Faster, cheaper and easier application development

In the 1980s, Apple II computers began infiltrating organizations. With an Apple II running the VisiCalc spreadsheet program, non-programmers could develop useful applications – time tracking and billing, accounting, financial forecasting, statistical analysis, etc. The spreadsheet lowered the bar for the time and skill needed to develop meaningful applications. Business units were able to build applications and maintain data files without the help or approval of the central IT department. This brought problems with security and data consistency, but it also increased productivity, so IT departments had to adjust.

Today Internet services have further lowered the bar for skill and time needed to develop applications. Our class roster application illustrates this point. It has been implemented three times:

The ASP implementation was programmed from scratch, while the other two were implemented using Internet services. Let us compare the features of each version along with the time and skill needed to implement it.

The spreadsheet and ASP application have similar features -- the user can add a record, delete a record and list the current roster. The Zoho Creator version can do the same, and adds these features:

View as list, spreadsheet or summary
Create an RSS feed showing database changes
Search and sort
Rearrange, hide or display columns
Import data from xls, csv, tsv or email
Export as spreadsheet, csv, pdf, json, tsv or html
Create permalink to data entry form
Include data entry form in your Web site
Create permalink to the database or embed any view of the database in your Web site

Creating the spreadsheet required knowledge of basic spreadsheet concepts, but took only a few minutes. The Zoho Creator version required understanding of basic database concepts like table, row, column, and data type, and took around one hour.

Compare the effort and skill needed to build these applications using Internet services with the custom programmed ASP version. The ASP program required programming skill and knowledge or HTML, ASP, SQL, and Visual BASIC. The application involves designing four screens, planing the transitions between them, and writing 159 lines of code and comments. (For full documentation of the ASP application, including the program listing click here).

This example shows that a non-technical user can build a full-featured roster application using a Web service much faster than a professional programmer can build a very simple application. As level of abstraction of a service, it is feasible for non-programmers to develop meaningful applications quickly. If a group of non programmers begins a project, they can easily set up a Basecamp site for internal coordination, establish a blog for progress reports, start a wiki for evolving documents, etc.

Nicholas Carr elaborates upon this point in his book on the move to network computing, The big switch. Click here for an 8-minute interview of Carr or here for a one-minute excerpt in which he describes a the simplicity of establishing a full-featured Web site.

(Click here for a PowerPoint presentation on our three development alternatives).

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