EGL can simplify application modernization, development, for Web 2.0 (Book excerpt)

This free book excerpt is from Enterprise Web 2.0 with EGL, by Ben Margolis. Read this excerpt to understand the scope of EGL, including its uses, supported technologies, and functional capabilities. Read the free book excerpt here.

EGL (Enterprise Generation Language) is a high level programming language designed to simplify the creation of business software by shielding a developer from the complexity of middleware. With EGL, a user can access and orchestrate existing code to create new services, enterprise mashups, and rich internet applications (RIAs) with only a limited background in computer science.

Ben Margolis, who has spent many years helping to create EGL, recently wrote Enterprise Web 2.0 with EGL, a guide for getting started with and using EGL. He affirmed EGL's ease of use. "Someone needs as little as a semester or two of computer science to use EGL," said Margolis. "It's designed to allow someone to go from zero to sixty pretty quickly."

EGL has several features that facilitate modernization. According to Margolis, EGL allows modernization with or without changing a pre-existing program. An EGL service can be created that calls a preexisting program, and exposes the program logic to users. Alternatively, a programmer can port legacy code to EGL. "An application coded in EGL is likely to have greater longevity," said Margolis.

EGL has a decades long history, and now is used by hundreds of companies. In the near future, IBM will release a free EGL tool, EGL Community Edition. "The intended users are Web-application developers, Web-service developers, and students," said Margolis. "An idea of Enterprise Web 2.0 with EGLis that we can use EGL to train many people in enterprise computing."