Benefits and FAQs

A: The customer case studies on our website cover applications from surgery scheduling to e-commerce. Many are internally facing applications, while others are externally facing. You'll even see several software products. Check out our partial customer list and you'll see corporate IT groups, manufacturers, financial institutions, consultants and product developers. Learn more...

Q: How does Iron Speed Designer differ from Microsoft Visual Studio?

A: Iron Speed Designer creates an entire .NET Web application without any hand coding. Microsoft Visual Studio is an IDE (Interactive Development Environment) for writing, compiling and debugging a hand-written application one line at a time.

Q: Won't I spend as much time learning Iron Speed Designer as I will save by using it? What's the learning curve like?

A: Most of our customers experience no difficulty learning Iron Speed Designer. In fact, many report application maintenance is easier because applications have the same structure — anyone on your team can maintain an application created by anyone else. Learning Iron Speed Designer takes far less time than hand-coding. You may accelerate your understanding of intermediate and advanced topics by attending Iron Speed training. Learn more...

Q: How hard is it to customize application pages?

A: The spreadsheet-like Quick Layout Editor is very easy to use. Just drag and drop to rearrange controls as you would in a spreadsheet. You can also drag databound controls from the toolbox onto the spreadsheet to add additional fields — there's nothing extra to hook up!

Q: How maintainable are applications built with Iron Speed Designer? How hard is it to update my applications when you come out with a new release?

A: Generally, new releases of Iron Speed Designer leave your existing pages and code untouched, so you don't have to worry about your application changing without your knowledge. Only when you modify a specific page is it updated to the new release.

Q: Iron Speed Designer provides C/R/U/D functionality but doesn't incorporate my business logic. Why should I use Iron Speed Designer?

A: Iron Speed Designer does not create business logic; it's not a 4GL. However, in our experience, the surrounding create / retrieve / update / delete functionality comprises over 80 percent of most applications, so Iron Speed Designer provides a significant advantage by eliminating this infrastructure code. Why hand-code 100 percent of an application when you can hand-code just 20 percent?

Moreover, Iron Speed Designer creates a class architecture upon which business logic and processes can be built, saving you the time of designing and refining your own architecture. Learn more...

Q: I'm worried I can't sufficiently test applications with code I don't fully understand. How difficult is it to test applications built with Iron Speed Designer?

A: Applications built with Iron Speed Designer are extremely well tested because they benefit from both Iron Speed's QA process and thousands of other developers who use and test applications built by Iron Speed Designer. This reduces your overall testing load, so you can focus on testing your application's custom business logic.

Q: I'm interested in working with MVC/MVVM frameworks. Does Iron Speed Designer use the MVC Model?

A: Iron Speed Designer uses the modern Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture to create applications. MVC isolates application domain logic from the user interface, permitting independent development, testing and maintenance of each. Learn more...

Q: I use an iterative development process but Iron Speed Designer uses a database-driven process. What if my database schema is evolving? How will Iron Speed Designer work with my development style?

A: Iron Speed Designer is ideal for environments where end-user requirements shift frequently. Quickly modify your application when end-user requirements change. Iron Speed Designer includes built-in tools for synchronizing your application with an updated database schema.