SUMMARY

Announcing Bigtop [cue the circus music] a language for describing
database backed web applications and a code generator which makes web
apps from those descriptions.

Bigtop allows for generation of...
  sql to build the database
  object relational modeler code
  controllers
  config files
  many other things already
  whatever you want teach it to generate

It is only like the code generators of other web app frameworks, in that it
is a generator.  What distinguishes it is...
  generation from a single description file
  safe regeneration as the app matures
  tentmaker, a browser delivered editor, to aid in describing your app
  plugin scheme allowing new generators
  variety of generated output (see above)

TentMaker

If you install the Gantry framework, you may choose to use tentmaker.
It delivers what amounts to a wizard for web app creation.  With a
couple of minor exceptions, it completely handles the bigtop syntax
and can interoperate with your favorite text editor.  (Tentmaker is
unable to: honor your whitespace use or remember your comments, and it
cannot use a couple of obscure features of bigtop syntax.)

Using tentmaker removes the need to master the bigtop file syntax.
Even though the structure of bigtop files is simple, the number of
keywords is large.  The tentmaker knows them all, how to spell them
correctly, and whether they take single or multiple values.  It color
codes the input elements to indicate which keywords are important
and which are more obscure.  It includes documentation on what all
the keywords mean.  It stays current by using the same data structures
the generators use to register their keywords.

Plugins

By writing a plugin, anyone familiar with parsing and syntax tress, may
write a generator to produce whatever they need from the original
description.  For instance, if the SQL syntax of your database is a bit
odd, you can write a new generator for your database and use it as easily
as the supplied generators.  The new plugin may even register additional
keywords with the grammar, if the current language is not rich enough for
its purpose.  If done carefully, the new keywords will even work with the
tentmaker.

LONG FORM

And now for more detail...

[ see whatisbigtop at this point ]
