Tools for someone with low programming experience to create a simple CRUD Web-application?

a friend of mine wants to create a simple inventory database that can be deployed on the web.

He has had a lot of experience with Database tools like Paradox. Moreover he has experience with writing Macros and programs with Basic, and even a bit of C++ experience. He uses Windows and Mac OS X, though mostly Windows.

If the requirement of having a web application wasn't there I would recommend MS Access.

Currently I see these options:

A) Ruby on Rails

Pros:

• easy to start out (even on Windows?!)
• at least from a programmers point of view perfect to create simple CRUD applications
• can be deployed at virtually every popular Cloud hoster
• I could easily assist if there were problems

Cons

• ActiveRecord is from my point of view too technical
• Designing forms requires ability to fiddle around with CSS and HTML

B)开发者_如何学运维 VB.Net

Pros

• he has experience with simliar programming languages
• easy to create forms and possible to deploy CRUD apps on the web

Cons

• can be deployed only at few hosters (only Azure?)
• simple problems can be quite difficult to solve in VisualBasic

C) Cold Fusion, ...?!

Pros/Cons

• I have no idea

I am happy to hear about your suggestions.

Thanks, Philip

I have yet to use it, but the http://www.force.com/ platform (which salesforce.com is built upon I guess) is supposed to make it easy to develop data driven apps for more like business analyst roles. There is a cost to host it, but one app isn't that much on a monthly basis and the 30 day free trial would let you figure out if it worked for you or not.

If you are looking for database application frameworks for people who are not software developers, you might look at LightSwitch. It is designed for that particular demographic.

As much as I like Ruby on Rails AND the .Net platform for database-driven apps, they are both designed for developers to use. Going to something designed for your task might just be what your friend needs.

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/lightswitch

Check out the examples on agiletoolkit, the php framework with jquery and php form examples. It's php with some jquery but to get a basic application up and running against a database, you dont need to know much php at all.

The five lines are the code shown on the left of the image are all thts needed to create a CRUD based on a database table with both a form and a grid with specified columns. It will open a jquery dialog for ADD and EDIT and uses AJAX to update the form.

It also has built in functionality to add one click sorting on the column headings, pagination so you dont get an endless grid on one page but get << < 1 2 3 .. N > >> style links to page through the results set and a search box to filter the results to a specified subset.

Note the colours are added by CSS and can be removed.

The second negative point for Rails ("Designing forms requires ability to fiddle around with CSS and HTML") could be easily mitigated with the use of a gem that generates forms (like formtastic or simple_form).

Apart from Rails I would suggest Monk which is a lighter-than-rails ruby-based web framework. Its components are loosely held together and there are many skeletons (web app templates) to choose from.

Pros

• multiple skeletons to choose from
• very light/minimal (a new developer will not get lost in the myriad of files and folders that Rails is)
• as easy to deploy as Rails (is rack based)

Cons

• does not seem to be as well-maintained as Rails
• most Ruby stuff don't play well in Windows (AFAIK)

PS: on the second positive bullet of rails (and ruby) I would like to add Heroku which is a GREAT service for getting-started projects.

Building CRUD Apps using ZK Studio is very easy. CRUD Apps can be built in 5 to 6 steps. Check it out.

Rails is the most innovative and easy approach to creating crud apps ever.

There are plugins like active_scaffold and hobo that allow you to create CRUD apps without having to write almost any code.