In almost any GUI framework (and hence accompanying visual IDE) you will most certainly find a set of visual components that work with an RDBMS. Furthermore, most "regular" components (like edit-field or listbox) have the ability to bind to the database fields, as well. I think such components are referred to as "data-bound" components. It may have been championed by Visual Basic, but I am not sure.
It's nothing new, of course. The reason i remembered about them is - I stumbled upon them, once again, today when I was playing with one of such framework/IDEs.
I really never understood why people bother to create such things. Except the marketing buzz (or bull) about Rapid Development - I see exactly zero sense.
Firstly, such components are in direct conflict with well-adopted and recognized principle of Model-View-Controller separation. Then, even if you do not care about MVC (why?) I honestly have never seen an application that had a logic so simple that such components made its development any more rapid, than it would be without them.
So, why do IDE/framework designers bother? Who are they trying to fool? Are they just waisting their time?
