About Esferico: Development Tools
The following software development environments are 'currently' in use by Esferico ltd, but does not constitute a complete list of support technologies and skills. If you have a specific desire for a development project to be undertaken in a particular language, please contact us for more information.
REALBasic
For most internally initiated projects, REALBasic is our development environment of choice. Not only does the environment have the flexibility of Visual Basic, we feel that it continues down the route that Microsoft left when they switched across to .NET, but it also produces applications that are far easier to install and maintain.
REALBasic also offers something that the Microsoft path certainly does not - the ability to develop a single application, and have it run on Windows, Linux and Apple Mac desktops unmodified and from a single code-base, greatly reducing costs if a client needs a multi-platform application.
REALBasic also offers a plethora of capabilties built in to the development environment, ranging from an AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) compatible database, to SSL enabled communications.
Microsoft Visual Studio
While we love REALBasic, we are historically Microsoft developers and most of our major [installed] applications are still written in this MS development environment. Probably the most used environment world-wide.
PHP
Currently our server-side scripting language of choice, PHP allows us to develop web-applications that run remotely on your web-servers. This interactive web-site is written in the PHP language.
Java
Also a multi-platform development language, Java has become the language of choice for many types of scalable applications, ranging from server-side scripting, to games on mobile-phones.
JavaScript
Though it shares a similar name, JavaScript is most certainly not Java. This scripting language is often used to produce those value-added features present on web-pages as well as some scripted plugins in traditional applications.
VBScript and ASP (Active Server Pages)
A greatly cut-down version of MS Visual Basic, VBScript is a Microsoft scripting language used in similar situations to JavaScript. Though not supported by most browsers (though inherently supported by Internet Explorer), VBScript is the native development language of ASP (Active Server Pages), a server-side* web-application development environment from Microsoft.
*As ASPs run at the server end, compatability with non-IE browsers is not an issue.
Databases
Depending upon the needs of the client, we write applications that utilise conventional single user or small scale database, or larger scale multi-user RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) databases, and often both at the same time so as to provide scaleability and future-proofing.
REALSQLDatabase
The REALSQLDatabase engine is a single-user database suitable for many developements that inherently supports AES256 encryption. Though extremely compact, the database engine is fully SQL (Structured Query Language) compliant and so provides an excellent starting point for small-scale and initial developments.
REALSQLServer
REALSQLServer is a premium database (though still far cheaper than most options today) that is directly scalable from REALSQLDatabase with little or no modification. REALSQLServer is a true RDBMS and can therefore run as a server supporting many users with a central database store.
MySQL
Currently our large database of choice, MySQL is an exceptional RDBMS system that is part of the de-facto web-development LAMP standard (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) used to develop the majority of modern web applications.
While MySQL still possesses a limited 'free-of-charge' version, most commercial implementations now need a per-annum license fee. A good alternative to MySQL if required therefore, is REALSQLDatabase.
MS Access
While not an RDBMS, Access provides an adequate small-scale database capability - indeed, because of its bundling with Microsoft Office Access has a large world-wide user base. It does however, scale only to a small degree and would not be advised for a true multi-user application.
MS SQLServer
Microsoft's SQLServer is a true RDBMS system that is shipped with many of their server operating system installations. In many cases therefore, SQLServer is already installed with a client even if they are not aware of it.
SQLServer is a capable RDBMS system at the same scale and user level as MySQL.