Re: Rapid Web Database Application Development Tools?

Middleware can be as holy a subject as operating system for some people, so I do not wish to start a flame war .. I am just passing on my personal experience with different solutions. 1. Drumbeat 2000: From my experience, they really went to NECK BREAK lengths to abstract all of the lower level issues.. but in doing so, it becomes more cumbersome to figure out what the hell the thing is doing. I jacked around with the software for nearly a month, and had nothing to show but a very bug site. That caused me to move on to try a few different solutions. 2. Microsoft Visual Interdev (ASP): MS has a great solution, but I didn't have time to figure it out.. got through the first chapter.. got frustrated .. and moved on. 3. Allaire ColdFusion: GREAT EASY and fast solution. I worked with ColdFusion for 3 months .. generated 4 different web solutions as well as rewrote our workflow internal intranet using it. The only problem is .. expensive. Runs on NT or Solaris. (Come on, we need a Linux version Allaire!). I moved on to a new employer where I started using PHP. 4. PHP: There is a PHP version ported for most platforms. Most of the ISP's and web providers support it. ... personally, I -love- it. I have been using it for almost 6 months now and I have been nothing but impressed. PHP basically sits INSIDE of your HTML forms. It is very fast and very cheep. (Free as in Gratis). You don't have to pay a cent to use it. If you plan on hosting your own server, you can get either WindowsIIS version or if you are using a ISP provider or a Virtual Host.. you can find one that supports PHP and usually has a backend database solution such as MySQL. If you decide to take that route, search for a web database administration tool such as MySQLAdmin. It is web templates that are used to build/administer your database. Even a newbie can tackle it. The support is great, and the solution is VERY stable and complete. 5. JSP/Jserve: I have heard great things about this one, and is probably my next step in building larger enterprise solutions. (I would actually enjoy hearing some response to this one if anyone has experience with it?) I would probably discourage using something like Drumbeat .. etc, to under the hood generate pages... if you dedicate one weekend to learning PHP .. or even one day to get the basics of ColdFusion figured out.. and after a few weeks.. you will find a new world opened up. .mark strangiato@my-deja.com wrote: > Does anyone know of a tool that allows you to rapidly develop a Web > page that acts as a data entry/query screen to the most popular > databases? What do the big players like Yahoo use? I?m looking for > something that allows rapid application development; I want to avoid > writing hundreds of lines of Perl CGI script by hand. > > Any thoughts gratefully received :) > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy.