RAPID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

IN SYNERGY WITH PERSISTENCE FRAMEWORK

Choon How Choo and Sai Peck Lee

Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Keywords: Rapid application development, persistence framework, rapid prototyping, framework reuse.

Abstract: This paper proposes the concept, architecture, design and development of a rapid application development

toolkit that will leverage on a persistence framework named PersistF, to subsequently provide an easy-to-

use and customizable front-end web application development environment for software developers to

perform rapid web application development. The proposed rapid application development toolkit consists of

two main parts – RADEWeb and PersistF Configuration Wizard, to enable software developers not only to

deliver their target web application within a shorter timeframe through an easy-to-use front-end

environment, but also to achieve encapsulation of database access from the business objects of the web

application.

1 INTRODUCTION

In fast changing environments, software developers

must deliver software systems quickly to meet

business delivery schedules, and not their own

timetables. Spending months and years developing

systems to high standards is fruitless if over time

requirements change beyond recognition. Software

development must serve its customers. Simple

value-for-money systems that work are better than

expensive and complex ones delivered late, over-

budget, and that are difficult to maintain (Howard,

2002).

Rapid application development (RAD) has long

been promised to be a boon to the computing

community. The idea is to develop a method of

designing software so that the whole process is

quick, painless, and nearly effortless. The tools used

should be easy to learn, powerful, and allow the

designers to interface their freshly minted

application with other applications, databases, and

file types (Web Developer’s Journal, 1997). While

no universal definition of RAD exists, it can be

characterized in two ways: as a methodology

prescribing certain phases in software development

(similar in principle to the spiral, iterative models of

software construction), and as a class of tools that

allow for speedy object development, graphical user

interfaces, and reusable code for client/server

applications (Agarwal et al., 2000).

Some companies offer products that provide

some or all of the tools for RAD software

development. These products include requirements

gathering tools, prototyping tools, computer-aided

software engineering tools, language development

environments such as those for the Java platform,

groupware for communication among development

members, and testing tools. RAD usually embraces

object-oriented programming methodology, which

inherently fosters software reuse (Berry &

Naumann, 2007). The most popular object-oriented

programming languages, C++ and Java, are offered

in visual programming packages often described as

providing rapid application development.

What is a “persistence framework”? Before

understanding the terminology, the two things that

should be known are “Persistence” and

“Framework”. In computer science, “Persistence”

refers to the characteristic of data that outlives the

execution of the program that created it. Without this

capability, data only exists in memory, and will be

lost when the memory loses power, such as on

computer shutdown. Persistence operations are

usually separated into well-recognized categories,

based on the types of data entries stored by the

software. These categories are the ability to add (or

create) new entries as well as view (or retrieve), edit

(or update) and delete existing entries (Wikipedia,

2007a).

133

How Choo C. and Peck Lee S. (2008).

RAPID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT IN SYNERGY WITH PERSISTENCE FRAMEWORK.

In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Software and Data Technologies - SE/GSDCA/MUSE, pages 133-138

DOI: 10.5220/0001878301330138

 SciTePress

A framework is a basic conceptual structure used

to solve a complex issue. In the software context, a

“framework” is a reusable design for a software

system (or subsystem). A software framework may

include support programs, code libraries, a scripting

language, or other software to help develop and glue

together the different components of a software

project (Wikipedia, 2007b). Frameworks are also

defined as a set of classes that embodies an abstract

design for solutions to a family of related problems

or a set of objects that collaborate to carry out a set

of responsibilities for an application subsystem

domain (Hyo et al., 2000). From the above

explanation, it can be concluded that a persistence

framework is one of the reusable designs.

A “persistence framework” moves the program

data in its most natural form (in-memory objects) to

and from a permanent data store (e.g. database)

(RoseIndia, 2007). Most such frameworks require

developers to maintain lots of meta-data describing

how to map the object data into the relational

database. However, with the advent of advanced

language features (e.g. reflection), most of this meta-

data can be obtained at runtime (Mertner, 2005).

2 MOTIVATION

Nowadays, most enterprise applications need access

to a relational database (EL-Manzalawy, 2007). The

Java standard for accessing relational databases is

the JDBC APIs that utilize SQL as a data

manipulation language. This approach of directly

accessing a relational database from an object-

oriented Java application was shown to be inefficient

and introduces a problem called “object-relational

impedance mismatch,” or simply “impedance

mismatch” for short, which refers to the differences

between object-oriented technology and relational

technology. An approach for solving the impedance

mismatch problem is to introduce an abstract layer,

called a persistence layer/framework, between the

relational database and the object model of the

application. This layer fully encapsulates the

database access from the business objects (Ambler,

2006).

There are many persistence frameworks (both

Open Source/Academia and Commercial) such as

Hibernate (RoseIndia, 2007), JDO (RoseIndia,

2007), Castor (RoseIndia, 2007), and PersistF (Jusic

& Lee, 2007). Most of the persistence frameworks

require users (developers) to configure the

framework’s behaviour by providing enough

information about the target application and the way

in which its persistence aspects are to be handled in

the context of a given framework. This decreases the

overall productivity for the developer and

complicates the development process by forcing the

developer to learn the lingo of the target framework.

Tedious and error-prone configuration tasks and

coding works may lead to costly, time consuming

process, and increase time-to-market for the targeted

application. PersistF, a framework prototype which

was developed within our research programme, has

been chosen as a basis for exploration, design and

development of our proposed RAD toolkit due to the

easy configuration of its framework behaviour. This

research intends to develop a rapid application

development toolkit that will leverage on PersistF to

subsequently provide an easy-to-use and

customizable front-end web application

development environment for developers to perform

rapid web application development.

3 RELATED WORK

Research work on the design and development of the

framework diagram and framework-based RAD

tool, named INTRAD (INTranet RAD) (Hyo et al.,

2000) generates an application’s source code based

on the frameworks, analysis and design information.

Therefore, programmers can develop applications

easily and quickly by reusing not only source code

but also design information. In Vidyadharan (2006),

techniques for Rapid Application Development

through the use of Data Binding and Object

Persistence were discussed. He also outlined a

general-purpose Data Binding framework that in

combination with the choice of an appropriate

persistence framework can facilitate Rapid

Application Development. By using frameworks like

Spring and Hibernate, Bolwidt and Partington

(2006) produced a full working application in two

days. They believed that the strong points benefited

them most are good team development because of

component separation. This work developed the

RAD tool that produced a full working application

in a very short time, but the biggest problem was the

speed at which they could build the user interface

(Bolwidt & Partington, 2006).

Bochicchio, Paiano and Paolini (1999) carried

out a research called JWeb – a fast prototyping tool

(Bochicchio et al., 1999). JWeb is an offspring of

the Autoweb effort (Bochicchio et al., 1999). WARP

(Web Application Rapid Prototyping) is a natural

evolution of JWeb based on the new evolution of

methodology and on fast-prototyping completely

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online (Bochicchio & Fiore, 2004). Compared to

existing tools, WARP is an aid for analysis and

design of web applications because it introduces a

new approach completely online (both the design

and execution environment), so the author can

immediately formulate and evaluate requirements,

specification and designs.

In short, Hyo et al. (2000), Vidyadharan (2006),

and Bolwidt & Partington (2006) showed the

framework related approaches to achieve the

features of Rapid Application Development.

Autoweb, JWeb and WARP are series of web

applications rapid prototyping tools, which are based

upon the HDM model. These tools provide a fast

development environment, an execution

environment and the feature of fast-prototyping

completely online.

4 ARCHITECTURE OF

PROPOSED RAD TOOLKIT

In the context of this research work, software

developers are programmers who want to develop

web applications. They will be involved in two

development phases using the proposed RAD toolkit

– development through RADEWeb and development

through Java IDE. RADEWeb is a front-end web

application development environment of the toolkit

which has to be installed in a server to enable web

application development and rapid prototyping

through the web. Java IDE is a Java integrated

development environment that provides

comprehensive facilities to software developers for

application development which is usually installed

in the developer’s workstation. Figure 1 together

with Figure 2 shows the overview of the proposed

RAD toolkit’s concept and architecture which aim to

perform rapid web application development in

synergy with the persistence framework, PersistF.

In the phase of development through RADEWeb,

developers can access to RADEWeb through their

web browsers. A web application workspace is

allocated for each web application to be developed.

Functions of metadata manipulation (add, edit, view

and delete), rapid prototyping, web application code

generation, and project archive downloading are

available in this workspace.

Figure 1: Overview of the proposed RAD toolkit for

development through RADEWeb.

The four main components in RADEWeb are

Schema Synchroniser, Dynamic Page Generator,

Code Generator, File Archiver. Schema

Synchroniser plays an important role in

synchronising the schema of the runtime database

based on the schema that has been captured in the

metadata. For the purpose of rapid prototyping,

Dynamic Page Generator generates the requested

prototypes based on the design information of the

web application stored in RADEWeb’s design

database. Code Generator generates the Tomcat-

based web application’s skeleton source code files,

builing upon the persistence framework, PersistF, by

RADEWeb

Runtime

Database

Code

Templates

Web Browser

Web Application Workspace

RADEWeb

Design

Database

Dynamic

Page

Generator

Code

Generato

Generated

Project

Archive

Database

New web application project

(Tomcat project)

Web Application Skeleton

Source Code

PersistF

Configuration

Wizard

Software

develo

Create web a

lication works

ace

ut metadata for the web a

lication

Browse

rotot

Generate code

Download the generated project archive

Extract and add as a new web application

ect in Java IDE

Confi

ure PersistF with the wizar

Proceed with further web application

development as needed

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136

5.1.1 Web Application Workspace

A software developer is allowed to create more than

one web application workspace. When a new web

application workspace is to be created, the name of

the web application needs to be entered, and will be

automatically defaulted as the name for its database

schema. Every successfully created web application

workspace will have its own runtime database

schema for the purpose of rapid prototyping.

5.1.2 Metadata

The metadata for the web application may include,

but not limited to, class names for the web

application, attribute names for each class, data type

and input type for each attribute (for interface

customisation). All of these metadata will be stored

in the RADEWeb design database.

5.1.3 Rapid Prototyping

From the metadata of the web application, software

developers can browse the web application

prototypes which were generated dynamically based

on the captured metadata. They can test and feel the

freshly minted web application instantly and edit the

metadata as needed.

5.1.4 Code Generation

Once the software developer is satisfied with the

prototypes, he/she can generate skeleton code of the

web appication based on the captured metadata in

synergy with PersistF. This saves developers from

spending time on repetitive and error-prone manual

coding work which may lead to costly, time

consuming process, and increase time-to-market of

the target web application. The generated skeleton

code has an architecture that indirectly reuses

PersistF defined design patterns, and thus, reducing

the risk of coding manually.

Figure 4: Overview of Code Generation.

Figure 4 showed an overview of code generation.

There are two inputs for the code generator -

metadata which is stored in the RADEWeb design

database; and code templates. Only metadata and

code templates which are related to the specific web

application will be retrieved and analysed for the

purpose of code generation.

5.1.5 Downloadable Project .zip Archive

Generated source code of a web application will be

compressed as a .zip archive so that the developer

can download it easily from RADEWeb. This

compressed archive contains the web application’s

skeleton source code which can be extracted and

added as a new project in Java IDE such as Eclipse

or NetBean for further development as needed.

5.2 PersistF Configuration Wizard

PersistF configuration wizard forms part of the

proposed RAD toolkit. It is used to configure the

settings of PersistF for the web application to be

generated. By using this wizard, developers only

have to follow the instructions; choose an

appropriate setting and edit it as needed from the

GUI interface instead of having to edit code

manually such as using a traditional text editor to

configure the framework’s runtime engine with

sufficient information about the domain application.

This makes error-prone configuration tasks much

easier with the wizard. It also prevents developers

from spending time on fixing setting errors that

frequently occurs during configuration.

6 CONCLUSIONS

This paper proposed a rapid application

development toolkit for developing web

applications, applying a persistence framework that

fully encapsulates the database access from the

business objects. The simple development process

defined has provided a guide to developers in

performing rapid web application development with

the toolkit. The research has benefited from some

RAD approaches proposed in previous works.

Besides allowing rapid web application

development, it is also the most effective way for

software developers to avoid having to perform

error-prone manual coding tasks during web

application development. Future works could be on

enhancing this toolkit to support development of

complex web applications.

Code

Templates

- .jsp files

- .java files

- .js files

- .css files

- web.xml file

- PersistF

framework

related files

Metadata

(in RADEWeb

Design

Database)

Code

Generator

Output File

(Project .zip

Archive)

PersistF

Configuration

Wizard

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137

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