Software Architecture, though not new, is an area of continual rebirth. While the goals are all still the same as they were thirty years ago--connectivity, performance, maintainability--the methods that we use to accomplish these (sometimes Herculean) feats are constantly improving. Nowadays, a Software Architect has his or her choice of countless frameworks and libraries to choose from. Gone are the days of writing bits directly to the socket, of pointer arithmetic, even of memory management. As the layers of abstraction get higher, Architects are freed to develop more powerful and configurable systems in less time and with fewer resources.
GrandView, through its long history, has benefited greatly by the use of frameworks and libraries. From the days when it used the Microsoft Access Runtime, through the days of VB6 and ASP, to today with its use of the .NET Framework--GrandView has leveraged frameworks for rapid development, maximum flexibility, and great performance. Today, VB.NET powers our web pages, while we leverage Microsoft's Enterprise Library 3.0 for best-practice data access and caching. Telerik's RadControls suite provides much of the User Interface "wow factor" that our users love. And our database back-end is SQL 2005 screaming along on a Dual-Quad Core server. Our architecture allows us to develop features quickly, and get them in front of users sooner.
Looking forward, there are some exciting changes coming in architecture: ASP.NET AJAX promises to free up developers from much of the difficulty of client-side browser development; Microsoft LINQ promises to simplify data access, and allow powerful mapping of data to business objects; SQL Server 2008 promises unmatched data storage of structured and semi-structured data. As always, we will continue to evaluate the potential these frameworks have to add value to GrandView's architecture, and continue to work hard to bring successful Project Management to everyone.
Bryan DeBois
GrandView Business Solutions Developer