Prototyping web-application models

Question

What tools/practices do you recommend for rapidly getting a working model of a database/MVC-model working? I could start hacking away at the framework of my choice and add tables as I go, but I prefer to get the structure fleshed out a little before I hit the keyboard.

I could just use pen-and-paper, but it can be a bit crude to rapidly do things. I'd like something 1 step above - perhaps a diagramming tool that allows me to model relationships. UML?

Answer 1

You can try and use the WebRatio tool. It's model driven and it's based on the WebML notation (soon to become an OMG standard under the name of IFML). The tool is free for non commercial purposes and personal use, you can download it for free.

[Disclaimer: I'm with Politecnico di Milano and WebRatio, and among the inventors of WebML/IFML]

Answer 2

SQL Power Architect is free and open source, good for designing your database model. It can forward or reverse engineer to most databases.

http://www.sqlpower.ca/page/architect

Java Spring Roo is useful for quickly setting up a RESTful web service or server-generated HTML MVC system.

Gnome Dia is a good open source diagramming tool that can do UML, and has plugins to write Java or SQL for you:

https://live.gnome.org/Dia