AutoCRUD Automating IFML Specification of CRUD Operations

Development and deployment technologies for data-intensive web applications have considerably evolved in the last years. Domain specific frameworks or Model-Driven Web Engineering approaches are examples of these technologies. They have made possible to face implicit problems of these systems such as quick evolving business rules or severe time-to-market requirements. Both approaches propose the automation of redundant development tasks as the key factor for their success. The implementation of CRUD operations is a clear example of repetitive and recurrent task that may be automated. However, although web application frameworks have provided mechanisms to automate the implementation of CRUD operations, Model-Driven Web Engineering approaches have generally ignored them and its automation has not been properly faced yet. This paper presents AutoCRUD, a WebRatio plug-in that automates the generation of CRUD operations in OMG IFML (Interaction Flow Modelling Language) standard. The suitability of this tool has been evaluated by its application into several real projects developed by a software company specialized in model-driven web application development. The results obtained present evidences of the significant productivity improvement obtained by the tool, which almost completely removes the developer time dedicated to CRUD operation implementation.