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Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

anvil.works

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Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#181

Post by hasenj »

sametmax wrote: post #90
nicpottier wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an unreasonable ask though. You should certainly think twice to pigeon holing yourself with any technology that you do not have full rights to and will be lost without a specific provider. It does make figuring out your business model more complicated, but having SOME story for what will happen if you go out of business or start being a bad actor is something you need to figure out. It isn't impossible th…

I understand the request, because I would not use the service myself for the same reasons. But let's be real, if it became open source, I would just host it and never pay for it. They would have to do more work for less money. Hardly fair. They can always start with a strong commercial offer, then later address the user locking issue. For them, I think it's a way better strategy. FOSS first is very hard to monetize.…

If I make software that enables you to create things, then the software is mine and I can charge you for using it, but what you make using my software is yours and you can do whatever you want with it.

Doing it the other way around is wrong.

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#182

Post by gpsx »

hasenj wrote: post #180

Am I the only one who things this is a really really bad idea? The world does not need more interpreted languages on the backend. Visual UI layout is cool for beginners but almost useless for serious projects. Plus if you're a beginner (or a non-programmer) maybe an existing CMS is better? e.g. WordPress. If a project started with this tool was to ever evolve and get big, I can't imagine that maintaining it will be a…

I am sure you are not the only one who thinks it is a bad idea. But I disagree with you. I think the future of programming (or I should say, one branch of it) is making programming easier, and letting the computer do more work. I definitely think working in this direction is a good idea.

Regarding CMS, I view those as high level languages. And in that regard I think we can improve on them a lot.

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#183

Post by mythrwy »

andrewstuart wrote: post #177
bobjordan wrote: post #58

So I've been working on a python flask web app in part time/spare time for my business for almost two years (in addition to running a company doing several million USD in sales over that time without the app.) In that two years, I've tracked my programming time with wakatime and I'm at >1000hrs now, more than 25 full-time 40hr work weeks of actual coding time. I'm running the app on a dedicated GPU server, as part of…

I went from learning Python with Bottle, moved to Flask, found I was reinventing the wheel with just about everything, wasted vast amounts of time trying to integrate basic functionality from third party Flask libraries for things like auth and cookies, moved on to Falcon for building APIs, and finally arrived at AWS Lambda with Python and Cognito. Its now six years into the journey of turning myself into a complete…

But now you are locked to AWS.

After having done it a few times I personally don't find Flask auth very time consuming to implement.

But I'll admit I really like Flask. I find it just the right approach between something simple and something that can be much more complex with extensions. I don't like all of the extension (WTF Forms for instance can do without and SQL Alchemy usually is better independent of Flask IMOP) but these don't need to be used. I've stuck with Flask as much as possible over the years and that alone has led to a huge productivity increase for me because of familiarity.

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#184

Post by hasenj »

gpsx wrote: post #182
hasenj wrote: post #180

Am I the only one who things this is a really really bad idea? The world does not need more interpreted languages on the backend. Visual UI layout is cool for beginners but almost useless for serious projects. Plus if you're a beginner (or a non-programmer) maybe an existing CMS is better? e.g. WordPress. If a project started with this tool was to ever evolve and get big, I can't imagine that maintaining it will be a…

I am sure you are not the only one who thinks it is a bad idea. But I disagree with you. I think the future of programming (or I should say, one branch of it) is making programming easier, and letting the computer do more work. I definitely think working in this direction is a good idea. Regarding CMS, I view those as high level languages. And in that regard I think we can improve on them a lot.

> I think the future of programming (or I should say, one branch of it) is making programming easier, and letting the computer do more work.

I think this is already what is happening. Computers now are orders of magnitude faster than they were 15 years ago, and yet fundamentally nothing really got better. We just have more people producing lesser quality programs. While producing something is easier than before, the new things are not necessarily of good value, because a lot of the tools that enable this are layers upon layers of abstractions and virtualization (e.g. Electron).

I'm not sure that this is any good.

And fundamentally this is not that different from VB6, for example.

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#186

Post by rahoulb »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #151
rahoulb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well - two areas. One, if you're using it commercially, it's going to pay for itself pretty quickly. I rarely do client projects for less than several thousand pounds; I reckon I could probably churn a lot of them out using this in half the time. Two if you're not using it commercially, it's still a very low cost; maybe more than pure hosting but it does a lot more than just hosting.

Honest question, this looks awesome but how would a contractor justify using it? Would you somehow swallow the risk of them going out of business for whatever reason and promise a rewrite for clients (is that something you can get insured for?) or would clients just be okay with the risk? It seems like you'd have to have already bought enterprise to be able to run this without them from what I can tell?

I don’t know yet - I’m asking them a few questions.

I’m always upfront about the tools I use with my clients as the value isn’t in the tool, it’s in their requirements.

But being able to move away quickly is important to me because I have client relationships (and production code) that is 9 years old.

(I also don’t consider myself a contractor, more a consultant - a semantic difference but an important one)

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#187

Post by shalabhc »

meredydd wrote: post #10

Hi there! Founder here, slightly gobsmacked to see this top of HN. Do feel free to ask me any questions about the platform :) We also have a bunch of tutorial-cum-demo videos at: https://anvil.works/learn#tutorials

Wow this is pretty impressive! Python everywhere is a big advantage and the way the frontend, backend and database are integrated appears quite seamless.

My question is about scaling - what are some large apps on this platform and how big do you think these apps can get in terms of db size and qps?

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#188

Post by andybak »

I stopped at the pricing model. The jump from $0 to $49 per developer precludes my typical "dip my toe in the water" approach with new platforms.

I'd ideally want to try it out in production with a real, small commercial job. But if I do and decide not to expand my use of the platform, then I'm committed to a $600/year hosting deal for a small client...

And I won't use it on a bigger client at first due to the risk of lock-in.

In fact - lock-in is the biggest problem with using this. It's a paradox. I'll only willingly get locked in to platforms that I'm 100% happy with and I am only 100% happy when I've been using a platform for a reasonable length of time.

Otherwise I risk having to rewrite a 5 year old website for a client out of my own pocket when you decide to pivot or you run out of cash/luck.

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#189

Post by maxwin »

mephitix wrote: post #154

I love it. But seeing this now, in 2017, is a bit depressing to me. For the last 15 years Microsoft has been putting out the same RAD tools, but based on ASP.NET/C#/Visual Studio. Things like drop-in provider-based OAuth, editing versioned database projects, WYSIWYG UI, etc. Publishing to the web, even the flow of clicking on a button to edit its handler looks like it was based directly on Winforms which is a 12 year…

Someone please create something like this but with React. It makes development faster but retains the flexibility.

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#190

Post by flor1s »

mephitix wrote: post #154

I love it. But seeing this now, in 2017, is a bit depressing to me. For the last 15 years Microsoft has been putting out the same RAD tools, but based on ASP.NET/C#/Visual Studio. Things like drop-in provider-based OAuth, editing versioned database projects, WYSIWYG UI, etc. Publishing to the web, even the flow of clicking on a button to edit its handler looks like it was based directly on Winforms which is a 12 year…

Even your example of Create React App sounds like nicely polished scaffolding a la Ruby on Rails and Django to me.
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