Home/Positioning With Respect to Other Technologies

Instant Developer is a development system conceived to make the best technologies available better, more freely and in a faster manner. Our innovative vision, based on the principles of relational programming, has resulted in the creation of a flexible environment which can successfully deal with differing tools and technological advancements to achieve a single development system throughout a software life cycle. In contrast, developing an Enterprise application with traditional systems requires dozens of tools and frameworks - all requiring continual updates and realignments - which cost money and complicate things more than one would think.

This article sets out to point out In.de positioning with respect to other technologies and development systems highlighting its corresponding advantages.

Database schema management tools

Database schema management products are of two types. Those developed by database server producers, such as SQL Server Enterprise Manager, and cross-database products, such as Er-Win by Computer Associated. Products of the first group are generally free, as their price is actually included in the related database server licenses. Products of the second group usually imply a cost of various thousands of euros for each workstation.

In.de allows users to work with all such products in an integrated manner. So why spend more? In.de not only offers equivalent functionalities but also allows to write database objects in the form of views, stored procedures and triggers in cross-database mode. In addition, with In.de a database schema is no longer a mere part in itself of the software life cycle, as it turns into an active knowledge base of the whole information system under development.

Code scripting tools

In the field of code scripting tool the tool of reference is generally Eclipse by IBM for Java and Visual Studio for .NET. Eclipse is usually available free of charge. Visual Studio's price generally ranges between one thousand euros per one user to several thousand euros for development teams management.

Again, there is many a good reason to try In.de. Firstly, with In.de you can write code only once and compile in Java as well as in .NET. To achieve the same result in Eclipse or Visual Studio code must be scripted twice, thus doubling development costs. On the other hand, if only Java or only .NET are used the opportunities related to the alternative technology would be missed.

Secondly, In.de applies the principles of relational programming, which makes the adaptation of the application to the various modifications instantaneous and automatic (total, automatic reverse engineering) combined with a wide range of software intelligence tools available.

And this is not all. If you want to continue scripting Java and/or .NET codes with traditional tools, In.de will not prevent it. In.de allows you to integrate and use code generated by other tools in your projects in full liberty.

Entity Management Framework

The most popular entity management framework is Hibernate, beside J2EE platform. .NET features a proprietary framework (.NET Entity Framework), and some other such as Nhibernate.

In.de features an entity management framework oriented to "documents" whose main characteristics are simpleness and integration. Other entity management frameworks can still be used with In.de, although it should be noted that once you have seen how Document Orientation work, you will not leave anymore.

Framework Application Management

Developing safe and manageable web applications is not easy and the existing systems do not offer fully integrated solutions. Take a look at the diagram of operation of a web application created with In.de and you will see what and how many components are needed to make Enterprise features available. With traditional systems to create a similar diagram of operation you should either deal with coding manually, or integrating dozens of different components, each to be purchased and generally accompanied with runtime licenses.

From AJAX frameworks ...

There are hundreds of AJAX frameworks for the creation of user interfaces for web-based applications. Some of the most popular are BackBase, ExtJs and OpenLaszlo. However, the usage of these frameworks brings about a number of problems, since virtually all of them:

1. are focused nearly exclusively on client-side interface design - while web applications require much more than the mere viewing of graphical elements.
2. offer rather outdated user interface models. Compare our online demos >>> to the other available and see the difference. Search on the web for a grid featuring live scrolling like this and see if you can find anything like that.
3. may not really be cross-browser frameworks like In.de is, as it ensures applications for Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 3+, Safari 3+ and Google Chrome 1+. Try the online demos of other frameworks across all these browsers: rest assured that mulfunction, errors, minor or major graphical inconsistencies, sooner or later will come out…
4. generally lack a real IDE. But how can you an interface without seeing it at design time?
5. are accompanied by license models and conditions hardly understandable and fast changing. Many of these frameworks are often launched as open source products to gain popularity, but sooner or later force their users into buying a license to continue using them (e.g. ExtJS, which passed its license from LGPL to GPL). In.de, on the contrary, is accompanied by a contract in Italian where the license and product evolution conditions are set forth in a clear manner to shelter users from these situations. Read the license contract.
6. are very expensive, as nearly all frameworks are not runtime-free, therefore users have to purchase a license every time that an installation is installed. Instant Developer, instead, only has a runtime-free model. We believe that an application must be fully exploitable by those who develop it.

To RIA frameworks

In the field of Rich Internet Applications (one step ahead of Ajax frameworks) the most popular are frameworks based on Flex or Silverlight. Both technologies are basically viewing systems alternative to browsers and as such cannot deal with the global vision of a development process. In.de, instead, can.

As far as Flex is concerned, compare the construction of a simple Flex application (http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/media/flexapp) with its In.de equivalent. You will see for yourself what can be learned more easily. You will also find out how much longer it takes with Flex or Silverlight to create even the simplest application made with In.de.

These are regarded as "immature" systems where the most striking innovation is their attractive graphical layout. We are also confident that Flex and Silverlight will evolve and it is not excluded that one of them will be incorporated into a future In.de version to add another view runtime to the current Javascript-based runtime, by far the most productive for the time being.

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