Iron speed appgeneration

Accelerate Web Application
Development with
Application Generation
Software

A Guide to Developing and Deploying
Web Applications and Web Services In
Record Time with Iron Speed

Iron Speed White Paper
August 2002

editor@ironspeed.com
http://www.ironspeed.com
650.215.2220

Accelerate Application Development
using Application Generation Technology

Iron Speed, Inc., 1953 Landings Drive, Mountain View, California, 94043, USA
www.ironspeed.com

Table of Contents
Table of Contents ................................................... 2
The Next Frontier: Moving Applications to the Web. .... 3
The Challenges of Web Application Development ......... 4
Three-Tiered Architecture Complexity..................... 5
User Interface Complexity .................................... 6
Database Management Complexity ........................ 7
Scalability Complexity .......................................... 8
Security Complexity............................................. 9
The Emergence of Standards Makes Application
Generation Possible................................................10
User Interface Standardization: ............................10
Application Integration Standardization: ................10
Database Standardization:...................................11
The Evolution of Application Generation ....................12
The 1980’s: IDEs...............................................12
The 1990’s: Application Servers...........................12
Today: Web Application Generators......................13
Application Generation Turbo-Charges Web
Application Development .....................................15
Gather User Feedback Early in the Cycle ................16
Generate User Interface Pages and Code ...............17
Generate Applications, Not Prototypes ...................17
Use Business Analysts to Gather Feedback .............18
Simplify Software Maintenance.............................18
Custom-build the Unique Aspects..........................19
The Iron Speed Approach........................................20
Iron Speed Accelerates Development By Generating
Application Code ................................................21
Iron Speed’s Application Generation System...........22
Contact Iron Speed ................................................24


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The Next Frontier: Moving Applications to the
Web.
Having spent thousands of engineering man-hours figuring out
how to build powerful new web-based applications as well as
migrate existing client-server applications to the web, we are not
afraid to speak the truth. The fact is that building web
applications is harder and more complex than building client-
server applications.

The user interface includes options for states you can’t
control. And, the stateless client is far removed from
the database, so each transaction is a distinct request.
Additionally, web applications must always also include
provisions for database connection pooling, session
management, scalability and authentication.

The benefits we’ve all heard relentlessly touted about
web applications – those of simpler deployment,
improved inter-operability and easier integration -- are
so far removed from the early planning and
development tasks that they hardly seem to matter.
Really, who is thinking about the benefits of web
services, SOAP and XML when he’s struggling to
correct the code surrounding the 50th SQL query in a
multi-tier application?
Enterprise applications for CRM,
product catalogs, supply chain and There is a better way. A new category of software
partner management, and employee- that we call Application Generation software
HR portals, are being launched on the generates the majority of an application’s code faster
Web for easier access, improved and more efficiently than traditional hand-coding
service, stronger version control and approaches. But, taking advantage of this opportunity
increased inter-operability. means shedding the traditional client-server
development approach in favor of a web-based
application development strategy.

This White Paper discusses the challenges as well as
possibilities of building web applications; explores the
emerging category of application generators; and
introduces the breakthrough methodology for accelerating
application development invented by Iron Speed.


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The Challenges of Web Application Development
Every corporate IT developer is familiar with client-server
application development. The two-tiered architecture typically
includes a thick client and a thick server that run in a controlled
environment.

Developing with client-server architecture
gives you lots of freedom to place heavy
burdens on the client side. There is no
need to ping the database for every
transaction, as you can house functionality
and data in the client itself, greatly reducing
the need to scale the server-side software
and database.

Enter now the challenge of building
applications for the web, or migrating your
legacy systems over to the web. At first
blush, web-based applications sound great
because they save on deployment and
training. However between now and
deployment is a whole lot of development
work that adds several layers of complexity
to your application development cycles.

Web application development puts the developer in a completely
different development scenario:

Web applications are fundamentally different. They are three
tiered, with a thin browser client, a robust application server
and a database.

HTML is a thin client so most of the web application heavy
lifting has to happen at the application server level, including
the application workflow.

HTML-based user interfaces lack the robustness of desktop
windowing environments, like Microsoft Windows and the
Apple Macintosh, making user interface development more
difficult.

Web applications are stateless, so they require complex
session management in order to implement complex
transactions. The HTML client is really designed for display
(and not transactions), so the application server layer must


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pick up the bulk of the coordination and management of
database-driven transactions.

Due to their reliance on standard protocols, web applications
are frequently exposed to the public Internet, and so must
accommodate tight security and access control.

Although web applications are intended to operate as stand-
alone systems, they frequently rely on the operation and
connection with other web applications and web services.
Ultimately, some of those inter-connections may be between
enterprises, and lose the protection of the network firewall.

That is a very long list of challenges, even when building with a
favorite programming language like Visual Basic, C++ or Java.
Comparing client-server applications to web applications and web
services is like saying a Morris Mini and a BMW are both cars.
Both get you where you need to go, but lift up the hood and one
is clearly more complicated than the other. Web applications are
more complex to develop than client-server applications because
they include more infrastructure, more features, more
The three-tiered
connections, and a more complex run-time environment.
architecture of a
web application Application generation technology speaks directly to this point:
adds challenges for building web applications from the bare metal is complex and
developers in time-consuming. Accelerating the development cycle without
several areas: sacrificing performance, features and interoperability are the key
metrics by which application generation is being measured.
User interface
Application
Infrastructure Three-Tiered Architecture Complexity
Database
Management Specifically, the three-tiered architecture creates new challenges
for developers in several areas: creating the web-based user
Scalability
interface, providing application infrastructure, database
Security management, scalability and security.

Traditional client server applications didn’t have to worry about
those things nearly to the same level as web applications.

The Browser Client Tier: HTML is really designed to display
content and is not robust enough to handle complex enterprise
transaction management. Java scripting, rich media and active
server/java server pages bring the language forward toward
simple interactivity, but clearly HTML is a long way from the
robust, controlled, desktop-windowing environment of client-
server applications. This forces all the coding and interactions


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that happen at the client level in traditional applications further
down your application architecture.

The Application Server: Much of the
functionality found in the client layer of a client-
server application is now pushed to the application
server level for web applications – an expanded
role for the traditional server tier that now sits
between the thin HTML client (not doing much
more than displaying the user interface) and the
database. The new application server tier literally
powers each web application and web service.

Back in the old days, this complete infrastructure
could be built independently and from scratch for
each application. Of course we didn’t know to call
it an “app server,” but we would build a foundation
layer that supported other functionality. While an
application server provides some of the things you
Users expect a certain threshold of need, it isn’t central to your development, and so it
functionality and user interface look and can’t take you quite far enough for your web-based
feel. Appreciated features like application needs.
navigation, search, pagination and table
sorting can each take weeks to develop. The Database: Web-based applications separate
the database completely from the server layer in
order to allow continuous and non-synchronized
requests to be transferred through the new
Application Server middle tier.

In a "stateless" environment like HTTP, each separate transaction
must log in and out of the database. As many web applications
are outward-facing toward customers, employees, partners or
suppliers, a “transaction” now includes everything from
confirmation page views to orders, requests and bids. Thus, the
load on the database gets pretty big pretty quickly. The
emergence of what we today call “application servers” was a
direct effort to mitigate this need for database connection pooling

User Interface Complexity

Hand-in-hand with the complexity of stateless transaction
processing is the user interface development.

HTML is a comparatively low functionality user interface relative
to a Windows or Macintosh environment. That “glossy magazine”
feel of an HTML user interface is misleading. While HTML is great
for presenting static pages, the rich interaction that we desire in


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enterprise applications is missing. Additionally, and perhaps as a
result of that glossy look and feel, there is added pressure on
transaction-based applications to be more user-friendly and
forgiving.

Consider the difference between the web and a Microsoft
Windows application like Excel or Outlook.

In Windows applications, multi-step processes can be performed
within a single application screen. For instance, you can drag-
and-drop an email from one folder to another. This functionality
is not possible in HTML, nor can complexity be structured as
conveniently as in a controlled client-server application. In
Windows, complex functionality like “find” and “spell check” is
handled with a pop-up window that keeps the original screen in
view. That sort of functionality has to be handled on the web via
a series of static pages that only mimic what is a fluid and simple
user experience on the desktop. Although the web excels at
lower volume, lower complexity transactions, those are not
always the types of transactions required by high-use enterprise-
class applications.

HTML falls short when you try to offer the selection choice of
anything more complicated than a 15-field drop down menu.
Seemingly simple features that are commonplace on most web
applications can take weeks to develop – search, table sorting,
pagination and hierarchical navigation. Those features are more
than “nice to have,” they are expected.

Your users don’t see the complexity of your application code;
they only want a premier experience. They want to change their
own account information; change their mind half-way through a
transaction and save only the relevant fields; ensure one
customer is forbidden from seeing another customer’s data --
and they want all the pages to load in under three seconds.

Database Management Complexity
In a web application, database management concerns manifest in
two key areas: user session management and database
connection pooling. Since the very nature of a web application is
stateless, there is a great need to manage transaction integrity
and completion. Web applications require an environment that
supports the creation and management of processes built from
these stateless transactions.

In traditional client-server applications, a “session” was
straightforward: the user logged in, stayed in, and then logged


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out when they closed the application. The entire “session” logged
in once to the database. In the stateless environment of HTTP,
there is no such thing as a controlled “session.” A web browser
client can’t tell when a user is logged out once the transaction
has begun. In essence, every transaction – even in a multi-
transaction process – is potentially a unique session.

A new way of managing the database connections
is obviously required to support this stateless
A web browser client can’t tell session environment. Web application servers
when a user is logged out once handle this by maintaining a pool of database
the transaction has begun. In connections – keeping open a number of
essence, every transaction – connections and re-using them for each transaction
even in a multi-transaction request. This way requests from multiple users as
process – is potentially a unique well as multiple requests from individual users –
session. regardless of the order they are received – can be
handled without repeatedly logging in and logging
out of the database.

Functions to address these issues are best centralized and
managed as a separate collection of functions on their own
machines. An application server middle tier is a second-
generation approach, recognizing that much more support is
needed than with client server applications.

Scalability Complexity
Since web applications are intended to scale to enterprise or even
inter-enterprise levels, scalability must be ensured.

In client-server applications, application scalability is managed
primarily through the client. Each end-user ran the client-side
application on a desktop machine, so no extra computing
horsepower was needed. And since so much of the application
functionality was fully contained in the client side, there wasn’t as
much concern about scaling applications

In web applications, the entire application functionality is
concentrated in the new middle layer, running on the application
server. This application server gives you the scalability you need
to have one database support multiple applications and multiple
servers. Now, the application code has to scale as well as
support multiple users. Fiscally, web applications are more
expensive, since application server machines and software are
now required to run them. None of the application functionality
runs on the desktop machine any longer.


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There is a benefit, however. The strategy of managing scalability
at the application server level lets you enable multiple server
machines to run your applications and process transactions
against a single, centralized database (the database tier). It’s
much more difficult to create a multi-machine distributed
database architecture in a client-server development, so creating
scalability at the application server tier erases that concern.

Security Complexity
Running on the public Internet means that by nature your
applications – and the underlying databases that drive them --
are exposed to increased levels of risk. This requires increased
attention and support for security. Even intranet-only
applications run on standard IP protocols, which are easier to
hack. Security is a top of mind concern at every step of web-
based application development and deployment.

Multiple layers of protection are needed from both the application
itself in the form of authentication and user access control, as
well as from your network firewall and other security measures.


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The Emergence of Standards Makes Application
Generation Possible

How can IT departments build these increasingly complex web-
based applications with the increasingly pressured and limited
resources of today?

The answer is Application Generation.

And what makes application generation possible now when so
many attempts in the past have not succeeded?

The answer is Standards.

While applications used to have to accommodate so many
different platforms, today, standardization is appearing in many
areas. This makes it easier to generate substantial portions of an
application.

User Interface Standardization:
During the last ten years, the end-user interface environment has
become standardized with HTML web browsers becoming the
client interface of choice. For desktop applications, Windows
remains the de facto choice for corporate environments.
Standardizing the user interface environment makes it easier to
generate user interface code that runs on almost any machine at
any location, especially if it’s HTML.

Moreover, most users see the web browser – with its ability to
combine rich text and graphics with traditional data display and
form based input -- as a more friendly, intuitive user interface
than traditional desktop windowing metaphors. In fact, most of
the major ERP and CRM vendors have rewritten, or are in the
process of rewriting, their applications for the web. It won’t be
long before most other applications follow suit.

Application Integration Standardization:
More recently, SOAP and XML are becoming established as
application integration standards, and make it possible to develop
applications that can adapt to new business rules and connect
across systems. While most application integration is deployed
behind a company’s firewall, web services technology offers the
promise of cross-enterprise integration, tying together systems
running on entirely different platforms.


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Ours is now a vastly different application development world
compared to traditional client-server environments. This gradual
standardization of user interface environments, application
integration protocols and database languages has brought us to
the point where application generation technology can be built
and deployed to accelerate web application development.

Database Standardization:
Most enterprise applications standardized over the last 20 years
to operate on SQL-based relational databases. More recently,
database middleware like ODBC and JDBC make it easier to
retarget applications to different databases (e.g., Oracle and
DB2) without significantly rewriting the query and access code.
This type of standardization makes it possible for an application
generator to target one type of relational database and generate
queries in a single language (SQL).


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The Evolution of Application Generation
The goal of computer-generated code has always been to do
more with less and develop robust applications more quickly.

In the 1980’s, Integrated Development Environments promised
it. In the ‘90’s, HTML and XML promised it. Today, in the ‘00’s,
SOAP and web services promise it.

Each of those promises got developers part of the
way to the goal. Each took one segment of the
The promise of application development cycle, and identified the elements
generation is that robust, that were common, could be standardized, and
full-featured applications can were not custom or career-building exercises. As
be developed rapidly and web services standards offer new layers of
with consistently high standards and applicability across many enterprise
quality. and departmental arenas, the emerging application
generators of today really can deliver on the
promise first proposed three decades ago: that
software applications can be generated rapidly and
with high quality.

The 1980’s: IDEs
The first generation of “software that generates software” was
the Integrated Development Environment. The code that was
actually generated wasn’t that significant, but it did give you a
standard looking application framework. The fact that each
application was “familiar” due to these shared components and
carried a common look and feel was found to be tremendously
valuable, and made development from enterprise to enterprise
much easier. Developing with one of these IDEs became a
transferable skill set, and many application developers gained
experience with these tools.

The 1990’s: Application Servers
Application servers became available in the late 1990s for much
the same reason that IDEs had become popular and valuable:
the application servers included a base level of functionality that
was common for all applications and didn’t need to be re-built
every time. Plus, the fact that this functionality was handled in
the same way for each particular application server makes
application development more predictable. Again, developers
gained experience with one of the vendor’s products and that


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experience was transferable around the enterprise and the
marketplace.

This “second generation” includes components for database
connection pooling and session management. Although this is a
valuable contribution to reducing the development cycles and
makes those components more standardized across the market,
these features still have to be customized and integrated into
each specific application. Additionally, the components included
in most application servers don’t go nearly far enough for the
stateless environment of today’s web applications. No application
server thinks at all about non-controlled or non-sequential states
within a complex end-user transaction. And, no application
server accommodates the need for user interface functionality in
the middle server software layer – required because HTML is a
thin client.

Today: Web Application Generators
Now that enterprise applications are migrating to
the web, the user interface, application
What Types of infrastructure and database management
Code to Generate? functionality becomes a prime candidate for
application generation for the same reasons the
past attempts at application generation become
General categories of
popular in their day: these components can be
application generation
easily standardized and building them by hand
for web-based
doesn’t necessarily build your career.
applications and web
services:
Building a search engine or navigation into your
application is usually a one-time job, and it’s not all
User Interface Code
that interesting or career building as other custom
projects. So, having it all generated for you is of
Application
pretty high value.
Infrastructure
One of the reasons application generation is so
Database
important and timely now is because of the near
Management
universality of HTML and XML and the expectation
that SOAP will achieve a similar status. As a
concept, application generation works best when
you can generate software that runs anywhere in
any environment. Application Generators (like
Iron Speed) build in many features that you might
not have the time to do by hand because you have
an application backlog to work down and deadlines
to meet.


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Several products claiming to be Application Generation
technologies or application assembly tools are in market and
each offers different features and functionality. The tools vary in
depth and breadth of application code generated, and so does the
amount of time and complexity it takes to reach a point where
the generated software leaves off and the rest of the application
must be developed by hand.

A thorough review of the Application Generation options should
consider these three general categories of application generation
that focus on the routine or common elements found in most
web-based applications and web services. Specifically these are
web-based user interface and user interface code, workflow and
SQL queries, and the database schema and database access
code.

User Interface Functionality and Features: Web-
based user interface pages, user interface code, search,
navigation, pagination, filtering, sorting and reports.

Complex Application Infrastructure: Workflow,
business rules, SQL queries, session management, access
control and authentication.

Database Management: Database access code,
database schema, database connection pooling and data
migration.

By generating some or all of these elements, you quickly add a
level of robustness to the application that makes it more
complete and powerful, and yet still lets you focus on the more
interesting and important work that is specific to your business
needs.

While hand-built code would surely get the job done, it’s not the
most interesting or signature components of an application, nor
is it the most efficient use of developer resources.

Application Generators like Iron Speed provide deep functionality
“for free”:

Generate the routine program code and provide a
predictable base for all your web-based applications;

Generate code of consistently high quality and
performance and so you have a jump-start on your


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development and can predict how the foundation of each
application will behave;

Allow developers to focus on developing the unique
aspects of their applications, which typically involves
proprietary and career-building development work.

Application Generation Turbo-Charges Web
Application Development

Since web applications are so much more complex
to build, it is imperative that the design be flawless
How Application when the developer sits down to begin coding.
Generation Turbo Spending three weeks adding functionality to your
Charges Web application only to find out that the user
Application community wanted something outside the
Development: specification is not productive or enjoyable (for
anyone). Yet, it is nearly impossible to predict
user preferences before users begin to use an
Generate full-featured, application, even if you have a very detailed
running applications, requirements specification document. Inevitably it
not prototypes; seems, the directive to be able to search in a
Generate User product catalog application against the notes, not
Interface pages and just the product description, comes after the
code; three-week investment to build the search feature
Use business analysts against the original specifications, which did not
to gather end-user include that functionality.
feedback;
Gather user feedback In the days of client server applications, some of
early in the this frustration was accepted, as users had little
development cycle by expectation that any application would be familiar
leveraging application to them the first time they opened it. Application
generation. training was an expected and required condition of
use. This was acceptable since applications were
built for relatively small and controlled groups of
users – i.e.: the customer service team or the
sales team.


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Web application development opens new challenges in both
areas. Users do expect web applications to be familiar – they
expect the web to conform to commonly accepted standards,
features and navigation. In addition, training is not really an
option as users of web applications are often broad groups with
dynamic memberships – i.e.: suppliers, customers and all
employees.

Application Generation technology addresses this central
challenge: quickly generating a working application, so user
feedback can be collected in real time, and in a format that is
helpful and relevant to the developer.

Gather User Feedback Early in the Cycle
Application Generation technology goes one
significant step further than Rapid Application
Development (RAD) approaches of the past,
including the more recent Extreme Programming
trend. RAD is about putting a prototype in front of
users to obtain feedback during the development
cycle, not just at the end when it is too late and
too complicated to make any significant changes.

RAD is really helpful, since most users can’t
articulate what they want in an application
because they can’t envision it. It’s like asking
someone who lives in the desert to describe
the rain forest. They can use words like
“cool” and “wet” but it is just not in that
person’s lexicon or experience to imagine the
lush jungle environment.

Using Application Generation technology,
developers can generate a basic, but working
model of their full application, and populate it with
real world data. Taking this experience to users
gives deep and meaningful feedback at all levels of
User interface pages that reflect the application.
important workflow sequences are
created along with the rest of the
user interface pages when using
Application Generated technology.
This helps developers and end-users
give relevant feedback early in the
development cycle.


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Generate User Interface Pages and Code

In web-based applications, the user interface is significantly more
important than in client server applications. The web is already
familiar to corporate end-users, any web-based application is
perceived to be easier to use.

In fact, the user interface has become the bell weather for
application robustness. Even experienced developers (who might
know better!) look at a user interface and make judgments about
the complexity and depth of the underlying application. The user
interface sends a more powerful message about the application
than the performance and the architecture.

However, most application developers are not trained to build
highly usable and interactive web-based interfaces. While large
commercial e-commerce and corporate sites have teams of
people designing the web pages, most IT departments don’t have
this luxury.

Application Generation technology automatically generates the
web-based user interface pages and the underlying user interface
code. Moreover, they do so using contemporary user interface
standards, making most generated applications more user-
friendly than those built by hand.

Included are not just the top-level pages and reports, but all the
routine account information and data management pages. Real
data can be imported so end-user testers can offer feedback
based on actual scenarios. So, application developers do not
need specific graphics training to generate attractive and
compelling graphical interface pages.

Generate Applications, Not Prototypes

Typically, development requires some working
model of the application in order to gain relevant
The user interface has become and helpful feedback. The RAD approach
the bell weather for application prototypes the application in order to obtain some
robustness. The user interface of this feedback. But RAD doesn’t usually build
sends just as powerful a much of the final application.
message about the application as
the performance and the Sometimes, the user community requesting an application from
architecture. the IT department will employ a graphic artist to develop the
web-based interface in order to guide the discussion with the


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development team. This can be helpful, but this tactic usually
involves designing about half a dozen of the top-level screens.
However, most web applications have hundreds or even
thousands of screens. Some of the really important workflow
screens – like account maintenance pages and data importing
wizards – get left out of this process. And yet, often those
workflow experiences represent the kind of feedback developers
need most.

Use Business Analysts to Gather Feedback
Another benefit of Application Generators is that they allow
business analysts, program managers and information architects
to generate a basic working application. This differs considerably
from RAD and extreme programming methodologies that require
developers to create prototypes before end-user feedback can be
gathered.

Typically, these members of the IT department are specifically
trained and experienced at gathering feedback from end-users.
Application Generation technology gives these non-developer
members of the IT department an expanded role in the
development cycle, freeing developers to focus on the aspects of
the application which are not generated, and require custom
programming.

Simplify Software Maintenance
As soon as web applications are launched,
requests for modifications start rolling in.
Sometimes these are issues end-users did not
anticipate; sometimes they reflect changes in
company strategy or market conditions that were
IT departments are pressured to unanticipated. However, sometimes user
keep web applications up to interfaces change because of advances in the
date with corporate and user other websites. As certain features become
demands as well as market commonplace, every web application is expected
advances. The concept of to keep pace. Why is it that web-based portals
RAM – rapid application change their look and feel continuously and yet
maintenance – becomes more “Time” magazine does not? The web makes
important as applications must everything more accessible, and increases the
be dynamic and responsive competitive pressure for pushing more, rather
systems. than less, out toward the user community.

This pressure to constantly evolve and improve
lands squarely on the IT department and makes
application maintenance more significant than
with client-server applications. The concept of


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RAM – rapid application maintenance – was never a part of the
application development tool set.

There is nothing worse than trying to guess what “the other guy”
was thinking when he wrote the original code. Typically,
maintenance is a developer’s least favorite task. Application
Generation solves the RAM problem. Application Generators
fully re-generate the entire code base with each modification.
The generated code keeps up with each new revision and each
new management order. So finally, no one has to go back into
the code to re-figure someone else’s work.

Custom-build the Unique Aspects
Application generation is not a silver bullet. Application
Generation software can only hope to generate about 80% of any
enterprise application. The remaining 20% contains unique
algorithms and business logic and must be developed by hand.
It’s important that any Application Generation software offer
convenient and comfortable interfaces for developing and
integrating this remaining, but crucial, 20%.

There are two common types of integration that must be
considered when using Application Generation software:
integrating business logic and communicating with external
applications.

Integrating business logic requires a close coupling between the
80% that is generated and the 20% that is built by hand. This is
best accomplished by a set of API’s, or set of objects, for
connecting your code with the generated code. Ideally, this
integration is persistent from regeneration to regeneration,
meaning that your integration work is not lost each time the
application is regenerated by the Application Generator. If it’s
not, then you can lose much of the benefit of using Application
Generation software in the first place.

Integrating external applications, such as a third-party CRM
package, is best handled using application integration protocols.
Increasingly, web services protocols like SOAP are being used for
external integration, and ideally, your Application Generator
supports these web service protocols as well.


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The Iron Speed Approach
Iron Speed recognizes that of the tens or hundreds of thousands
of lines of code that make up every web-based application, very
few of the aspects are truly “unique.” Of course, the couple
thousand lines that are unique are what make an application and
company successful. But from a development point of view, the
vast majority of the code in a web application is not unique.

Particularly in this era where IT departments are
being increasingly challenged to provide higher
The Key To Application
levels of business agility and connectivity, web
Success:
applications built using application generation offer
the advantage of modularity and inter-operability
Of the tens or hundreds of
thousands of lines of code in
To that end, Iron Speed takes what we call an
every web application or
“Atomic Parts” approach to the challenge of web
web service, very few are
application development. Most transaction-based
actually “unique.”
applications can be broken down into their “atomic
parts” – with many of those parts being core and
While this relatively small
common elements across many applications. As
percentage of unique
with atoms, each element on its own can be
aspects is the key to making
identified with certain properties, but it’s not until
each application successful,
you start to put these elements together that
developing the non-unique
things get interesting. So too does Iron Speed
code typically takes up 80%
break down the parts that are common to all web
of the development time and
applications, generate them with consistently high
energy in traditional hand-
quality, and then let developers focus on the
coding approaches.
interesting business rules that are truly unique to
each application.
Application Generators let
developers focus the
The Application Generator generates aspects of
majority of their time on the
applications based on two filters. The first filter is
20% of the application that
standardization: which elements can be
is truly unique.
standardized so they can support any application,
any system and any enterprise?

The next filter is uniqueness – if it is not unique, generate it!
Those base elements that can be very time consuming to build
but are common across all web-based applications are prime
candidates for application generation rather than hand coding.
Every developer would concur that time consuming does not
always equate to fascinating work.


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Iron Speed Accelerates Development By
Generating Application Code

Iron Speed automatically generates up to 80% of
The Iron Speed “Top Ten
any enterprise application, including the web-
Least Favorite Late Night
based user interface and user interface code,
Development Tasks:”
workflow and SQL queries, and database access
code. This frees developers to focus on the other
20% of the application that is truly unique and
1. User interface web pages
proprietary.
2. Database normalization
3. Wrapping display code
We call the Iron Speed Platform an Application
around SQL queries
Generator to reflect our role in the application
4. Data migration
development cycle. Building applications using
5. Writing SQL queries
Iron Speed condenses the design and
6. Integrating with other
development stages and jump-starts the
applications
development cycle.
7. Database connection pooling
8. Building full-text search
Especially in multi-developer environments, it is
features
helpful to develop quality, consistent code
9. Creating user authentication
foundations for all web applications without doing
protocols
the programming by hand. For instance, if you
10. Building with non-standard
need to change a data field or adjust the workflow
languages or protocols
based on new business rules, then Iron Speed
These and others must be built for generates the code, does the data migration in
each application, but are not the production database, and produces a new
necessarily the most interesting or application for you.
career-building tasks. This makes
them prime candidates for Unlike art where the thrill is in the creation,
application generation. application development is more like industrial
construction. Most developers get the thrill from
the sense of accomplishment. The most
interesting and career-building aspects of each application are
those that are unique to the application itself. Using the
Application Generator technology from Iron Speed, it can take
you a fraction of the time to get to that same thrill of
accomplishment.


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Iron Speed’s Application Generation System

Iron Speed generates a basic, working application in just a few
hours, freeing developers to focus on implementing the
application’s business rules and not the application infrastructure.
This breakthrough methodology for accelerated web application
development both relieves the time-to-market pressures on IT
departments as well as allows more efficient development
resource allocation.

Applications built with Iron Speed software include many features
often cut to meet deadlines when applications are built by hand:

User Interface Code:
Web-based user interface, including web-based
screens and data input pages. Advanced
features include search, navigation, data
validation, table pagination, dashboard pages,
import/export wizards, display tables and
reports with filtering and sorting.

Application Infrastructure:
Iron Speed Designer is the leading Workflow logic and the SQL queries, session
Application Generation tool: A web- management, database access code, user
based development environment for the access control and authentication, security,
rapid development of robust enterprise caching, complex data types, email notification
web applications and services. and audit trails.
Applications built with Iron Speed
Designer currently run on the Microsoft
Database Management:
.NET web services platform.
Database schema, database connection pooling,
record locking and transaction management.
Automatic data migration keeps the database
synchronized with each maintenance release.

In addition to generating up to 80% of the application code
including complex features like database connection pooling and
session management, Iron Speed also offers developers
considerable advantages that accelerate the development cycle
and improve IT productivity – all without sacrificing features,
functionality or choice of programming language.

Speed development and reduce testing time.
Iron Speed automates application development for any
web-based application, saving days or even weeks in the
development cycle. Plus, code generated by Iron Speed is


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consistently of high quality, releasing you from many
routine QA and testing cycles.

Generate standard code. The code Iron Speed
generates is specifically targeted to certain platforms so
there is no new program language to learn. Currently,
Iron Speed generates native PL/SQL, native ASPX and
other Oracle and .NET standard code.

Focus developers on highest priority tasks.
Since Iron Speed generates about 80% of the application
code, developers are free to focus on the other 20% of
the application that is unique and proprietary.

Open development to new categories of
developers. Since you don't need experience with Visual
Basic, C++ or Java, Iron Speed allows new categories of
developers such as business analysts and information
architects.

Keep development ownership in-house. Since
Application Generation speeds development and lets you
keep the entire application development project in-house,
it compares very favorably to the only alternative: outside
professional services. Outsourcing is often impractical or
overkill for application development, and can be very
costly both in terms of fees and management time and
attention.

Boost your company ROI. Deploying applications
faster means they start working for your company sooner.
Calculate your ROI based on new revenue, improved
productivity and streamlined operations.

## ## ##


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Contact Iron Speed
We welcome feedback and commentary on this white paper and
invite you to visit our website or call us for more information.

info@ironspeed.com
650.215 2200

Let us help you get started! Call or email us for a Live
Demonstration of the Application Generation technology from
Iron Speed, and build a sample application with us.

sales@ironspeed.com
650.215 2200


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