This is a good article and certainly the analogy with the motor industry are always pertinent and do get attention.

Obviously being published on SQL Server Central means that readers probably have a natural tendency toward 'bottom-up' systems design where the design of the typical system described in the article starts with a SQL schema before being passed on to a developer who presumably develops the UI etc..

I'm a big believer in the approach promoted by Frederick Brookes in The Mythical Man Month in which the Architect is actually responsible for the User Manual i.e. how the product will work to the end-user. The design of the database is given to the 'surgical team' once the GUI is agreed with the customer. This is very much a 'top-down' approach in contrast to your 'bottom-up' method.

There are some cases where of course 'bottom-up' is a natural means to develop certain line of business (LOB) applications, but with the tools available today for designing 'mock-ups' and allowing customers/end-users to engage in the design process without having to understand Entity Relationship Modelling and SQL schema's, I would never advocate this 'tail wagging the dog' approach for new LOB systems.

Absolutely right however that 'codeless' approaches based on rock-solid foundations is the way to develop todays LOB applications, but I have not been sufficiently impressed by any vendors' offerings that I have ever committed to using such a framework. I never give up hope though, and am always looking for a spark of inspiration and maybe this series will provide that?

Thanks again, TriSys.