When you graduated, you probably thought your days of homework and exams were behind you.  

But some things never change: Your average software developer probably didn't have to copy their homework off the other kids in class. More likely, we were the ones the other kids copied from. And whilst you may not realise it, twenty years of school and college/univerity has ingrained in you an aversion to "cheating on your homework" in any way shape or form.

Which, in a way, is exactly what CrunchyCode is- cheating on your homework.  

CrunchyCode lets you cheat by simply blurting out what your application would look like, had you chosen several different paths. You can compare an AJAX solution against a pure ASP.NET application, against a Macromedia Flash solution, all without studying textbooks and websites and professional journals to learn how to hand code every single solution.

Of course, for the solutions you actually like, you probably will still do the homework on your own, but if you're willing to let it, CrunchyCode can save you an enormous amount of elbow grease.

"Cheating" is a relative term, obviously.

There was a time when 4GL languages were viewed as "cheating". C and C++ programmers would turn up their noses at childish languages like Visual Basic (which, incidentally some C# programmers still do for unknown reasons). And of course, Visual Basic is now the most widely used programming language in the world.

More recently, many firms viewed outsourcing of software development to India to be "cheating". Now it has (quite rightly), become commonplace. A consulting firm we used once bragged that when an MCSD qualified ASP.NET developer in India gets paid USD$10,000 per year and he's the highest paid member of your development team, you can afford to write an application 10 times over for the same cost as a dev shop based in London. Changes in scope? No sweat. Ongoing support and maintenance? No problem. Increased testing requirements? Easily handled.

Now IBM, Microsoft and all the significant software development and consulting shops are "cheating" by utilising the software talent in India to the tune of billions of dollars.

Those of us who have seen the fledgling software consulting industry evolve from punchcards and assembler may shed a nostalgic tear in the face of seemingly mercenarial change. It seems unfair that we invest so much time and effort in learning syntax, only to have the industry evolve in such a way that many fewer lines of code are needed. Every version of Visual Studio .NET is launched with a rousing catchcry of encapsulation of features and a reduction in the lines of code required to complete a task.

It's almost taking the artistic side out the industry.

But let's face it, we're grown ups now. Most customers don't terribly mind if you use Visual Studio, Dreamweaver, CrunchyCode or even a squadron of developers in Mumbai to help build your applications for you. If you find a way to get the job done on budget, on time , everyone will be happy.

Application generation tools, such as CrunchyCode benefit everyone. CrunchyCode places a wealth of R&D at your fingertips, allows rapid prototyping against your database and flat out saves you time and money.