Scientists have proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof. The debate between the scientist's need for proof and the creationist's need for faith rages on. Whether you are scientist or creationist, or indeed both, there is no doubting the wisdom of Charles Darwin's writings in his book 'The Origin of Species" [1859]. "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change," he wrote.

But what does this have to do with applications development?

Simple. Applications drive a businesses' efficiency and business model. In short, its competitive edge. The ability to adapt these two characteristics quickly is therefore a function of the flexibility of those applications. So if an enterprise, no matter how big or small, wishes to survive this global economy, wishes to head-off newcomers from overseas with lower cost models, then its business applications must be agile, responsive and able to provoke and lead new market trends.

This is only possible if:

• Development tools are intuitive, accessible and adapted to the skill-set of the entire development team - not just the privileged few,
• Code written by one developer is easily digested and modified by another,
• Application business logic is abstracted so that it can be deployed without disruption to and irrespective of the hardware infrastructure.

If your choice of development environment aligns with these requirements, there is a good chance that the applications you develop will keep pace with rapid change. Most development environments, it has to be said, do not.

At Four J's, we value simplicity without sacrificing flexibility and sophistication. In Genero, we provide a development environment that enables rapid change. Think of it as a question of survival.