Alan Fisher

Data table displays are the workhorses of transaction- based Web applications. So why are they so hard to build, especially since .NET provides a built-in ASP.NET DataGrid control? The reason is that, like all databound controls, data grid applications are not standard or necessarily predictable. Building them is so hard precisely because they demand custom treatment for each new application. Consider the difficulty of fulfilling each of these pretty standard requirements: Complex displays: Very few enterprise-class applications use the simple tabular displays that the default ASP.NET DataGrid control was designed to support. Instead, most applications have complex display requirements, resulting from filtered, multitable joins that require multiple data elements to be displayed within a single cell. Some applications even demand tables to be displayed within enclo... (more)

Is Hand-Coding Becoming Obsolete?

Increasingly, IT managers, CIOs and software developers are turning to a new approach for rapidly building robust database applications without programming - application generators. Today's business environment demands managers find ways to do more with less, and application generation allows both developers and non-developers to build applications quickly and efficiently. What Types of Applications Can You Build? Application generation tools build database-driven applications that can be deployed to the Web, the Cloud, or to Microsoft SharePoint environments. Like any hand-buil... (more)