Why I don’t like using Business Rules

I usually avoid Business Rules. I admit the feature has potential but I was never impressed by it. It always felt like it was made in two weeks to make the next CRM looks cooler. Since it’s creation, my desire to use Business Rules was always followed by deception. It would rarely fill 100% my needs. And when it did, the next requirement made it obsolete. Sometimes, I would even end-up with 50% BR and 50% javascript. This would makes me sad because a developper is looking for robustness and durability. So, as a good community member, I decided to expose this feature. In hope, it would make it better.

Why I hate it

• The new UI is ugly and unpractical. The space is too narrow. The mini-map is useless.

• You can’t copy-paste multiple components. Once I had to build a if-else condition to disable 20+ fields. Not having the ability to copy-paste is annoying.
• Set Field Value is too limited and you can’t cast values. A toString is so simple. Why can’t I put a number into a string?!
• They don’t cascade. A BR cannot trigger another BR. Because it would be too much to manage I suppose.
• Components names are not automatically generated.
• Unlike Javascript, it’s hard to track changes. At least TFS keeps an history.
• I can’t switch to the old UI.

It’s still usefull in certain cases

• When the need is simple.
• When you don’t know javascript.
• When you don’t have the time.
• They are also applied in editable grids.

What would be nice

• BR should generate understandable pseudo-code javascript.
• That pseudo-code should be editable in advanced mode for developper like me.
• Copy-Paste with multiple components.
• Components should be customizable. I’d love to be able to create my own components. Simple pieces of javascripts that are using the SDK. Like getting a security role or do a calculation.
• Components should have different shapes depending on the task. Ex: Like in Flowcharts conditions should be diamond shapped.

What do you think?