FAQ

Do I need to learn programming for Alan?

Alan looks like code, but it lives on a different level than what you normally think of as programming. Instead of using abstract logic, you create data models that describes aspects of a particular domain as you can observe it. Alan does know decisions (e.g. you can describe that a mountain bike has gears but a fixie doesn’t), but you don’t have to express that in abstract algorithms.

If you’re not afraid of a deeply nested IF or a crafty VLOOKUP in Excel, Alan will definitely not scare you. In fact, we bet you’ll find it lots of fun.

It has characteristics that make it really suitable for something like a visual application builder, so who knows what the future brings here.

Can I change how a property is visualized?

The generated user interface reads the annotations (@...) in an application.alan file to decide how to render a property. The docs cover the possibilities in more detail.

If you want more control over the user interface, e.g. to create one for a specific work flow, you may want to create a custom client. Documentation about this is being worked on.

Can I set required permissions for certain properties?

Permissions are set on nodes, i.e. groups, entries and states. You can set read and update permissions to limit access to specific users, or users with a specific role.

Can I create 2-way many-to-many relations?

If you want to simply get a list of everything that has a reference to a certain object, you don’t have to model that explicitly. The client has a “usages” feature that automatically queries references in the opposite direction.

For computations based on references in the opposite direction, you need to specify bidirectional references.

Can I write SQL queries?

Alan’s datastore is not a relational database (it’s graph-based) that you can query using SQL. Don’t let that stop you though. Alan can interface with other databases, and you can create queries for Excel reports that you can download straight from the default user interface.

If you really need SQL, the datastore can expose a data stream that can be used to create an SQL mirror of the data in Alan’s datastore.

Can I connect to another system?

Alan datastore systems talk to each other via Alan interfaces. You can communicate with relational databases using the system type relational-database-bridge. You can interact with other systems over HTTP using the system type connector.

What does that versions.json do?

You’ll have noticed the versions.json at the root of your project. It defines a set of packages that should be compatible. Builds of version X are guaranteed to be based on the exact same language and configuration, but may contain bugfixes. We call these “major” versions.

The project.pkg also contains this versions list, to ensure that each next step uses the same major versions as your design.

Finally there is a “patch” level of versions (in semver-speak), for which we simply use incrementing build numbers. Alan’s core tool chain guarantees that at this level compatibility cannot be broken, so it’s always safe to use the latest builds.

What is the roadmap for Alan?

Alan is actively being used by Kjerner and Applicatiefabriek to build solutions for their customers. Using our experience developing these solutions, we are constantly extending and improving the Alan platform.

Long term plans include: