These web software development tools are part of what is referred to as PaaS (platform as a service).

What we found in our online search was that opinions varied from the very optimistic and enthusiastic to outright pessimistic, to the extent of even questioning the very concept of code free development.

However, the insights provided by the programmers on the need, utility and the requirement spec of good web software development tools clearly established that people are looking for tools to help automate most of the tasks, with manual intervention needed only for the utterly complex ones.

In this article, let us look at some of those comments and summarize them.

A blogger at technofreakatchennai put his expectations very nicely for any software that has to generate PHP code automatically.

Ok, if you ask me what it should be, it should be something like you have a canvas, you have objects for HTML elements like what you have in a GUI designer tool like Qt designer. You can drag and drop elements into the canvas and finally it can generate the code. Now, you can either have it as HTML generator or PHP generator. The latter will generate the appropriate PHP code for the form logic to work, like validation a text field and POST/GET methods for the form. The form validation can be guided by asking to select from a list of validation options like “only characters, only numbers, email address…” and validation the element for the same.

Beebole, on the other hand, appears quite pessimistic about the ability of these tools to ever live up to their promise. According to it,

Creating web applications is about 4 big steps:

1. A user expressing a need;

2. Translation of the need into automated processes and web screens;

3. Development of the web applications;

4. Fine tuning and adjustments of the web application thanks to the users feedbacks.

Each of those steps requires experience. It takes years of experience to be able to listen to users and translate their needs into ergonomic applications; it takes years of trainings and school courses to be able to develop robust and stable applications; it takes a few tries and feedbacks to get an application right.

Some of the PaaS providers introduce their own programming language (for whatever reasons). This seems to be the feature that is putting off many developers as commented by a blogger in TechCrunch.

I thought this looked kind of cool until I noticed you have to program using a proprietary language…. It claims and looks to be similar to Javascript & C++ but do I really want to learn the idiosyncricies of yet another language. Come on guys, I thought we were past that…

Most people want the software to be developed and ideally downloaded in a known language. Also, not giving away the code is another big pain for the software developers.

There is an argument that while PaaS based web software development tools cannot probably develop entire applications (depending on the complexity levels of these apps), they definitely provide a very good way to build a prototype. A user on BoxesandArrows thinks that these tools can be good if and only if prototype tools become as good as paper-and-pen.

I think lot of the tools mention above are pretty good tools for simulating websites or webapplications with basic UI interation….but I think they still lack ability to effectively simulate rich internet or desktop applications…..I guess I’m still stuck prototyping with visio, photoshop, snagit, and powerpoint Note: I’m always little skeptical about these tool vendors who claim to provide solutions to everything…..to me, a good prototyper should be able to use just about anything - long as they could do it fast and get their point across effectively to their audience. I still think paper/pen is still pretty good.

In the same discussion, another user shared some very important thoughts.

I ultimately found that it’s key value was in being able to rapidly communicate a new concept. In other words, it worked when part of the early stages of an IKIWISI (I Know It When I See It) requirements gathering model, in which a design was sort of grokked from a set of high-level business requirements, and then I just cranked out a functioning simulation in a day or two, to which stakeholders then responded. *However*, when the proof of concept phase was completed, and time came to actually get into detailed design, it turned out to be far more effective to just whiteboard stuff and return to doing wireframes (either visio or xhtml or flash or some other combination of tools) in collaboration with designers and developers. Why? Well, there are many reasons… One huge reason was that we found prototyping the functionality in the actual target environment to ultimately be a far beneficial approach. In doing so, we were not only validating the user experience, but also validating the technology. This is maybe an even bigger reason: at least from my experience, these simulators by and large are not capable of rapidly prototyping ajax functionality or other highly customized interaction design in which things refresh at the element level or animate or whatever, which for me, is an essential component of modern interaction design - for that reason, they may become a constraining factor, since one might only consider design options that the simulator supports.

There are hundreds of such discussions. The summary is simple and striking:

Web Software Development Tools

• Must provide a very smart collaborative system as there is a lot of rough work the programmers do prior to development and need tools for doing that since it is a crucial part of the development activity.
• Must allow for quickly developing prototypes even if entire applications cannot be developed, as it still has a great utility for communicating ideas to business users.
• Must not introduce a new language. Must not lock-in the developer by not giving the code.

In fact, not giving the code is a major grouse, as the prototyping effort’s value gets somewhat diminished due to the “rework” needed to write the code.

We believe Celeroo Builder meets all these criteria by focusing on the 3 most common causes of web projects failure:

• insufficient time and budget
• changing requirements
• inconsistent stakeholder demands

Please comment on this article and let us know what you are looking for in web software development tools. It will help us provide greater value to our customers as we enhance Celeroo Builder.

Discussion

1030Commentshttp://www.celeroo.com/blog/2009/04/what-users-want-in-their-web-software-development-tools/What+users+want+in+their+Web+Software+Development+Tools2009-04-06+07%3A26%3A57Celeroo for “What users want in their Web Software Development Tools”