Five Steps to Rapid Development with TierDeveloper 3.0
Unlock the power of rapid development when you use
TierDeveloper from AlachiSoft in your N-Tier application
development. Follow the steps below to quickly design,
generate, and deploy a great portion of your real-life N-
Tier application.
For free evaluation download please visit
http://www.alachisoft.com/download.htm
STEP 1: HAVE YOUR DATABASE READY
1. Create your database in Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle,
or DB2. You can design and create your own database. Or,
you can use the sample database provided with
TierDeveloper. Or, you can use one of the
databases/schemas already provided with your database.
They are:
a.Microsoft SQL Server: Northwind database. Just create a
new TierDeveloper project against this database.
b.Oracle: DEMO schema with EMP, DEPT, BONUS, SALGRADE, and
other tables. Just create a new TierDeveloper project
against this schema.
c.DB2: SAMPLE schema provided with DB2. Just create a new
TierDeveloper project against this schema.
2. Populate database with data. This would ensure that you
have a fully working database ready to be used by a web
application.
STEP 2: KNOW YOUR APPLICATION'S DATABASE INTERACTION
1. Identify table-columns your app will access:
Before you do anything, you must know which tables and
which columns in these tables is your application going to
access.
2. Identify transactional operations: Identify where
in your application you need to do insert, update,
delete, or single-row select operations.
3. Identify queries: Most applications need to
retrieve collection of rows from one or more tables in the
database. Identify all places where you need to issue
queries. These could be single-table queries or could
involve complex joins or nested queries.
4. Identify stored procedures to call: If there are
any stored procedures that already exist in the database
which you need to call, identify them here. These stored
procedures should be those that contains complex business
rules or other data manipulation logic. Do not manually
create stored procedures in the database for transactional
operations or for queries that are otherwise handled by
TierDeveloper. TierDeveloper can generate stored procedure
DDL for you in that situation.
5. Identify bulk updates or deletes: Most
applications do not require bulk updates or deletes but
some do. If you have any, identify them.
The best way to understand your applications database
interaction needs is to understand its behavior from the
user's perspective and focus on all the data that needs to
be displayed to the user or changed by the user.
STEP 3: CREATE TIERDEVELOPER PROJECT
1. Connect TierDeveloper to your database:
TierDeveloper uses OLEDB to connect to your database and
reads its schema so it can let you define the mappings of
middle-tier objects with tables in the database (based on
what you have determined about your application's
interaction with your database). Please note that even if
you're going to generate Java/J2EE application that will
use JDBC to connect to the database, TierDeveloper (the
product) will use OLEDB to connect to your database.
2. Define data object mappings to your tables:
Wherever you had identified table-columns that your
application needs, define data objects mapped to these
tables with the appropriate columns selected as data
object attributes. You can map a data object to single
table or multiple tables. You'll need multi-table data
objects for situations where you're trying to issue a
multi-table join query that returns data from multiple
tables.
3. Specify transactional methods in data objects:
Based on what you identified as your application's
transactional needs earlier, you should now define those
insert, update, delete, and single-row select as methods
of your data objects. TierDeveloper lets you do that with
point-and-click.
4. Define queries as data object methods: For each
query that you identified earlier, define a query method
in the appropriate data objects. Remember, a query returns
a resultset which get translated into a collection of data
objects by TierDeveloper generated code.
5. Define stored procedure calls as data object
methods: Wherever you needed to call stored procedures,
you need to define data object methods for them. Remember,
these stored procedures contain sophisticated business
rules. Any stored procedures for transactional operations
or queries can be generated by TierDeveloper so you do not
have to manually write them in the database.
6. Define bulk update/delete operations as data
object methods: Wherever you need to do a bulk update or
bulk delete, you'll need to define data object methods for
them.
STEP 4: GENERATE AND RUN 50% OF YOUR APPLICATION INSTANTLY
1. Generate data objects: After you have defined all
your data objects, you are ready to generate code for
them. You can generate data object code in the following
format:
a. .NET components
b. Enterprise Java Beans (for BEA WebLogic, IBM
WebSphere, Oracle 9iAS, JBoss, and iPlanet)
c. Java Objects (for any JDK based environment
including JSP/Servlet engines)
2. Build and deploy data objects generated code: If
you machine has the appropriate build environment for your
platform, TierDeveloper asks you whether you want to build
the generated data objects code. If you say "yes", it
creates the following. It also then deploys them to your
appropriate environment.
a. .NET assemblies for .NET components. They are
deployed through component services.
b. JAR file for Enterprise Java Beans. They are
deployed to your J2EE app server
c. JAR file for Java Objects. They are deployed to
your J2EE app server or JSP/Servlet engine
3. Generate web application: After you have generated
and build the data objects, you can generate a fully
working web application. The purpose of this web
application is to let you test all the functions of data
objects. This also serves as a good sample/example code
for you to copy into your own web application development.
TierDeveloper generates the following types of web
applications:
a. ASP.NET pages in C# or VB.NET and with or without
XML/XSLT.
b. JSP pages to call Enterprise Java Beans.
c. JSP pages to call Java Objects.
4. Build and deploy web application: TierDeveloper
can also build the web pages for you. It does the
following for each platform:
a. Build a .NET assembly for ASP.NET pages. They are
deployed to IIS
b. Build a WAR file for JSP pages. They are deployed
to J2EE app server or JSP/Servlet engine
5. Run deployed web app with data objects: Now that
you have successfully deployed the data objects and the
web app, you can run the web app. The really nice thing is
that all this generated code is now working against your
own database and in your own environment. You can see all
the behavior of the data objects through this web app and
also use it as a guide in your own web development. Try
this and you'll be convinced about TierDeveloper being a
true Rapid Development tool.
STEP 5: DEVELOP REMAINING 50% OF YOUR APPLICATION
After running and verifying that all the generated code
contains your desired functionality and runs correctly
against your database, you are now ready to develop the
rest of the application. The areas you are likely to need
to develop in your application are:
1. Presentation Layer (Web Pages): Use TierDeveloper
generated web app as a sample/example for quickly
developing your own. You can even copy/paste a lot of the
code from the generated web app into yours, thereby
speeding up your development work even further.
2. Business Objects: Although TierDeveloper generated
code contains all your data manipulation logic and some of
your business rules as well (in the form of data
validation or stored procedure calls), you will most
likely have to develop additional business objects. If
you're not an expert in your target platform (.NET, J2EE,
or J2SE), you can learn from the generated data objects as
your business objects are likely going to be in the same
environment and would follow similar design approach.
