2020, 75% of all IT business solutions will be custom-built.

By 2024, low-code application development will be responsible for more than 65% of application development activity."

Gartner, Forecast Analysis: Enterprise Application Software, Worldwide

Low-code development is not new. The term is, in many ways, a new name for rapid application development (RAD) tools first introduced in the 1980s. These tools were introduced as alternatives to traditional text-based development platforms. Previous RAD tools focused on quick, iterative development methods over traditional waterfall techniques, thus reducing overall developer skill requirements in exchange for constrained functionality, user experience, and efficiency. RAD tools evolved quickly and concurrently with other innovations of the times, e.g. integrated development environments (IDEs), graphical user interfaces (GUIs), networks, and client/server architectures. In particular, previous RAD tools implemented visual drag-and-drop mechanics, graphical data and behaviour models, prescriptive architectural frameworks, and templated components. RAD features spread quickly among virtually all distributed development platforms.

The best low-code development platforms incorporate vital low-code development tools right into the platform. Form templates, tool creation wizards, automatic database integration and table generation, allow developers to focus on business logic instead of code. Using a domain-driven design approach, drag-and-drop interfaces, and the ability to use familiar IDEs, developers have everything they need, literally right at their fingertips. Conversely, the wiser low-code platform vendors recognize that developers often have own tools, such as large integration libraries, connectors, or customizable templates. It allows developers to integrate many third-party tools into their low-code platforms.

To create business applications and enterprise solutions, 1C has created the 1C:Enterprise platform.

1C:Enterprise isn't just a framework for quickly creating code and databases. Its capabilities are much broader.
It is effortless to build a solution from scratch because of the basic functionality of accounting systems implemented using integrated objects. A well-thought-out system of integrated objects makes 1C:Enterprise a powerful business application development tool. Developers do not have to create a data access layer, a basic UI, etc. Instead, they can get straight to solving business tasks. Many tools for dealing with these business tasks have been implemented in integrated objects (basic libraries), including support for hierarchical registers, accounting machines for basic and stock accounting, mechanisms for complex regular payrolls, and much more.

Developers receive integrated objects (registers, documents, ledgers, etc.) out of the box, implemented by the platform, like basic accounting patterns. These patterns implemented in the application (known as a "configuration" in 1C parlance) by populating them with specific business logic.

We asked our community why they chose the 1C:Enterprise platform for developing business applications, and the most popular answers were fast development speed and a low learning curve:

The low barrier of entry for new developers is provided by 1C's low-code development environment, which uses straightforward visual editing for a wide range of development cases.

Let's consider a typical business task: we need for our system to support and process a new type of document in the system – a work order, for instance. A system written in a "standard" code-heavy development environment would require the developer to do the following:

Create tables in the database to store information about the document.
Create a class (or classes) to implement the business logic for working with the document. Besides business logic, these classes must also enable communication with the database to read and write the document's data.
Create a user interface for editing the new document type. Frequently, this also means having to create a form to display the document list, with enabled field search, etc.

In 1С, you describe the fields of the new document in a visual designer and write code to implement the business logic specific to the document (for instance, what accounts to debit/credit with the money tracked in the document). The platform takes care of everything else that's needed for the new document type of functioning in the system.

Software development platforms need to enable developers to move away from low-level details (OS peculiarities, database management systems, etc.) and instead focus on pure business logic. Development platforms can take that one step further by including automated system administration tools and web/mobile porting mechanisms.

Why is application development using the 1C platform faster?

High-speed development for enterprise enabled by a predetermined data structure-oriented toward performing business tasks. All code-based development in the 1C:Enterprise platform using a high-level domain-specific language in a conceptual model that closely approximates business processes.

This approach deliberately limits application developers by having them select the needed object type from a reasonably limited range for integrated kinds to solve their tasks. As a trade-off, the developer receives rich functionality implemented by the platform and genuinely rapid development. The advantages of this approach are apparent: developing accounting systems in 1C is quick and easy.

How real is this?

Find out for yourself: here is our rapid development demonstration which shows you how to develop, in 30 minutes, a simple accounting solution that will function identically on all major desktop operating systems and mobile devices.