I’m a happy Web 2.0 man : since yesterday, I’m an official Coghead Beta Tester ! That means prototyping of Testing 2.0 apps will be easier, as well as… beta testing. What a wonderful world : using beta stuff to…

John listed a lot of the benefits of Servoy; I’ll add a few:

– Code your application ONCE and deploy multiple ways, including via rich client or web browser

– Works with any existing SQL data … I don’t know about Coghead but AwareIM is only “aware” of databases one creates via AwareIM, whereas Servoy connects to existing data sources (and can also be used to create tables & columns on the back end)

– Can connect multiple data sources in one application. For example, you can build an application that connects your timesheet system, your accounting data, and your shipping software.

– Can’t say it enough: STANDARDS-BASED. If a developer gets overloaded with Servoy work (or if a “knowledge worker” gets in over their head and needs to call in some professional help), and if s/he can’t find a Servoy developer (though there are more and more of this breed every week!), finding someone who at least knows javascript (Servoy’s scripting language) is a cinch.

One more point. I don’t know how many times I’ve been called in to “finish up” an application that an end-user started trying to do themselves using FMP or Servoy. Luckily both of these products, Servoy in particular, have rich scripting and calc functions, so one can take a rudimentary application and build it stronger/higher/deeper using the same tool that it was started with. I know that with AwareIM as soon as you need more than the very limited set of “actions” and functions that it comes with, you must be a Java programmer to do more. I wonder what happens with Coghead when you “hit the wall” of the application’s capabilities, have tapped out the forum, and really need a professional to achieve the results you were hoping for … “who you gonna call?” … will there ever be a community of professional developers around a product like this? Is it worth it for them to invest time learning a product that has a low-end target market? And even if a pro did learn Coghead, what happens when the needs are just more complex than the IDE can support — you’d have to start over completely using a different tool.

Servoy, as John pointed out, serves the knowledge worker as well as the high-end developer … one can simply use the “prefab” javascript commands listed there in the method editor, or (according to one’s level of interest & ability) can write very sophisticated stuff with javascript, inline Java … and can employ all kinds of plug-ins and beans too.

I also worry about all these products being created for Joe the Boat Builder and Sarah The Production-floor Manager to supposedly roll their own web apps … without any understanding of transctional databasing on the back end. The extent to which amateurs can mess up a database (because they never heard of a transaction lock and would not know what a dirty read means) is frightening. At least FMP and Servoy have built-in mechanisms for pretty high assurance of data integrity. But this stuff cannot be controlled via the stateless connection of a web app, unless one really knows what one is doing and is using a tool/language that can handle all the concurrency issues…. But that’s another thread I guess.

http://www.mtui..._screencast.htm

I believe this technology is the future of building apps since it allows non-programmers to essentially write code without writing code.

We feel that enteprise portals could take a leaf out of web start pages such as NetVibes. The time has come for personalized portals that can very easily be setup and changed by administrators. And even more easily personalized by portal users to meet individual needs.

We have been working on this for some time now, and today we are pleased to announce the public beta of our hosted service (http://datamashups.com) for small enterprises and workgroups. It provides:

* personalized portals (enterprise start pages)
* custom, composite business views and applications

These portals, views and applications combine data and screens from many sources

* enterprise data (e.g. from your Excel spreadsheets),
* web services (e.g. Salesforce.com, Amazon or Google web services),
* web widgets (e.g. Google or Yahoo maps and gadgets),
* and other web applications (e.g. Zoho Writer).

For more info, please visit http://datamashups.com

Another similar application to Coghead is Aware IM which has been out for about a year or so but it too has this annoying method of ‘neutering’ the standard, recognized words/language that developers normally share like table, column, relations, primary keys, etc. The idea I guess is that this makes it easier for the complete novice to get off the ground and not be intimidated. FileMaker was the most successful company to go that route and it was able to bring a degree of ‘database-awareness’ to a large number of users. The problem was that in using a proprietary language and database, they were not able and are still not able to scale up to the demands of the developers or the growth of their customers databases. Apple was in a similar state with OS 9 but they recognized it early enough and instead grounded their OS on UNIX and now have arguably the best, most solid OS out there. But the best, most polished and well thought out application development tool out there that I have seen to date that meets all these needs is Servoy: Rapid Application Development, browser-based (or application-based too in Servoy’s case), scalable to the “developer’s” level of expertise, completely scalable in the to the number of users as well as the size of the solution/application and finally as a Java-based tool it works seamlessly with any OS: Mac, Linux or Windows. Plus it has the advantage of having hundreds of well-established, successful applications already out there for several years in both large and small companies.

- With their application you can create solutions that can be accessed via your browser or via a client application all from the same server. (My feeling is that if you have clients who are using a solution all day long it is much, much better to do this with an actual client application than via a web browser for a whole slew of reasons: faster than a web application even with Web 2.0, AJAX, etc. with local caching, more customizable with shortcut keys and so on, no worries about the vagaries of the different browsers and OSes, etc. Others though prefer to have everything via the browser and with Servoy you can publish the exact same form via the client app or the browser or both simultaneously and all with the same look and feel.)

- scales to the level of the developer. For the ‘knowledge’ user you can create a nice simple UI with no experience with SQL or programming. Good, creative programmers love it too because
a) it uses industry standards for everything: SQL/XML, JavaScript (or Java if you choose) and JavaBeans or Java Plugins for industry-specific extensions
b) eliminates the drudgery of form creation as well as speeding the process up with simple drag-and-drop creation of fields, tab panels, buttons, images, etc.
c) allows modular development so that whole sections of a solution (crm, scheduling, document management and so on) can be simply added or dropped to or from any project
d) the independent developer with good JavaScript or Java programming skills can make solutions that are totally generic and yet completely customizable for a whole range of different companies and even industries. All the client has to do is add a few company logos, choose their ’style’ or theme, fill in their industry-specific ‘key words’ so that tab panel headings, drop-down boxes, etc. are directly related to their specific company.
e) complete granular control of all business rules including being able to take advantage of any database tools such as stored procedures, triggers, etc. for greater speed, uniformity and smooth integration with other database access tools.

- comes with a default database – Sybase ASA – but works equally well with any JDBC-compliant SQL database (e.g. Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.). An entire solution/application can be simply switched from one database to another, including all the data and the metadata governing the solution with a few clicks and no change for the clients whether via the browser or the client app. For the novice user though with no SQL experience the default database and setup will get them going straight away.

We have been using Servoy here running various applications since 2004. The beauty of Servoy or Aware IM or maybe Coghead if/when it comes out is that there is a distinct advantage to having knowledgeable users intimately involved in the use and design of an application over ‘outside’ programmers who won’t ever understand all the subtle user needs without spending hours and hours (read dollars and dollars) involved in the project. The unique beauty of Servoy is that you get the best of both worlds scaling to both ends of the spectrum. For anybody interested in this sort of application I would recommend checking it out.

(P.S. They also have enormously helpful, friendly and knowledgeable customer support for free via their forum – http://forum.servoy.com)