What is it ?
Dynamic Binding is one of the unique technologies that have been developed by Stamina Software as an integral component of our Advanced Programming Toolkit (ZAPT! 4GL). It allows our software products to be modified without changing a single line of computer source code.

What does that mean to me ?
One of the dilemmas you face when installing a comprehensive Management Information System is "should I opt for an off the shelf product or have software tailor written ?"

With an off the shelf solution you gain the benefit of ongoing product research and development, but the products tend to be inflexible. A tailor written product behaves exactly the way that you want it to, but the development costs can be prohibitive.

Traditionally the best option for some organisations has been to acquire source code for an existing product that was a close fit for their requirements, and use this as a starting point for customising the software. This can greatly reduce development costs, but can also make it virtually impossible to install any upgrades to the base/starter product, so any ongoing R&D must be funded internally.

Dynamic Binding bridges this gap by allowing you to customise our off the shelf software solutions without changing a single line of source code in the underlying product. The result is that you can get the best of both worlds - a solution that behaves like a customised/tailor written software product, while still being able to obtain the ongoing benefits of an off the shelf solution.

How does it work ?
The concept behind dynamic binding is total simplicity - provided you have designed your product from the ground up with this design goal in mind that is !

Our software is written to utilise a powerful relational database management system (RDBMS), which is fully exploited by our advanced programming tools (ZAPT! 4GL).

When a process is defined, we store key information about the process screen within the database itself. As this information is stored within a database it can be manipulated, in much the same way that you can change the address or telephone number for one of your customers.

This process database allows you to associate special rules with individual fields within a screen, and also for key processing points such as after a record is retrieved or updated or on initial entry.

These rules can range from a simple calculation to provide an intelligent default, through to something as complex as running any number of related processes if a certain set of conditions is met, where these related processes may themselves be something that has been developed as a special one-off addition.

A running process automatically detects if a special rule should be applied from this process database and performs the desired action.

If a new version of the core product is installed it does not change the local process database, so your special rules will still be applied under the same conditions in to the new version of the program.