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4D, a provider of open-source application development solutions, has announced a new beta release of its JavaScript development platform, Wakanda Beta 2.
Announced May 30 at the OReilly Fluent Conference on JavaScript tools and technologies, Wakanda Beta 2 gives developers a full stack JavaScript development platform for Web and mobile business applications. The new Wakanda foundation delivers best-of-breed technologyWeb and mobile applications, a development studio, client framework, NoSQL database, server and model-driven architecture (MDA). The company will offer both an open-source community and commercial version of Wakanda. Web applications developed with Wakanda are easily deployed on the cloud.
In an IDC white paper, Al Hilwa, program director for application development software for the market research firm, said, Wakanda is a well-designed end-to-end application platform that comes complete with a graphical development environment catering to modern developer requirements ¦ The application development approach supported by Wakanda abstracts much of the complexity in developing enterprise applications rapidly and productively.
Developers can use Wakanda to program the entire application stack with JavaScript, and its Model Driven Architecture (MDA) promotes high levels of reuse and decreases in maintenance costs. Both the user interface (UI) and the data model of the application are designed with a WYSIWYG designer from Wakanda Studio, and the Wakanda client framework and GUI designer leverage HTML5 and CSS3. The NoSQL object data store natively speaks REST/HTTP and server-side JavaScript (SSJS). Unlike with SQL databases, there is no need to use an object-relational mapping (ORM) layer. There is no hidden SQL generation. Wakanda natively understands the business logic.
The Wakanda solution is built on 25 years of business application experience along with the support of an active developer community. The new development environment can be extended with third-party widgets, libraries and server modules. In addition, Wakandas open-source environment supports developers in adding connectors to their preferred databases. The entire Wakanda solution supports full industry standard compliance, including JSON, REST/HTTP, and CommonJS.
With this newest version of Wakanda, we are providing one open, complete solution for all Web and mobile business application development, Laurent Ribardiere, Wakanda chief technology officer and creator, said in a statement. Developers no longer need to learn, integrate and maintain different technologies in different languagesWakanda delivers a cohesive JavaScript stack, instead of disparate technologies. With Wakanda, developers can program their entire application with JavaScript from end-to-end.
In addition to providing end-to-end JavaScript programming, Wakanda leverages existing libraries and third-party solutions on both client and server, and is cloud-ready. Individual features of Wakanda Studio, Wakanda Server and Wakanda Framework include touch for mobile development, pure multithreaded JavaScript, the NoSQL object data store and more.
The Wakanda production release will be available in June in both community and commercial versions. The community version of Wakanda will be free. Monthly subscriptions for commercial licenses and developer support will start at $35 per month for one developer and will include a royalty-free unlimited deployment right.
As a provider of business software development solutions, San Jose, Calif.-based 4D provides integrated platforms that simplify and speed up the development and deployment of Web, mobile, desktop and client-server business applications. 4D solutions and development tools are used in more than 70 countries by millions of end users and more than 10,000 ISVs.