Hey Frans,

while doing some comparison work on the availabale Mappers,

I found out that you should significantly raise the price (~300%) and definiately lower if not stop your forum support to make your product more comparable!

EntitySpaces + Mygeneration ~ 399$

DeKlarit ~ 899$

TierDeveloper ~ 1495$

eXpress Persistent Objects with source code ~ 199,99$

NetTiers + Codesmith 3.2 ~ 399$ + SDK 2499$

Please please please gime more about V2!!!!

adrianporger wrote:

Hey Frans,

while doing some comparison work on the availabale Mappers,

I found out that you should significantly raise the price (~300%) and definiately lower if not stop your forum support to make your product more comparable!

EntitySpaces + Mygeneration ~ 399$

DeKlarit ~ 899$

TierDeveloper ~ 1495$

eXpress Persistent Objects with source code ~ 199,99$

NetTiers + Codesmith 3.2 ~ 399$ + SDK 2499$

Please please please gime more about V2!!!!

Within a few weeks I hope

We're moving from a per-department license to a per-developer license (designer user license), which will make llblgen pro more expensive than it is now, but not that much in the long run . Btw, NetTiers... what's that? 2499$ for the SDK? They really want their users to extend their work! .

V2 will have a lot of new features in the generated code and runtime, not that much in the designer (except a new generator setup / configuration system which will open the ability to extend the framework very easily) and I'm pretty confident it will be a big step forward in O/R mapper land.

I really wonder who even considers tierdeveloper with that price. I mean, it's not as if it's the best tool on the market.

the SDK is for CodeSmith though.. but I had to consider it cause of the SDk you deliver...

All the best !

and do not sit in front of a monitor on such a sunny day !

Adrian

adrianporger wrote:

the SDK is for CodeSmith though.. but I had to consider it cause of the SDk you deliver...

Whoa, an SDK for a code generator costs 2499... really weird marketing strategy .

All the best !

Thanks . I hope what I'll deliver is worth the wait

and do not sit in front of a monitor on such a sunny day ! Adrian

Indeed! though at the moment here the rain slams against the windows so I'm glad I'm on the good side of the roof .

Btw, NetTiers... what's that?

Its a codesmith template set that generates a DAL for you. Whats funny is that i actually started them, the templates that is.

Then i bought llblgen since i figured that your product was worth the $$$. Some other developers then continued on where i left off. They have done a good job with them

Answer wrote:

Btw, NetTiers... what's that?

Its a codesmith template set that generates a DAL for you. Whats funny is that i actually started them, the templates that is.

Then i bought llblgen since i figured that your product was worth the $$$. Some other developers then continued on where i left off. They have done a good job with them

Ah So your work is now sold for $$$, did you claim a share?

adrianporger wrote:

the SDK is for CodeSmith though.. but I had to consider it cause of the SDk you deliver...

You do NOT need the Codesmith SDK to use Codesmith. The SDK is only if you want to embed Codesmith into another application.

You would need the professional version ($399) for anyone authoring templates and the standard edition for anyone just running existing templates. So, if you were going with the Tier Developer templates, which are free, and just running them, then $99 for 1 dev would be all you need.

Actually, you can author templates without the pro version, but you would be doing it in a text editor. The pro version gives you an API, debugger, VS integration, etc.

Codesmith is an excelent tool. I have a license at my shop, we use it for a maryid of things.

BOb

Though what can codesmith do that llblgen pro can't do? Or do you mean: the template editor is better? (which it is, it's better than templatestudio)

Otis wrote:

Though what can codesmith do that llblgen pro can't do? Or do you mean: the template editor is better? (which it is, it's better than templatestudio)

It can run Codesmith templates. <G> There are dozens of templates available for Codesmith.

BOb

pilotboba wrote:

Otis wrote:

Though what can codesmith do that llblgen pro can't do? Or do you mean: the template editor is better? (which it is, it's better than templatestudio)

It can run Codesmith templates. <G> There are dozens of templates available for Codesmith. BOb

OK, though you can re-furbish these in a couple of seconds for llblgen pro's lpt engine.

t can run Codesmith templates. <G> There are dozens of templates available for Codesmith. BOb

Regular Smiley OK, though you can re-furbish these in a couple of seconds for llblgen pro's lpt engine. Wink

If you could run them "out of the box" you would, provide another reason for people to use llblgen. Like excel's ability to read and write 123 sheets back when 123 was king.

arschr wrote:

t can run Codesmith templates. <G> There are dozens of templates available for Codesmith. BOb

Regular Smiley OK, though you can re-furbish these in a couple of seconds for llblgen pro's lpt engine. Wink

If you could run them "out of the box" you would, provide another reason for people to use llblgen. Like excel's ability to read and write 123 sheets back when 123 was king.

That's not possible, without a conversion, because they use different template directives, like assembly references and the like. It doesn't seem that hard to convert them though, I could write a converter for that.

Otis wrote:

OK, though you can re-furbish these in a couple of seconds for llblgen pro's lpt engine.

Why bother since most of the templates still run in the free 2.6 version? I actually emailed Eric Smith when he released 3.0 (we had licensed the 2.6 pro version to develop scripts with) that [I thought] it was a mistake to charge for the version that could only run templates. I feel that it got so popular due to the fact that you could d/l the free version to run all the scripts out there.

Of course, it is his product and his business model.

It seems to me though, that now that he has done this you hear more and more about MyGeneration which has remained free as it has been enhanced and upgraded.

BOb

pilotboba wrote:

Otis wrote:

OK, though you can re-furbish these in a couple of seconds for llblgen pro's lpt engine.

Why bother since most of the templates still run in the free 2.6 version? I actually emailed Eric Smith when he released 3.0 (we had licensed the 2.6 pro version to develop scripts with) that [I thought] it was a mistake to charge for the version that could only run templates. I feel that it got so popular due to the fact that you could d/l the free version to run all the scripts out there.

I also didn't understand that, perhaps he wanted to get a few $$$ out of the popularity of his application.

Though it will be over for him within a year, when DSL tools come to vs.net and MS's own <% %> based code generator engine.

Of course, it is his product and his business model.

It seems to me though, that now that he has done this you hear more and more about MyGeneration which has remained free as it has been enhanced and upgraded.

Though mygeneration never got the hype codesmith got. Perhaps that will come, but I doubt it, telligent is still a powerful force for codesmith. What I missed with codesmith 3.0 was a unique selling point, like a powerful framework with which you get the generator for 'free' for example.

Though it will be over for him within a year, when DSL tools come to vs.net and MS's own <% %> based code generator engine.

I missed the news on that. Of what do you speak?

Anyone here had a look at http://www.strataframe.net/ ? (And first off all I'm interested in Frans' view on this product )

$1,295.00 !!!!

swallace wrote:

Though it will be over for him within a year, when DSL tools come to vs.net and MS's own <% %> based code generator engine.

I missed the news on that. Of what do you speak?

DSL tools are now still in CTP form available, it's a toolkit to create fancy designers ala the class designer in vs.net and use code generation using templates with <% %> syntaxis. They planned for a release this spring but postponed it a bit. It's very cool stuff, too bad MS doesn't realize that.

BertS wrote:

Anyone here had a look at http://www.strataframe.net/ ? (And first off all I'm interested in Frans' view on this product )

Heh, I hope you don't mind I won't comment on all the competitors here . It looks like a whole framework for apps, I'm not sure it's flexible enough to be used in an app which doesn't follow their app design.

Otis wrote:

BertS wrote:

Anyone here had a look at http://www.strataframe.net/ ? (And first off all I'm interested in Frans' view on this product )

Heh, I hope you don't mind I won't comment on all the competitors here . It looks like a whole framework for apps, I'm not sure it's flexible enough to be used in an app which doesn't follow their app design.

Hi Frans, Indeed it's a solution that requires their design-approach. Seems to be good when having only data-entry-apps, but they don't show anything about reporting.

I asked it, because it's a product I'd never heard off. Most of the other products mentioned in this topic are well-known.

@adrian: it's more than we've to pay voor LLBLGen, but it can be really timesaving. There will be programmers that can save that price many times on their work, so it's not that much. They also will have fewer customers, because of the design-specific approach.

Conclusion: Ok, LLBLGen Pro is the best, because it saves much time, helps creating a maintainable application and is very, very flexible

I agree that the initial price you've to pay can be well worth it in the long run. As a well known speaker/author once told me: "I could have sold llblgen pro for 2000$ per developer if I wanted to, big companies think different: the app creates code which costs x developers y hours of work, so if the application is cheaper than that it's a bargain, also because the code is tested"

And I fully agree.

Ok, LLBLGen Pro is the best, because it saves much time, helps creating a maintainable application and is very, very flexible

heh I think a 'do it all' application isn't the right way in a lot of scenario's. For starters because it focusses on a general purpose approach and therefore isn't focussing on a subset of the application logic, so always will have less flexibility and features than an application which does focuss on a subset, but at the same time focusses on doing that subset extremely well .

To come back to the mentioned CodeSmith converter...

Frans do you think it wouldn't be that much work?

I would definitely appreciate such a tool cause there are in deed many "interesting" templates for codesmith out there..

I know it is the opposite of what you said but have you ever thought of the idea of a template generating entity userwebforms? (maybe there is one out there??) I mean databinding collections too grids is cool but when it comes to entity editing you have to provide a edit/input (web)form with datavalidation etc. I saw a lot of templates for the competitors which address this and generate these "parts" in form of .acsx web user forms.

By the way I would buy you product if it costs 2000$!

Adrian

adrianporger wrote:

To come back to the mentioned CodeSmith converter...

Frans do you think it wouldn't be that much work?

I would definitely appreciate such a tool cause there are in deed many "interesting" templates for codesmith out there..

It's not the templates I now realize. It's the meta-data. Code generation's holy grail is the meta-data. If the meta-data sucks, you won't get good results with code generation. Meta data comes in a given format.

if I have a codesmith template, I can refurbish the template for the references etc. but the code which accesses codesmith meta-data (e.g. db schema info) is useless, it has to be ported to the format in which llblgen pro provides its meta-data.

I know it is the opposite of what you said but have you ever thought of the idea of a template generating entity userwebforms? (maybe there is one out there??) I mean databinding collections too grids is cool but when it comes to entity editing you have to provide a edit/input (web)form with datavalidation etc. I saw a lot of templates for the competitors which address this and generate these "parts" in form of .acsx web user forms.

We realized that the current code generator setup was powerful but also limited. So we re-designed it for v2 to be way more flexible. We planned to release our gui templates slightly after v2 is released, for the new template system, which is much easier to use for users than the current system (as in: drop the files in a folder and go, no more 'select this special template set and generator config' stuff.

By the way I would buy you product if it costs 2000$! Adrian

Well, you are free to pay more of course