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 look cooler. Since its creation, my desire to use Business Rules was always followed by disappointment. It would rarely fill 100% of 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 make me sad because a developper is looking for robustness and durability. So, as a good community member, I decided to expose this feature, hoping 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, BR changes are hard to track. At least, TFS keeps an history.
• I can’t switch to the old UI.

It’s still useful 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 developers 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 doing a calculation).
• Components should have different shapes depending on the task (like in Flowcharts, conditions should be diamond shaped).

What do you think?