[dba-VB] Dynamic Data Entities Web Applications

Shamil Salakhetdinov shamil at smsconsulting.spb.ru
Fri Aug 21 11:07:59 CDT 2009


Hi Gustav --

Yes, I do know that you find ADO.NET Entity Data Model very promising.

And I only wanted to note that I find DDEWA also very promising to perform
quite some routine work we and our customers/"super-users" are doing
manually nowadays.

BTW, as far as I see/can guess DDEWA are implemented using very similar to
ASP.NET MVC Framework approach: I mean they seems to be using "some tricks"
on top of ASP.NET engine to generate on-the-fly ASP.NET controls and web
forms and "feed" ASP.NET engine using these generated web forms/controls. I
can be wrong. Just guessing...

I will continue my R&D with DDEWA and if I find something interesting I will
post this information here.

BTW, I'm currently trying to customize the order of the list of the tables
shown on the first page (Default.aspx) of my DDEWA, any ideas?

Thank you.

--
Shamil

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 4:45 PM
To: dba-vb at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: Re: [dba-VB] Dynamic Data Entities Web Applications

Hi Shamil

My comments were not on the ADO.NET Entity Data Model which I find very
promising.

Your example of a "superuser" having access to the schema and full (test)
data is what I meant with a admin/techie app which I believe can be useful -
only have I never met a client which had much more than just a sense of what
the database is about.

I agree with you that dynamic data entities web tool seems to be very well
engineered.

/gustav


>>> shamil at smsconsulting.spb.ru 21-08-2009 13:18 >>>
Hi Gustav,

Yes, it takes "close to zero efforts" (~1 minute) to have a "web
application" for this ADO.NET entity model

http://shamils-4.hosting.parking.ru/temp/model.jpg 

which in turn was generated from MS SQL 2005 database.

<<<
...this technique has its uses but app development is not one of these...
>>>
Gustav, let me disagree with that your statement.

First of all because (sample) and lookup data entry/edit is in fact part of
our everyday real life practice of application development.

Second, because Dynamic Data Entity Web Applications (DDEWA) do help
developers to verify their data modeling decisions by "effortlessly" giving
"working models" in hands of (power-)users, and when users/developers find
there are some mistakes in those decisions then DDEWA help to quickly fix
those mistakes (as you can see from referred here video you have to just
redeploy your corrected db and corresponding .edmx file and then refresh
your browser - and you'll get the new version "up & running". This practice
of verifying data modeling decisions in real life environment is also our
everyday practice but it usually takes much more efforts when done without
DDEWA. 

Third, because as I noted you can prepare within DDEWA ready to use in real
apps "code blocks" (.ascx controls etc.) while "playing with" DDEWA (again
as you can see no need to rebuild/restart the application - just refresh
your browser - well, that is a consequence of ASP.NET technology used for
DDEWA)

Fourth, as we talked here before, ADO.NET Entity Data Model will allow in
the (near) future to generate actual database models from ADO.NET Entity
models - wouldn't that become soon our everyday development practice?
(Imagine you start from use cases/user stories, develop customs classes and
business functionality based on ADO.NET Entity objects, develop unit tests,
then generate database model, develop integration tests, generate/customize
application interface... - and you're done. (of course I'm simplifying here
the real picture but IMO mainstream direction is presented correctly?))

Fifth, as we can see DDEWA user interface is generated from ADO.NET Entity
Model and this model (which is currently in the referred above case is
simply generated from database model) can be made having "Super-Entities"
modeling user interfaces' underplaying data, these "Super-Entities" can have
relations used by DDEWA to navigate between them... - IOW this is a way to
simulate real life apps user interfaces and navigation, and then "just add"
a mapping from "Super-Entities" to database entities...

...

DDEWA looks here very challenging and in the same time helpful to our
everyday development practices, not a "silver bullet" of course as we're
getting more and more complicated business tasks to automate but they
(DDEWA) promise to get out "yet another routine everyday work" from the
shoulders of developers...

Thank you.

--
Shamil 

P.S. The idea of DDEWA to generate user interface doesn't look original - we
have seen many "wizard tools" like that (I have even participated in
developing tools like that for different platforms, did you?) - but
implementation of this idea by MS folks and the ways to (re-)use this
implementation for real life apps development look very powerful, useful and
challenging from here. My five stars (*****) to MS DDEWA technology
developers.

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com 
[mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 2:27 PM
To: dba-vb at databaseadvisors.com 
Subject: Re: [dba-VB] Dynamic Data Entities Web Applications

Hi Shamil and Charlotte

I watched that video - some challenge due to the awful soundtrack - and my
impression is that this dynamic data entities web is useful only for
creating an interface to the complete table schema - which you hardly never
use (I haven't) except for the example Shamil describes where you wish to
present the full schema as well as the data content and even offer to edit
this at close to zero efforts. I could imagine some kind of monitoring or
admin/techie interface built this way.

For any other purpose a lot of customizing is needed which - though quite
powerful, so it seems - for a decent app will take longer than building the
app from scratch I guess. 

So - as I see it - this technique has its uses but app development is not on
of these.

/gustav


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