RAD (Rapid Application Development) is a concept of software development that focuses on speed, prototyping & iterative development rather than a formalised, time-consuming methodology. The idea behind RAD is to deliver solutions which are more efficient & meet the user requirements in a more dynamic & accurate way. Working with delivery of prototypes &iterative releases also allows developers to create solutions rapidly.
RAD tools can be very useful for creating potential solutions very quickly and save huge amounts of development time. Small to medium sized development projects with minimal complexity are a good fit for RAD development and many RAD tools now use a simplistic, visual development
environment to help make it easy to develop solutions for even non- technical developers. However, RAD tools can be very expensive and, even though many RAD tools are designed with simple, visual drag-and-drop development environments, they still can entail a learning curve,
which can be time consuming and complex.
The need for a rapid application development tool within the University of Birmingham (UoB) is an essential one. There are many small to medium sized web development projects which are either ignored completely due to the small project scope/size, given low priority (and so are delayed), or take a relatively long time to develop due to the development methods & tools
used.
For this evaluation, the Oracle APEX development tool will be reviewed to determine how well it works as a RAD tool for web applications development and possible impact it could have on small to medium sized application development projects within the organisation.