Picking a New Development Tool

[owensdj]

I'm looking to re-train to use a different development tool. I need something that would be good for developing database applications. I've been using a tool called Clarion by SoftVelocity for many, many years, but I'm looking to switch because Clarion is always behind the times technologically and it's not used by many developers. Having cross-platform(Windows desktop plus tablets, and phones) ability would be a plus.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. It could a whole other development platform or some type of framework for .NET and C# because I'm already familiar with Visual Studio.

 

[purbeast0]

what do you mean by "database applications", that seems extremely broad.

as a general IDE, and i've used pretty much all of them, i like intellij more than any other one out there.

 

[owensdj]

purbeast0, by database applications I mean a development tool that has some features that help speed up the development of applications that are primarily made to access an SQL database, such as inventory control.

The development tool I'm using now can generate code that does much of the work of creating the windows and fields that can add, delete, or modify the data in a relational database. It also makes it easy to implement reports in an application that print the data from a database. I'm looking for something similar.

 

[brianmanahan]

as a general IDE, and i've used pretty much all of them, i like intellij more than any other one out there.

agreed. once i found out that you could use eclipse's hotkeys, i was in business.

 

[purbeast0]

purbeast0, by database applications I mean a development tool that has some features that help speed up the development of applications that are primarily made to access an SQL database, such as inventory control.

The development tool I'm using now can generate code that does much of the work of creating the windows and fields that can add, delete, or modify the data in a relational database. It also makes it easy to implement reports in an application that print the data from a database. I'm looking for something similar.

that still doesn't really help much.

you could make an inventory control application as a web app, a native desktop application, a java swing application, etc. it can be done in all different types of ways.

for instance, if you are making the backend of a webapp, and you need to make a new controller for a new endpoint, intellij will create the controller with all of the default functions created (templates) for the basic CRUD operations. you just have to fill them out.

and depending on what type of database you are using, it might be able to help you out with the GORM as well, if you need it.

but that has nothing to do with the front end. the backend doesn't care about the front end or even know it exists in the greater picture.

 

[Markbnj]

The OP is speaking a slightly out of date language, but I'm sure it's one that is still spoken every day in the business world. Today we tend to think in terms of discrete components, layers, network links, scalability, but it wasn't so long ago that Powerbuilder guys were raking in the bucks slapping GUIs on top of SQL databases. When I hear "database applications" I think in the general context of Access, Foxpro, Powerbuilder, etc. There are probably lots of others that you could slide into that category in some fashion.

OP, I don't know what the best route is for two-layer database applications today. Certainly all the tools you need to create these kinds of applications are in Visual Studio. You can create database, attach forms to them, etc. I just haven't worked that way in a long time so I can't comment in detail. If cross-platform is important then the solution is probably going to be built on java.

 

[owensdj]

Markbnj, you're probably right. I'm using somewhat incorrect language to describe what I'm trying to do. I could use C# and Visual Studio to create an application that accesses an SQL database. What my current development tool does is automatically create windows that show a list of rows in a table with the ability to add, change, or delete a row and windows that have the fields(columns) of the table. I can add code that customizes the functionality of these auto-generated procedures. I was looking to find other better-supported development tools with similar features as this.

 

[Apathetic]

There's a class of tools called ORMs (Object/Relational Mapping). Would these be useful to you? Hibernate is one of the most popular.

Dave

 

[Ken g6]

ORMs are one of the things I thought about with the OP's post. But I think he wants something more GUI-oriented. I also thought about MVC systems like Rails on the desktop, but couldn't find much for .NET.

I did find this list of database RAD tools, which might be interesting.

 

[owensdj]

Ken_g6, yes that list of database RAD tools looks very close to what I'm trying to find. My current development tool is in the list. Thanks.