Ironspeed - A way to build Web applications more efficiently

Like most developers, I am always looking for ways to be able to do my job more efficiently.  This means:

• Creating fewer bugs
• Reducing the time and amount of code I have to test
• Guaranteeing application security
• Reducing development time.

I mostly focus my work in the Windows World.  There Visual Studio is king.  Not perfect by any means, but certainly worth its cost.  Back in 2003, I also started using a new tool that I had read about in one of the trade journals, called IronSpeed Designer.

IronSpeed is a tool with which you can build a basic fully functional Web application in as little as 10 minutes (time required relates directly to the number of screens and tables involved), once you have the database designed.  It does this by using boilerplate code to generate IIS compatible ASP.NET applications based upon a set of control XML files it generates during the building process.  You tell it the database to use, the screens you want, what options you need and it puts together basic apps for every screen. 

Embedded security access code is an option.  That gives you the capability to use a unique user access setup in your database, integrate with Windows...   or you can use your own scheme and code it yourself.

Once you have the base application, you can use their designer to add, modify or move fields as needed.  If you add fields, relationships and tables to the database, you can do that and then  just tell Ironspeed to update it's database references and you are good to go (of course you would still need to add the fields to the screens where they are needed manually).

You use a drag and drop process to change screen and component layouts, usually setting up multiple levels of tables to subdivide the screen as necessary.  Ironspeed also supports tabbing now, so it is easier to implement screens with numerous fields.

To further reduce your workload, you have the capability to generate reports and to define a report cell, you can use a fairly straight forward formula procedure (as in excel) to define a column.  As a bonus, it integrates with Microsoft Sharepoint.

Ironspeed currently supports the following database environments:

• Oracle
• MySQL
• Microsoft SQL
• Microsoft Access

You also have several state management models from which to choose.

Code customization is also straight forward if you are familiar with the Visual Studio scheme.  You can also use Ironspeed in conjunction with Visual Studio to do line by line debugging with breaks.

While it does take time to learn, this is a great developers tool.  They have an active forum and actually listen to their user base.  Additionally, they have good training videos and live web sessions too.  A great tool for the experienced coder.  You can download a free14 day trial version from their site at:

http://ironspeed.com/