On January 21st, we hosted the Formspider Day in Denmark at the Thansen Training Center in Copenhagen.
We hosted the Formspider Day in Denmark at the Thansen Training Center
We met with a very engaged crowd who asked a lot of hard questions. It was really our kind of event with a lot of interaction. The day took longer than originally planned which is always a good sign in these kind of events.
We met with a very engaged crowd who asked a lot of hard questions
A New Framework for the New Era
We started the day with an introduction of Formspider. In the Formspider introduction our message is clear:
This is the world you used to develop for until 2008:
Today, this is the world you are developing for:
There is only one thing that hasn’t changed between these two pictures: The way developers build applications.
Incumbents are trying to shoehorn their legacy solutions to the new paradigm by rebranding them. They are still trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s tools, frameworks and paradigms: Oracle ADF, APEX, Microsoft .NET etc… All these frameworks are architected at least 10 years ago in the pre-Cloud, pre-Mobile era.
Comparison of Formspider vs. Yesterday’s Frameworks
| Formspider | Yesterday’s Frameworks | |
| Programming | One programming language and one high level markup language for all platforms. | Multiple programming languages and markup languages even for one application let alone different platforms. |
| Paradigm | Application Paradigm with Event Driven Architecture. No pages, no page submits. | Page Paradigm results in very complex architecture. |
| Multi Browser Support | Built-in Multi-Browser Support. Every application you build with Formspider works in every browser by default. | It is your responsibility to ensure that every page you build works correctly in different browsers. |
| Performance | Yahoo’s 34 rules of performance implemented in one package and reused by every Formspider application. Javascript library tuned to perfection. Built-in on-demand client side loading. | Very little help from the framework, if any, for performance. Developer must remember and implement performance best practices in every page he builds. |
| Security | Built-in security solutions that gets reused in every Formspider application. Excellent track record. Fastest to pass security audits in organizations. | Very little help from the framework if any. developer must remember and implement security best practices in every page he builds. |
| Quality | First class web applications. Every Formspider applications works 100% AJAX by default. | AJAX is still an option the developer has to work to implement. Most default behavior works through page submits which result in subpar user experience. |
| Sustainability | Formspider prevents organizations from investing in client side technologies that change very rapidly. This enables you to build applications that bet on good architecture rather than hype. It leverages your current skill set for cross device, platform development today and in the future. | Yesterday’s frameworks rely heavily on client side coding. This results in rewrites every 3-5 years and loss of huge investments in software. Developers can bring only a small portion of their experience to the new platform. |
| Maintenance | Formspider stores application meta data in relational tables which makes refactoring a breeze. | Very difficult to refactor. Requires a lot of text based search. A renamed column can lead to a week long expedition. |
Let’s Hear It From The Customer
A case study presented by a customer is the best way to evaluate a framework. Michiel Arentsen from Rhenus Netherlands flew in from Amsterdam to share his experiences with the Danish developers.
Michiel Arentsen from Rhenus Netherlands shared his experiences with Formspider
He explained the reasons why he chose Formspider over Oracle Apex and other frameworks. For those of you who were not present at the event, he recently wrote a blog post to share his views. I strongly recommend you to read it.
Applications built with Formspider and the Road Map
In the final presentation of the day, we showed the audience several applications built with Formspider from around the world. We also showed the Formspider IDE and the attendees had a chance to see how it is like to build an application with Formspider.
We showed the audience several applications built with Formspider from around the world
We wrapped up the day talking about our road map. It was not just all talk though, the audience had a chance for a sneak peak to Formspider Mobile.
Special Thanks
We would like to thank to Danish Oracle User Group. Without their support this event would not be possible. Special thanks go to Michiel Arentsen who flew in from Netherlands in the middle of a snow storm. Our very special thanks go to Kim Berg Hansen from DOUG. He moved heaven and earth to ensure that we had a flawless event. And as last but not the least, we’d like to thank Thansen for allowing us to use their facilities for the event.
Yalım K. Gerger
Founder&CEO
Gerger
