Once you have developed an application system, you have four alternative approaches to using it.

1. You can choose not to compile any part of the application.

You can compile the programs at any time during the development of your application. We recommend, however, that you test and debug all programs fully before compiling them, as testing and debugging are most easily undertaken when executing interpretively.

2. You can choose to compile only certain critical programs.

If you choose to compile only those application programs that are used frequently or that require considerable processing time, the performance of your application improves.  You can still modify the application easily –  non-compiled programs can be modified without being re-compiled. The resulting application could be run on the Development system or the Professional Runtime system.

3. You can choose to compile the entire application.

This alternative gives you better system performance than alternative two. It also prevents unauthorized alteration of the programs that control the application. Application users are still able to formulate ad hoc queries and reports. Application users with a Development system can add their own documents (including additional programs), entity sets, relationships, and so on, to the application, because all application development features are present (see Deploying a Zim Application for further details on which files you can make available to users).