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Right here: www.servoy.com

I am a 10+ year software developer, specialising in Filemaker
development for small to middling clients. I have steered
perennially clear of windows in favour of Mac OS and for a spell
Linux as my viable platforms. I feel that my Filemaker abilities
are good enough to sell the continuous stream of solutions that
we do.

About three or four years ago, during my beginning awareness
of data driven website growth, I started looking into how
FileMaker might drive websites I was making. I even built a
couple (both of which are still live) and realised that it just
wasn't enough. I wanted MySQL and PHP for speed and stability
but had no way of learning them without a project and no way of
getting a project without knowing them. I bought all the php/
mysql books and hoped that a time or product would come
along at some point that could tie everything together for me
(yes, to avoid my having to bury my head in the books, perhaps
I'm no good at it, perhaps I'm just lazy)

Around 5 years ago, I heard through the Filemaker developers
channels about a couple of crazy dutch guys rewriting FileMaker
in Java, it sounded cool but much more like a homebrew project
than something useful to me. Fast forward 5 years and here we
are. I am Servoy customer nr. 1 and have been developing
wholeheartedly in it - having abandoned Filemaker for all but
maintenance of existing systems since Servoy's commercial
release. You see, Servoy is so very much more than just
Filemaker rewritten in Java (which is exactly what it is at it's most
basic). What I didn't know earlier was that Servoy is a
Multiplatform, FileMaker-like Java front end to ANY (yep, ANY)
SQL back end, Mysql, Oracle, Informix, MSSQL, you name it. It
will even allow you to relate one SQL data source to a different
and remote SQL data source - or a bunch of them - tied
together in one form. It will allow you to make pixel perfect
forms and it uses Javascript to tie your forms, buttons, fields,
actions, events, javascript plugins (millions of them) together
into one sanitised box of tricks that does exactly what you want.
How the boys at Servoy guessed that what looked like the
eternal and painful evolution of Java into what is now would pay
off I don't know. The result is that there is an easy to use
development environment which while teaching me Java and
SQL, allows me to develop commercial relational database
environments for paying clients.

While not strictly a web application, it is deployed (unlike
Filemaker's CD Rom installation procedure) via a Java Webstart
application published by the server, it also runs as quick across
the internet as it does locally, caching results, selectively
sending updates and intelligently managing who has what data.
It can be made to look like a web page (you can even use html -
including external html on your forms and buttons and etc. It
can be used to administer and tie together SQL Sources IN a
website or manage the data structure of your website back end.
In short, although I don't know the gamut of high end RAD tools,
it strikes me that this is as high end as you allow it's back end to
be, while being familiar to gui developers, javascript veterans
(I'm not - but it is rapidly teaching me) and SQL lovers
everywhere. My current projects in Servoy include a student
marking database for my wife who is a distance university
lecturer using the built in FireBird database back end, a CRM
Solution being deployed in 4 separate businesses (2 already, 2
hopefully) using the currently built in free (as in no extra cost)
Sybase ianywhere back end, and a MySQL administration
solution for an antiques seller who needs their 5 year old
Filemaker driven site moved upwards

Check it out...

Posted by: Thunder_z   Posted on: 06/28/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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