Talk:Rapid application development

message: Modern RAD tools now has the richest features and the most scalable.
RicoWiki 01:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  RAD is scalable and reduced features...TRUE ANYMORE! 

message: I think this article isn't really a stub anymore?
Jaapvstr 10:11, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know, that's such a subjective thing... — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:23, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is subjective, but.... few would disagree that it is nolonger a stub now. Mathmo Talk 23:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stub status 

message: What was the first langauge to employ RAD techniques? Mathmo Talk 23:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  First language? 

message: Is this really just only a methodology? It's a life cycle model...  Todadot (talk • contribs) 15:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Methodology? 

message: These are views that I've seen advanced, but they're far from the only ones on certain of those types. Wouldn't this be solved better by prose than a seemingly-authoritative table that's referenced to nothing? Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: "Relative effectiveness" table

message: It would be nice to see some references for these claims cited. In my experience, programmers are generally terrible with GUIs, or UIs in general. More commonly when my colleagues or I see a terrible UI, we always comment that a programmer probably designed it. And I say this as someone who can program.
Whether anyone agrees with this or not, it would still be nice to see some references in that section if people are going to make claims about phenomenons in programming.
Rohaq (talk) 01:25, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms: Programmers GUI driven? 

message: For the very simple reason that RAD is just not what is said in this article.
There is in fact in the literature (since the late 80's at least) a prototype-based software process, where the prototype is meant to facilitate the requirements definition, then it gets discarded to start building the real product now with all the good practices in place.  On the other hand, RAD is just something else: it is a sequential process model with a very short cycle, namely a "quick waterfall", and not only it can only work when there is a good base of reusable components, it also has all the problems (and, should I say, the very well known problems) of tools-based development, i.e. as a long-term development strategy it is a sure technical suicide.
This article should be completely rewritten by someone who knows what s/he is talking about and who has nothing to sell.  Otherwise better just delete it, which I will definitely do in a week from now, unless some discussion starts and someone commits to rewriting something decent enough.
LudovicoVan (talk) 21:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no justification for deleting this article. --Boson (talk) 09:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree absolutely there is no way this article should have been considered for deletion, at most it could have been reverted to a stub. I've essentially rewritten the article since  wrote that comment about how bad the article was (I agree it was bad). Of course I think I know what I'm talking about but we'll see what others think ;-) --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:52, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I am sorry but I find the article totally off mark (and I can guess you start from given references, but I am trying to tell what it actually is): it conflates RAD with process models, while the two are orthogonal: RAD is rather about "getting to market as fast as possible with disregard for all established principles and recommended practices", and the place as well as the limitations of it should then be obvious, it's at best good for quick prototyping. Indeed, on the other hand, the evolutionary aka "spiral" model is the most complex process model that there is, so plain apples and oranges.  -- LudovicoVan (talk) 23:10, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is simply and totally wrong! 

message: In the early 90s the term Rapid Application Development was most often used to refer to semi-automated software development processes where the developer would essentially create the application by selecting options offered by an expert system. One such system shipped with at least one of the DOS versions of Borland's Paradox (RDBMS system), and similar solutions were offered by other RDBMS vendors at the time. This method at least deserved to be called "rapid". Surely there should be mention of this or perhaps it should have its own entry?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.89.33.37 (talk) 01:23, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't agree that this was the "original" meaning of RAD. I was using the term RAD before the Borland system you mentioned was built. In fact we always said that we practiced RAD when we built any expert system. I worked for a big 5 consulting firm and was always getting pressure to use the official waterfall methodology which I hated with a passion. It's an unfortunate fact of the IT world that various vendors (Borland, IBM/Martin) try to "own" words like RAD. I agree though that more information on tools like the Borland product would be valuable, I think it would make a good addition to the current article and encourage you to add it. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:48, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: "pressure to use the official waterfall methodology"? Really? I've never met consulting companies that actually heard about about developing methology, I think. :) --93.198.77.122 (talk) 11:10, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Ever hear of Accenture? They are the largest IT Consulting Company in the world. That was the company I was referring to. They were Andersen Consulting when I worked for them in the 80's and early 90's (and were the largest consulting firm at that time as well). In the 80's all sorts of new technologies such as client/server, OOP, and expert systems were coming along that facilitated RAD but there was all sorts of pressure to use Method/1 (that was the name of their methodology). Here is one article that confirms it, but you could find countless articles in the IT press of the time about how much money Andersen invested in Method/1 and how much "when you have a hammer (especially one you built yourself at considerable expense) all the problems look like nails". And since Andersen was the leader all the smaller major consulting firms like E&Y, PWC, and Deloitte also created their own methodologies and encouraged their staff to use them.  --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:02, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  What Happened to the Original Meaning of the Term RAD? 

message: Since more and more places are using the term "rapid development" and it has no definition (other than a pointer to RAD), I suggest creating an article on Rapid development and separating out James Martin's RAD as the historical background (and more of a life-cycle model than a methodology). Rapid development can be seen as a methodology... but very loosely defined. I think it should be inclusive of other methodologies such as XP.
For instance, List of graphical user interface builders and rapid application development tools has a whole bunch of frameworks that never mention RAD, but simply "rapid development".
Benjamin Bach (talk) 12:48, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You can really tell a person's IT background by how they use terminology like this. People steeped in Mainframes and COBOL tend to have read a lot of Martin and by RAD mean Martin's RAD. People like me who don't have a very high opinion of Martin and who worked more in the Unix, OO, and AI worlds use the term RAD and are surprised when people think we are talking about James Martin. Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent, back to the point I agree with your criticism but I felt that there wasn't enough well sourced material in the article at this point to justify splitting off two articles, one for RAD in general and one for Martin but what I tried to do in my recent changes was be very clear when the article was talking about RAD in general and when it referred to Martin's approach. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:42, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rapid development vs. RAD 

message: What does RAD Jepoy mean ?Kesstrelle (talk) 19:21, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jepoy ?? 

message: There is currently a table in the pros and cons section of the article. The table has no references and it is confused and wrong in some places. For example, it talks about Agile and Extreme Programming as if they are two different things when in reality they are simply two different words for the same approach. It lists "Scrum" as another alternative methodology. While there are some things on the Internet that bolsTer this, I see some people talk about the Scrum approach, in the Agile community a scrum is one of many techniques used in Agile, not an alternative to Agile. As an example of something that is just plain wrong the table says this: "Short iteration may add too little functionality, leading to significant delays in final iterations. Since Agile emphasizes real-time communication (preferably face-to-face), using it is problematic for large multi-team distributed system development."  Large multi-team systems are difficult to develop with any methodology but Agile can be used for such projects. I've seen it used for them several times and there are plenty of documented cases. Since the table has no references at all and is so confused I think it's best to just remove it rather than try to tweak it which is what I'm going to do now. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 15:22, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: --MadScientistX11 (talk) 16:27, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing Table in Pros and Cons section 

message: Currently there is a section titled "Four Phases of RAD".  There are no references for this section. I think we need to distinguish better between Rapid Application Development (RAD) as a general approach vs. RAD as the name of the Martin methodology. In this comment I'll call RAD as a general term RAD1 and the Martin method RAD2. I'm very familiar with RAD1 but not so much with RAD2.  I think it's  wrong to list four phases (regardless of what name one picks for the phases) as THE phases for RAD1. RAD1 can be Agile, it can be spiral model, it can be RUP, etc. The phases for RAD1 will depend on which version of RAD1 one picks and in some Agile versions the whole notion of lifecycle phases is downplayed or eliminated all together. I'm assuming that the four phases here are the main phases of RAD2? I'm going to do a bit more research to see if I can verify that. I'm tempted to just remove this whole section since there are no references. Anyone have an opinion? --MadScientistX11 (talk) 23:17, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I found this paper: http://www.casemaker.com/download/products/totem/rad_wp.pdf It lists the phases of RAD2 and they are not the same as in the article. I'm just going to remove that section. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 23:21, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I got hold of the James Martin book and now I see where those phases came from. I put them back in and documented the appropriate pages in Martin's book. I added a sentence to make it clear that these are not by any means the only ways to do RAD in general but rather the names for the phases in Martin's approach. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 23:14, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:   --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:36, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Four Phases of RAD:  Reference? 

message: Currently this section says: "Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a term originally used for describing a software development process first developed and successfully deployed during the mid-1970s by D.Dinadasa at New York Telephone Co's Systems Development Center under the direction of Dan Gielan. Following a series of remarkably successful implementations of this process, Gielan lectured extensively in various forums on the methodology, practice, and benefits of this process.[citation needed]"  Does anyone have a reference for this? So far all I can find is this link: http://helpdesksurvival.com/rapid-application-development-history.html Which confirms the info but there are no references on that page. I plan to remove this if no one can provide a good reference. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 23:18, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: --MadScientistX11 (talk) 16:20, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

text: Yes, it was removed around July 1 2014. That's what the check mark means. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 15:58, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of RAD 

message: I plan to completely rework this section but I wanted to document some of the things wrong with the current text in case anyone wants to defend it. To begin with the first sentence: "The shift from traditional session-based client/server development to open sessionless and collaborative development like Web 2.0 has increased the need for faster iterations through the phases of the software development process." Gives the wrong idea. RAD in the generic non-Martin sense is not at all restricted to UI driven systems (not to mention RAD was around way before Web 1.0 let alone later versions).  One of the first examples of RAD was Barry Boehm's work which was on real time systems to control satellites. And there are plenty of documented cases of using Agile for systems where the UI was not the main driver. Then consider this sentence:  "This, ... has, for many developers, rekindled interest in finding a silver bullet RAD methodology."  First of all saying "searching for a silver bullet solution" is very much a POV statement. No one who has read and understood the Brooks paper where he coined the term silver bullet would say "I'm looking for the silver bullet" the whole point was that there is no one single magic solution to software productivity. Then there  is this: "Rapid Application Development (RAD) can be considered as a type of Agile technique or vice versa" Now if we mean RAD in the generic sense then yes I agree but if it means (as I think was the intention as written) the James Martin approach absolutely that is false, RAD is nothing like Agile. I think I've said enough, if anyone wants to defend this section as written please speak up. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 23:45, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've rewritten everything except the last three sections at this point. All three of them essentially seem like they could be merged into one section, pros and cons or costs and benefits, something like that. I want to read through what's there and do a bit more research before tackling them but right now my plan is to just merge those three sections. BTW, I disagree with the statement in one section that most big products at IBM and elsewhere are still developed using a waterfall with "some spirals". First of all if there are spirals at all it's not waterfall and second that reference is old and out of date. IMO the vast majority of products these days are developed using some kind of RAD (not the Martin method but some form of rapid or agile development) methodology with prototyping. I'll see what kind of refs I can find. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 16:26, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  --MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:30, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relative Effectiveness 

message: Kku you recently reverted my revert of your unsourced change to this page. The proper response in such a situation is to take to the talk page and discuss it, not to just undo the revert. I think adding a section on RAD Frameworks is a good idea but to do that you need wp:sources You have none. The Wikipedia policy here is unambiguous and I'm deleting your unsourced addition. Also, assuming at some point you have good references, I think the new section needs some text not just a list. I think that’s always a good idea but on this page its especially important. Something we had to grapple with is that RAD means very different things to different IT audiences. The distinction between the James Martin definition and the definition that comes out of the iterative development approaches that led to Agile methods. If we add specific frameworks we need to make clear which approach the framework supports. If you disagree please discuss here, don't start wp:edit warring. Thanks. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 21:06, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  RAD Frameworks 

message: I reverted some changes to the introduction by Volunteer1234. First of all the revised text was ungrammatical. The new intro sentence was "Rapid application development (RAD) is an approach to software development put less emphasis on planning and more emphasis on process. RAD includes..."  Besides being ungrammatical it's not clear what that sentence really means.  I agree that RAD puts less emphasis on planning but how does it "put more emphasis on process"? If anything, many RAD methodologies such as Agile put very little emphasis on specific life-cycle stages, phases, etc. Also, a key point in the article is that RAD is both a generic term and a term for James Martin's methodology. The new version of the intro reads as if Martin's term and RAD are the same thing which they absolutely are not. People like Barry Boehm were using the term RAD years before Martin developed his methodology. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 00:15, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I also reverted a more recent change to the intro. The intro as written was: "Rapid application development' (RAD) is both a general term used to refer to alternatives to the conventional waterfall model of software development as well as the name for James Martin's approach to rapid development.". The change was to remove the words "a general term". I think those words are useful. Without them it sounds as if the two things being contrasted were potentially completely different. They aren't. Both are about Rapid Application Development but one refers to the term in general (i.e., a general term) and the other refers to Martin's branding of the term. It was written that way on purpose and removing those words makes it less not more clear. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 04:06, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

text: Rapid application development (RAD) is an approach to software development [that] puts less emphasis on planning and more emphasis on process. That is basically the second sentence that is still there after your revert. "more emphasis on process" is still there! It would be nice if the article had a concise definition for the first sentence, instead of this ugly "both a general term" thing with its wp:refers problem and multiple topic problem. If there are two topics, perhaps the article should be split. Volunteer1234 (talk) 16:53, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think we need the "general term" distinction. Martin had a specific and notable methodology under this title. Mid-'90s Microserfs also followed Steve McConnell's book Rapid Development  which was a survey of the best but-still-vague RAD methodologies of the day (Incremental, Spiral etc. There was too a generic notion for "Rapid Application Development" (usually followed terribly badly by idiot managers as simply "Do no planning at all, but run around faster"). Andy Dingley (talk) 20:27, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: If you look at the history of this page the original article was a mess (people even suggested deleting it, this is all documented above) and one of the main reasons is that you had two kinds of people editing the article as it existed before. One group who thought that RAD was synonymous with James Martin and another group who knew that the term RAD went back much longer. So the article was extremely confusing because we didn't make that distinction clear. Look at the talk page, it's obvious that is something we grappled with quite a lot and that is why the current article is the way it is. Just saying that you think some sentence is ugly is not a justification for changing it. I don't think it's ugly at all and more importantly it sets up the whole article, it does what a good introduction sentence is supposed to do which is provide a summary of what the article is about so that a new reader will understand the main point right from the beginning. Regarding that second sentence, I'm fine with removing it, I think it's vague and doesn't really add much to the article. Regarding splitting off into two articles, if someone wants to do it, and do it right, have at it. What I suggest is if someone wants to do that create two drafts of what the new articles would be in your user pages and let others take a look as you do it and if there is consensus we can do a split. I've done things like that before but I'm too busy right now. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:08, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why I reverted Recent Changes to Intro 

message: I just reverted a change that added this sentence: "In simple words RAD is a special software which aims at building programs vastly through the use of tools and wizards." RAD is a software process not a software tool. It's an approach to building software. Yes, there are various tools and technologies (GUI builders, OO IDE's, rule based systems) that are commonly used for RAD but the initial RAD: Barry Boehm's spiral model was done using very traditional software that didn't even HAVE a GUI, Boehm's spiral model was first used to develop the software that goes into sattelites. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:11, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  RAD is not software 

message: An unidentified user (different IP addresses), has twice introduced Sir Drake as a close associate of Boehm and an influence on the early stages of RAD. However, no references have been cited. The only connection between those two names I can find on Google (admittedly not the fount of all knowledge) is that in 1883 a sculptor called Joseph Edgar Boehm created a statue of Sir Francis Drake in the town centre of Tavistock, Devon, UK. The second change has been reverted with a request to discuss the changes here and to provide cited references. Davidjcmorris  Talk  23:39, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Boehm and Sir Drake