Would you use IdeaBlade with DevExpress controls for an N-Tier system?

Question

I’ve worked on numerous projects where we’ve developed our own frameworks and platforms from scratch and it was never really successful and I’m re-evaluating to rather use a commercial product to assist us with our product development.

If you get a chance to develop an N-Tier system with a SOA layer from scratch would you recommend IdeaBlade with DevExpress? If not what other combinations would you recommend?

Requirements: - SOA Layer - Business components - DAL with database independency as optional - Developer support - Easy upgradable - .NET - No Royalties

Answer 1

You sound exactly like me. I have looked at ideablade for so long now but never been able to use it. I really like it and like what those guys are doing. I have spoken to a couple of the guys from the company and they seem genuine and helpful. The part where it became unstuck for me was in their "undecided" pricing model. The used to charge for their BOS server. With Silverlight they are charging for the dev tool at a very resonable price. However after discussion with them they seem to be reserving the right to charge for the BOS server later. I don't have a problem if they do but I need to know how much and I need to tell clients how much. No good using the product and then the licensing changes and it's going to cost 10's of $1k, which is probably the case if you read any products EULA. Of course this is only an issue for Silverlight so if you are doing other then ignore what I have to say.

So unfortunately I have not been able to use it in production although I think it would save me allot of effort. I do plan to contact them on my next project to see if they have any news about the pricing and I would suggest you do the same. Check out Ward Bells blog too.

Devexpress I have no idea about sorry.

Answer 2

It's very difficult to find a solution on the market that incorporates all three tiers of development. The guys at Ideablade are very helpful and responded to my questions promptly.

One thing you should not under estimate is with every framework there is a learning curve but once experienced it can make an experienced developer a number of times more productive.

At this stage I'm not considering Silverlight but do agree the licensing for the BOS server needs more clarity. At the end of the day you don't want licensing to eat into your profit or price yourself out of the market but you need to compare it with the development of RIA and if you will save money on the long run.

I've decided to bite the bullet and give it a try, so I'm busy with the development of my product using IdeaBlade and ASP\WPF\Winform controls from DevExpress.

Creating the Data Access layer and business layer is very easy and initiative but would recommend that IdeaBlade develop better and more intuitive code generators for user interfaces. Another issue is the version supportability between DevForce and DevExpress. DevForce is always a couple of version behind DevExpress control release.

I will keep you posted with my progress.

Answer 3

OzDeveloper - Check with us again about server pricing which has evolved in recent months; in almost all DevForce 2009 and DevForce 2010 application there is no server cost ... none.