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Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

alan-platform.com

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Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#161

Post by klageveen »

chenster wrote: post #160

How would you handle workflow? A simple example: email manager when a timesheet has been supported for approval.

We'd set up a derived collection of "timesheets that need approval" and export that to an emailer system. Every time a new entry shows up in that collection the emailer will send out an email to the respective manager (whose email address would probably also be part of the data exposed to the emailer system).

So, in essence, you hook up a separate system to a part of the data (we have a system ready made for this particular use case), and the datastore will push all changes in that data to this system.

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#162

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

klageveen wrote: post #94
WorkLifeBalance wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifying something as password hashing as (sha256? salted sha256?) without telling it to seems like magic to me. So to clarify, it's this password: declaration which tells the framework to hash the input? users dynamic : . 'Users' password : . 'Password' interfaces root { } numerical-types Is this defined anywhere within the project or is this framework magic? (Or "glue" if you don't like the term magic). password…

The line `password : . 'Password'` points at the password property, which tells the framework to hash it. What kind of hashing isn't something you should have to specify or worry about. It's a strong salted hash and we'd like to make it even better at some point, but that's firmly in the realm of the framework implementation.

This parses to "Just trust us to get this right."

I think you may have some issues persuading customers that's a wholly valid approach, especially when you're dealing with security and data integrity, GDPR, and so on.

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#163

Post by IanCal »

klageveen wrote: post #89
ccleve wrote: post #86

I've long thought that this is the way applications should be built. 90% of what we do as app developers could be automated away. This looks really promising. That having been said, I'd like to echo some of the other comments here. You need better docs. As an app developer, I want to see some things right away: 1. What's the server written in? Can I see the code? It isn't clear which of your Github repos contain the…

Thanks for the feedback, this is exactly what we're looking for here. Perhaps some of this is "how to launch a platform 101", but we can't guess all the concerns everyone may have. Also, we're not necessarily looking to really kick start adoption for a wide audience right now. The platform lacks maturity on a number of levels to properly support that. We'll continue to work on our documentation and clarify some of th…

> We understand people want to see the UI, but it's not the key selling point.

I'm extremely confused as to what on earth the product is then.

If the UI is not important here, who are the key users you're expecting?

From your site:

> Alan is a low code platform, enabling efficient and low cost development of tailor-made software applications.

So I can quickly make a software application, ok.

And it should have great UX baked in:

> Furthermore, applications would be easier to use, because they would be generated with excellent UX baked in, and implementations cannot introduce magical or unintended behavior. People would also never need training for new applications: they would already know how to use them.

And it has generated and custom UI and dashboards:

> It includes both fully generated and custom built graphical user interfaces and dashboards, running on desktops, touch terminals, hand-held devices etc.

And you have a headline:

> See it with your own eyes

You want me to see it with my own eyes, and give me a tutorial and the code that would allow me to do so. But you don't want me to see it before then?

So there's a UI that it makes. This UI is the final actual output of the code I am writing. And it's not the key selling point?

I'm not trying to be an arse but I want to really convey just how strongly I feel that your page should show me some actual examples. Screenshots are fine, but demos would be the main thing I'd aim for. You have an animation in your tutorial, which is good, but then it seems that it only shows launching an app then stops!

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#164

Post by avighnay »

Back in the peak years of ERP (90s), as a fresh graduate i started my career in a company called BaaN. It was one of the big two SAP (Germany) & BaaN (Netherlands). To give a sense of its capability, it is the product that Boeing chose as its ERP, Boeing being the most complex challenge for any ERP!

BaaN were pioneers in this kind of 4GL thinking and made some revolutionary stuff!

The product since then is sadly now a living a zombie life with its existing customer base. The link below gives a sense of what they provided.

http://www.baanboard.com/node/46

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#165

Post by sitkack »

core-questions wrote: post #156
maxsilver wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We understand people want to see the UI, but it's not the key selling point. Pretty apps isn't what you'd use Alan for (although you could). In my humble opinion, I would suggest rethinking this. I imagine you don't intend to sound that way, but a response like this might suggest to people that you don't value user experience or good design, which would rule a lot of otherwise-interested people right out. For any s…

> Otherwise, Alan is just for disposable apps / throw-away apps / Excel-replacement apps, and for any serious work, I'm eventually going to have to rewrite the whole app in something else anyway so I might as well start there first. There's no reason to be so elitist. Disposable applications can become important in business, they're often the duct tape that holds a small or medium sized company together. If they can…

Only by the niche that is aware they are writing throw away applications.

No one "asked" for Excel applications, Excel was there, and applications started getting written in it.

Alan has to be installed on-purpose, it can't be used accidentally like Excel was. Part of the (global) utility function is how something looks.

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#169

Post by kazinator »

TickleSteve wrote: post #145

"Alan" is presumably named after Alan Turing yet this not Turing-complete... That is an odd naming scheme... Whats next? a Lisp called "NoBrackets"?

It is Turing-incomplete. Turing gave us the concept of computational completeness, which requires the complementary incompleteness in the same breath.

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#170

Post by sam0x17 »

codetrotter wrote: post #26
elviejo wrote: post #23

Some feedback: * "low code" is confusing When I started reading I thought low code, meant low "level" code, something like assembly or rust. After reading a lot in the page I saw it meant not writing imperative code. I think the term Model Driven Engineering would be more appropriate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-driven_engineering * How do I model business rules? How do I model a State machine? I want to spec…

> "low code" is confusing When I started reading I thought low code, meant low "level" code, something like assembly or rust. I expected that as well from the title but at the very start they link the meaning of the term so that those of us that don’t know what it means can quickly find out on Wikipedia. I think it’s best to do like they are doing and link the Wikipedia article.

I understood what they meant by "low-code" before I clicked the article, but I'm just one person.
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