An application development environment is provided. Database contents or structure can be changed and the changes are seamlessly propagated to the applications or views that are impacted by the change. Similarly, from the application page, new database content can be added to the database. The taxonomy of the database is relational through the use context and data relationships are contextually presented by their relative relationships within a taxonomy structure. Controls are used to define the behavior of the application. The activity of each control is defined via declarative events. The application framework is generated from the taxonomy, which flexibly couples the application design to the required data.