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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

#61

Post by klageveen »

yosefzeev wrote: post #56

How come the "behind the scenes code" is unavailable?

In your project, you write specifications. These are read by the runtime components (database, web client) and this specification fully defines their behavior. There is no project specific code, everything you can write in your data model is supported by the runtime components. You can look under the hood at that level, the runtimes are built in C(++) and TypeScript etc., but it's completely generic. In fact a lot of that codebase is generated.

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

#64

Post by joshgachnang »

klageveen wrote: post #34
tyingq wrote: post #29

Any thoughts on pricing model yet? I see it's free for personal use. Who do you view as your competition?

We're still feeling out the market here, to see where we can take it. It will probably stay free for personal use and then grow from there with services like hosting, etc. Pricing model for businesses is something we're looking at from case to case currently. Competitors include Mendix, Outsystems etc., when it comes to low-code and serving citizen developers. Excel as well. On the other hand there are still a lot of…

Really interesting framework. And the docs are super easy to understand; nice work!

I'll be interested to see where it goes with pricing. It's hard to start building on a platform if you don't know if it's going to become too expensive in the future.

Paid hosting seems like it would work really well for a system like this (though I'd encourage some type of open-core model as well, so people have some escape hatch if the company goes under).

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

#65

Post by copperx »

klageveen wrote: post #43
copperx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm disconcerted after reading this thread, seeing that some people somehow think that "low code" means "low-level code" (really?) and mistaking a collared shirt for legs. I'm going to assume it's because this post was made early in the morning and no one has had their coffee yet.

I does look kinda like a beer mug, I can't unsee it! But that's probably also because on this side of the planet it's time for a pint.

It looks better with this color scheme than on the linked page: https://alan-platform.com/

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

#66

Post by fouc »

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…

Was the HN title fixed after your post? It's now "low-code" which I think is pretty understandable.

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

#67

Post by hliyan »

I liked the developer experience right off the bat -- the way the data structures are modeled couldn't be more elegant.

However, this put a crimp in my enthusiasm:

"[Alan] defines all possible states of the data, and in effect all possible states of your application"

We recently finished refactoring a complex algorithm that got away from us because we coded it as a state machine rather than a plain vanilla algorithm using good old sequence + iteration + selection. The state machine version may have been easier to write, but the old fashioned algorithm was so much easier to reason about and maintain.

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

#68

Post by klageveen »

WorkLifeBalance wrote: post #59
klageveen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in this particular case passwords are always hashed. So the platform deals with that for you. Other changes to the data model need a migration, which is covered here: https://alan-platform.com/pages/tuts/migration.html

Where is the definition of the password being hashed? The tutorial defines it as text: /* 'Users': collection { 'Password': text }*/ How does the platform know to hash that? Is it looking for magic property names?

No, there is no magic :) When you set up the users at the top of the model file, you specify which property is the password.
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