1. A method for generating program specifications for a computer program comprising: (a) displaying a task guide on a monitor attached to a computer, wherein the task guide comprises a step-by-step procedure for creating program specifications for a computer program that accesses datastore persistent objects materialized from a datastore; and (b) accepting operator input into the computer in response to the step-by-step procedure and creating the program specifications using the operator input; and wherein the step-by-step procedure comprises: (1) defining a project as a container for organizing related files; (2) gathering source files for the project, wherein the source files are used to generate the program specifications for the computer program; (3) parsing the gathered source files to identify components therein; (4) defining transactions to be performed by the computer program by selecting among the identified components of the parsed source files; (5) defining class specifications for the defined transactions; (6) defining characteristics of the datastore accessed by the computer program; (7) defining characteristics of a computer that executes the computer program; and (8) generating the computer program from the program specifications.