How does Alpha Five Version 10 Rate for Web App Development

Question

I came across this RDMS via the advert on stackoverflow. Seems to be in the vein of MS Access / Filemaker / Apex database development tools but focused on web based applications. It quotes rave reviews from EWeek and a favourable mention from Dr Dobbs regarding its ability to create AJAX web applications without coding.

The Eweek review, apparently written by an ASP.NET programmer, goes on to proclaim the ease at which apps can be extended using the inbuilt XBasic language and how custom javascript can easily be added without wading through code.

Has anyone here built a web app with Alpha 5? Does anyone have comments on the development process, the speed of it or limitations they encountered along the way? To me it seems Oracle APEX comes closest to the feature set, has anyone programmed in both and have any comments?

Answer 1

I have been testing it for a few weeks and I have to say that I am very impressed with the speed with which I can build serious AJAX apps against SQL backends (I use MS SQL sever and Oracle.)

The products touts productivity through- "codeless AJAX" (which really works very well from a time saving perspective,) but I have found it also to be very extensible and programmable and I have been able to hook in ExtJS and JQuery libraries through its event model. I have also been favorably surprised by its security framework and built in Crystal reports like report writer. I have to say at first I was skeptical, but the more time I spend with it (and save with it!) the more I like it.