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Show HN: Superblocks – IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs

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Re: Show HN: Superblocks – IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs

#91

Post by verdverm »

xyzzyrz wrote: post #88
verdverm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have analytics that back that up, or just statements and surveys? As a backend focused dev who's very interested in low code, I've tried them all and they fall short after the honeymoon. Most recently Plasmic.app, had (has) great promise once their product matures. They nailed the developer facing workflow. The problem is twofold, (1) that the UI is big, slow, and buggy (2) the code that comes out the other si…

Hi! Thanks for the feedback on Plasmic. Re: "super heavy" output: A blank component should result in one corresponding div. Maybe you're weighing the API client library? You can codegen pure React modules if you don't want the loader library itself. If you have any specific feedback on the UI, would love to listen. Thank you!

The whole thing is recorded, I posted a link to twitch in slack.

An unhydrated card like the testimonial example was 28k via code gen.

I put tons of feedback in that video, if your teams are not watching it, you are missing out immensely

Despite not pulling a lot of punches in my stream, I still think Plasmic is closest of all I have tried to a developer friendly, maybe lovable in time, product

Re: Show HN: Superblocks – IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs

#92

Post by verdverm »

bradmenezes wrote: post #87
verdverm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have analytics that back that up, or just statements and surveys? As a backend focused dev who's very interested in low code, I've tried them all and they fall short after the honeymoon. Most recently Plasmic.app, had (has) great promise once their product matures. They nailed the developer facing workflow. The problem is twofold, (1) that the UI is big, slow, and buggy (2) the code that comes out the other si…

Not from statements and surveys, but from paying customers :) We think our market area is wildly similar to the early days of gaming engines, echoing what pbardea commented earlier. We are providing the game-engine or the "tool-engine" if you will. The reason backend developers are often tasked with building frontends on internal tools is because the frontend developers are often allocated fully to the core revenue-g…

There will be no default or standard in low code / drag n drop. It's a market that has been around a long time, very crowded, largely segmented, and a tough space to compete in.

I get the game engine analogy, used it myself, but it's a little apples and oranges. Very different personas, if you only have one persona for developers or even backend devs, you haven't narrowed down enough yet.

Re: Show HN: Superblocks – IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs

#93

Post by verdverm »

pbardea wrote: post #86
verdverm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use nvim, but yea, that is the point. Meet your users where they are, which is code for developers, not drag-n-drop, which is for non-developers. Pick your poison :] Just to be clear, porting a drag-n-drop interface to VS Code is not meeting developers where they are.

(Disclaimer: I’m an engineer at Superblocks) Interesting point. Personal opinion here - I do not think that drag and drop is only for non-developers. A great example of this is the gaming industry in Unity/Unreal engine. These tools are effectively low-code but also incorporate drag and drop to allow developers to build whatever they can imagine but faster. Drag and drop should be an extension to the developer’s arse…

I agree 100%, I want a drag-n-drop* but every single one has not met the expectations.

* what I want now is a little more and a product I plan to move from prototype to production soon (tm)

As I said in a peer comment, I get the game engine analogy, it's close, but there are enough differences that it doesn't carry enough weight to make it a point of justification. They've also had over a decade plus to develop and get lots of complaints. But note, there are 2-4 options in the game dev space, because it is so hard to build a compelling experience. Low code. / drag-n-drop is littered with shitty products and race to the bottom competitors. Also, my statements can generalize to DnD based solutions for more than frontend, to things like node red, iffft, zapier et al

Since Excel is on the front of HN, I'm reminded that Excel is the OG and most successful low code product in history

Re: Show HN: Superblocks – IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs

#94

Post by xyzzyrz »

verdverm wrote: post #91
xyzzyrz wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! Thanks for the feedback on Plasmic. Re: "super heavy" output: A blank component should result in one corresponding div. Maybe you're weighing the API client library? You can codegen pure React modules if you don't want the loader library itself. If you have any specific feedback on the UI, would love to listen. Thank you!

The whole thing is recorded, I posted a link to twitch in slack. An unhydrated card like the testimonial example was 28k via code gen. I put tons of feedback in that video, if your teams are not watching it, you are missing out immensely Despite not pulling a lot of punches in my stream, I still think Plasmic is closest of all I have tried to a developer friendly, maybe lovable in time, product

Thanks, super helpful! (I haven't personally watched it yet, but our team has picked it up.)

Re: Show HN: Superblocks – IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs

#95

Post by verdverm »

xyzzyrz wrote: post #94
verdverm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole thing is recorded, I posted a link to twitch in slack. An unhydrated card like the testimonial example was 28k via code gen. I put tons of feedback in that video, if your teams are not watching it, you are missing out immensely Despite not pulling a lot of punches in my stream, I still think Plasmic is closest of all I have tried to a developer friendly, maybe lovable in time, product

Thanks, super helpful! (I haven't personally watched it yet, but our team has picked it up.)

If you want the version with the awesome jazz tunes in the background, ping Yang to get me an upload link.

It will definitely be easier to sit through

Re: Show HN: Superblocks – IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs

#97

Post by yhfy2006 »

I think the python functioning is super useful for my application on superblock. but it only provides basic functionalities. are you guys going to make it more powerful like importing project from my own codebase/github repo. So I can use a lot of my own code components, and the abilities to install additional packages.

Re: Show HN: Superblocks – IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs

#98

Post by bradmenezes »

samstave wrote: post #38
bradmenezes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've seen the most pull from more operations-heavy businesses like Fintech (building KYC, AML, Fraud, Credit Card Admin tools), Insurance (claims management and support admins), E-commerce (Order Management, Supply chain). Which industry are you in?

Seems like a cottage recipe market/consultancy for small non-tech business could be a professional services like option (or for others to have a small consultancy coming into non-tech businesses and selling setting this up, templating, recipes, whatever for companies. interesting markets in this could be tying to legal, real-estate, construction, hospitality, etc - obv a stretch goal or at least something to just con…

interesting point. It would be interesting that at scale these platforms look more like salesforce in that there are viable businesses / consultancies built around it, time will tell!

Re: Show HN: Superblocks – IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs

#99

Post by lecro »

ReadTheLicense wrote: post #89
arey_abhishek wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use the Apache 2.0 license and we don’t intend to change it. AGPL would restrict adoption. We have a few large companies that maintain Appsmith forks customised for their needs. A couple of them have made the product better. Only thing that I’d like is an acknowledgement at this point. An engineer from Superblocks spent hours of my team’s time asking questions about the project on our Discord community. We were to…

Quoted post unavailable.

Congratulations on your new account.

Re: Show HN: Superblocks – IDE for Internal Apps, APIs and Cron Jobs

#100

Post by michaelmior »

foxbee wrote: post #64

Congrats on the announcement Superblocks team. I am the cofounder of Budibase - an open source alternative to Superblocks. For us, as developers, it was critical that this type of tool had to be open source - like the other tools we used and came to love and rely on. Credit for building the platform. Observability is a great idea and something I've not seen before in low code platforms. For reference, to the wider co…

Also ToolJet https://github.com/ToolJet/ToolJet
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