Editing ICL VME (section)

===QuickBuild===
The QuickBuild application development environment on VME has been highly successful despite the fact that applications are largely locked into the VME environment. This environment is centred on the Data Dictionary System (DDS, also called OpenDDS), an early and very successful attempt to build a comprehensive [[software repository|repository]] supporting all the other tools, with full support for the development lifecycle. As well as database schemas and file and record descriptions, the dictionary keeps track of objects such as reports and queries, screen designs, and 4GL code; it also supports a variety of models at the requirements capture level, such as [[entity-relationship]] models and process models.

The QuickBuild 4GL is packaged in two forms: 
* ApplicationMaster for the creation of online TP applications
* ReportMaster for batch reporting.

Both are high-level declarative languages, using [[Jackson Structured Programming]] as their design paradigm. ApplicationMaster is unusual in its approach to application design in that it focuses on the user session as if it were running in a single conversational process, completely hiding the complexity of maintaining state across user interactions. Because the 4GL and other tools such as the screen designer work only with the DDS dictionary, which also holds the database schemas, there is considerable reuse of metadata that is rarely achieved with other 4GLs.