RAD Tools Help Solution Providers Build Apps Faster, Cheaper

Large businesses are blessed with strategic capabilities, such as training resources, in-house support, defined business processes and so on, which makes adapting to a new software application that much easier.

Small businesses are the polar opposite, typically relying on a solution provider to accomplish all of those tasks, and have to limit those support elements to keep costs down. That is where the opportunity exists for custom applications; if a solution provider can create an application that follows the in place business practices, then most of the costs associated with a typical deployment can be greatly reduced.

That said, cost is still a major factor. Solution providers will need to find a way to create applications quickly and without the usual time-intensive development process.

Luckily, Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools have evolved to meet those needs. RAD creates a coding environment where programmers can concentrate on the data processing flow, as opposed to writing code. The better RAD environments out there can leverage the WEB to make applications platform independent and easier to develop. Usually, all that a RAD tool lacks is interoperability with legacy systems and the ability to scale to very large environments (neither of which is generally a concern for a small business).

The challenge here for today&'s channel CTO is to select a RAD tool that meets both the needs of the developer and the customer. Several factors need to be considered right off the bat to guarantee success. First and foremost is cost, which consists of more than the product&'s initial purchase price. Key areas considered when determining cost include license fees, end user requirements, hardware and operating system needs, training, support, documentation and development speed. All of those elements affect the bottom line and have a direct impact on the total project cost to the customer.

The next factor to look at is how rapid the product promotes development. The best tools on the market offer database management tools along with data relationship, field indexes and “screen painting” technologies. The idea with those elements is to reduce the burden on the programmer by automating as much of the development process as possible. Demonstration and training applications associated with the product further helps to reduce the learning curve, as well as an on-line or on-demand technical support community. It is important to look for a product that offers scores of examples, simplified how-tos and other features to speed the development cycle. After all, the largest cost to the customer will be for development man hours, the more those hours can be reduced, the lower the overall cost to the customer.

Other factors that help with the selection process include cross-platform support, which drives the question of both Web enablement and operating system compatibility. Some of the products on the market offer a “publish directly to Web” feature, meaning all of the developed screens can be used via a a Web browser. Other products include a simplified Web development environment where programmers can readily create Web-compatible input pages using wizards. Another element to consider is reporting tools, the RAD system should incorporate the ability to generate end-user reports and create project related reports, along with self documenting capabilities. Internal documentation becomes increasingly important when more than one primary developer is involved with creating the application.

Channel CTOs also will want to evaluate the level to which some tools can be used, simpler RAD tools seem to hid dead ends much quicker than the more established products on the market. What this all comes down to is balancing development needs against overalls and selecting a tool to do the job.

With that in mind, the CRN Test Center set out to locate some RAD environments that can meet the needs of an integrator moving toward small business development projects. While the market is flooded with all sorts of programming and development tools, the requirements highlighted above helped to cull the herd. Two RAD databases stood out above the rest, FileMaker V8 and Alpha5 V7, both recently released and including new features that help to speed the development process, while reducing the learning curve. ALPHA5 VERSION 7
Released on Nov. 1, Alpha Software&'s Alpha5 Version 7 brings a comprehensive development environment to both beginners and advanced coders. Built around a rapid application development paradigm, the product brings together all of the features that most any software developer would need.

Included is a programming language, advanced scripting, macro creation, integrated security, quick-start wizards and a data dictionary creation and management system. Those elements are bundled together in a menu centric development system so a typical user needs only to follow the menus to create an application. Alpha5 focuses on first creating a database, and the relationship between data elements, before a single line of code is generated.

That development methodology forces programmers to look at the “big picture” and focus on creating applicable database solutions as opposed to lines of code. That said, Alpha5 still offers a comprehensive programming language, alpha-basic. The well-defined programming language is quick to learn and is self documenting.

While the product offers a powerful programming language, odds are that most developers will not have to write a single line of code. The development environment offers canned code in the form of predefined macros, which can be further customized. Developers also have the ability to distribute run time versions of their applications, which leads to the capability of marketing in-house developed software to others, without compromising intellectual property by exposing the code behind an application. Aplha5v7&'s runtime applications can be distributed as either a multi-user or single-user product, creating additional sales flexibility.

FILEMAKER PRO VERSION 8
The latest from Filemaker Software is an upgrade and enhancement to their very successful version 7 of FileMaker Pro. Aimed at neophytes, FileMaker Pro V8 brings incredible power to the table. The development environment stresses data relationships and relational database design. The product is very capable of creating basic flat-databases, but with how easy Filemaker has made building relational fields, the question becomes why anyone would want to bother with a flat-file database anymore.

The development environment is graphical in nature. Users paint and populate screens, reports and lists—all using a drag and drop methodology. Advanced programmers can build scripts using a wizard-like interface; scripts can be attached to actions such as the press of a button, opening a screen, editing a field and so on. Although Filemaker scripting is not a full fledged programming language, most any function can be accessed and a great deal of the script commands translate directly to the Web, bringing us to another feature of Filemaker: Instant Web Publishing (IWP). IWP allows users to convert their applications into Web-hosted applications with the click of a button. Filemaker V8 bundles a Web-server application along with a translation matrix to bring screens and data to a browser interface. About 80 percent of the product&'s capabilities can be translated to the Web.

Arguably, Filemaker Pro Version 8 proves to be the fastest database to setup and deploy and is a natural transition for users already working with and analyzing spreadsheet data. FileMaker can import and export data in a number of file formats. For example, if a user has a spreadsheet laid out with all of the critical data elements, that spreadsheet can be imported into Filemaker to create a relational database.

The company also offers companion and demo applications that solution providers can modify or use to quickly learn the intricacies of the product. MICROSOFT ACCESS 2003
Microsoft Access has always played an important role in developing data-centric applications for the Windows platform. Access 2003 is truly a leap forward from the previous two versions and has morphed into a Web-accessible multiuser database. Access 2003 also is integrated with Windows 2003 Server's Windows SharePoint Services, which allows users to easily connect to an Access application from the Web.

In previous versions, Access users relied on code generated from Forms to create interactive Web pages. This process required considerable server-side code to bridge the functionality of a Web form with a database. (Forms did not translate well to the Web in either HTML or ASP.)

To combat this limitation, Microsoft added a Data Access Page object, and in the new version, CRN Test Center engineers did not observe any code limitations with Data Access Pages. Code generated by a Data Access Page in Access 2003 is far more sophisticated than code generated by Forms. Through Internet Explorer, users can run many functions innate to the Access environment such as sorting and filtering, and can even perform field calculations on the fly.

For developers, Data Access Pages code can be viewed and written in the Microsoft Script Editor. However, developers must return to the Access environment to check results. Access 2003 includes well over 100 components that can be accessed using a Data Access Page. Developers can drag and drop Web components, link to external data sources and run ActiveX controls.

Access 2003's new development paradigm allows users to design, execute and test VBA code in a separate Visual Basic 6.3 development environment. With Access Development Extensions, users can package Access applications for distributed deployment using the Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) file format.

For remote users, Office uses digital certificates to protect macros, queries and VBA code to confirm a sender's authenticity.

Despite the numerous features added to this version, there is still room for improvement in these areas:

&#149 Increase overall file size to more than 2 Gbytes. The logic behind this limit has always been that users should move data that exceeds this limit to enterprise platforms such as SQL Server. However, most client/server developers that write applications strictly for desktop use often stay within desktop development environments. If a size limit is imposed on their applications, they will abandon Access in favor of products such as FileMaker.

&#149 Conform Access Queries to TSQL. Since its inception, Access has been a handy modeling tool for SQL Server designers and administrators, and since Access 2002, American National Standards Institute (ANSI) 92 has been supported in some of the objects. However, Access has never added a function to check whether the objects created conform to TSQL, so there's no guarantee that queries work when ported to SQL Server.

&#149 Web-code generation is too complicated. Web-code generation choices between Forms and Data Access Pages can confuse newcomers. Even though Data Access Pages are designed for more direct Web use, the code from a Data Access Page is not simple and not designed to interact directly with manually added server-side code. Forms on the other hand, can interact with this code directly. A better method would combine Data Access Page and Form objects into a single development interface. That would enable deployment to be handled by a wizard. This method would offer more clarity to developers.

&#149 Wrap Access apps as rich client executables. The use of MSI is a step in the right direction for Access, but deployment is limited since Access must be preinstalled. FileMaker Pro creates an executable that can be easily deployed without a previous installation of the software.

CONCLUSION
While any of these products can be used to quickly design database applications, Channel CTOs may first want to consider what Alpha5 V7 has to offer. The product offers the flexibility and distribution methods that make it ideal for developing custom applications for the SMB market.

That said, FileMaker is a strong contender, especially when considering it&'s instant Web-publishing features and initial ease of use. Additionally, Filemaker will prove the easiest of the group to turn over to a customer, if that customer desires to take the reigns on further developing their custom applications.

Access still has a place in the rapid application development environment, namely integration and scalability. Access solutions can be the starting point for building .NET and high end Visual basic solutions. Also, the inherent ability to leverage Microsoft Sharepoint makes Access a viable alternative for small businesses running Microsoft&'s Small Business Server.

MARIO MOREJON contributed to this story.