How Bubble bootstrapped a visual programming tool for non-coders to $100k/mo
1–10 of 117 posts
Re: How Bubble bootstrapped a visual programming tool for non-coders to $100k/mo
#2Am I right in understanding that Bubble is a GUI for building CRUD applications?
If so, great work! It shows there is a need for these simple, automated tools for building simple CRUD applications, and that it is possible for these to be built and automated.
Re: How Bubble bootstrapped a visual programming tool for non-coders to $100k/mo
#3For a similar idea, but more aimed at programmers, there is Anvil: https://anvil.works
Re: How Bubble bootstrapped a visual programming tool for non-coders to $100k/mo
#4Am I right in understanding that Bubble is a GUI for building CRUD applications? If so, great work! It shows there is a need for these simple, automated tools for building simple CRUD applications, and that it is possible for these to be built and automated.
We have had MS Access for years. It still requires a bit of knowledge about database design to use it properly.
I don't know Bubble but I am skeptical about visual programming, as syntax is one of the easier parts to learn when coding, and isn't in my opinion what makes our profession difficult.
Re: How Bubble bootstrapped a visual programming tool for non-coders to $100k/mo
#5I watched the demo video. It looks like what the Visual Basic form builder was for Windows programming in the 90s.
However it will be difficult for non programmers. The very first dialog about Google Maps has menus "API provider" and "Query". I wonder how many non programmers know what they are. They can take a guess and learn but maybe this is still too low level. The second example is about building a login form by configuring its input fields. Maybe adding a completely configured dialog would be good enough for non programmers. Programmers can edit the details. Same for every other component.
However I remember that non programmers didn't use Visual Basic, as easy as it was. Programmers did. Some non programmers built sites on MySpace some 10 years after VB, then wrote on various blog platforms and configured themes, then ended up on Facebook and other non programmable social media platforms. Outside the Web the most used non-programmers programming tool is still probably Excel. I've seen amazing stuff build there from people who couldn't write a two lines script in Python.
Re: How Bubble bootstrapped a visual programming tool for non-coders to $100k/mo
#6I watched the demo video. It looks like what the Visual Basic form builder was for Windows programming in the 90s. However it will be difficult for non programmers. The very first dialog about Google Maps has menus "API provider" and "Query". I wonder how many non programmers know what they are. They can take a guess and learn but maybe this is still too low level. The second example is about building a login form by…
I agree. Bubble is way too advanced for non-programmers to just “pick up”. I am not a programmer but worked as a product manager for several years and consider myself technically knowledgeable (can copy and paste basic code, I know how an API works, I can write basic scripts, basic html, I understand conceptually things like oauth etc) and I found bubble to be basically incomprehensible. I could probably learn it if I was willing to dedicate some serious hours to it, but for the business I am in (founder of a marketing agency) it’s much cheaper for my to just hire a programmer than to dedicate several weeks/months to learning bubble. I hear it’s great for programmers to speed up their workflow though.
Re: How Bubble bootstrapped a visual programming tool for non-coders to $100k/mo
#7Am I right in understanding that Bubble is a GUI for building CRUD applications? If so, great work! It shows there is a need for these simple, automated tools for building simple CRUD applications, and that it is possible for these to be built and automated.
We have had MS Access for years. It still requires a bit of knowledge about database design to use it properly. I don't know Bubble but I am skeptical about visual programming, as syntax is one of the easier parts to learn when coding, and isn't in my opinion what makes our profession difficult.
IMHO visual programming should really aim more to be a scaffolding tool - so instead of replacing the syntax to focus more on speeding up the structuring of the code, helping you to easier manage and understand the blocks and the flow. Ideally it can then auto-generate the most of it and leave you to fine-tune the details of logic directly in the code (where it's faster and more expressive to be able to type the code directly).
Re: How Bubble bootstrapped a visual programming tool for non-coders to $100k/mo
#8yet another LightSwitch. with better marketing
Re: How Bubble bootstrapped a visual programming tool for non-coders to $100k/mo
#9As a marketer, I've found Bubble to be really useful for building out small micro-apps for data-capture for clients who for whatever reason weren't ready to move to a solution like HubSpot.
I'm not sure how I'd feel about using it for anything larger than that, though I've seen some worked examples of Twitter clones etc. There's probably slightly too much Bubble-specific terminology and concepts to make it worth learning if you are not going to become a Bubble consultant.
Also, kind of expensive (monthly subscription) if you want to run a large production app on it. I love the range of API s and connectors though.
Re: How Bubble bootstrapped a visual programming tool for non-coders to $100k/mo
#10Am I right in understanding that Bubble is a GUI for building CRUD applications? If so, great work! It shows there is a need for these simple, automated tools for building simple CRUD applications, and that it is possible for these to be built and automated.
We have had MS Access for years. It still requires a bit of knowledge about database design to use it properly. I don't know Bubble but I am skeptical about visual programming, as syntax is one of the easier parts to learn when coding, and isn't in my opinion what makes our profession difficult.
Totally agree. LabView control structures become unwieldy messes of spaghetti quickly from what I have seen. Visual programming is good for some niches in electrical engineering, for example, RF processing chains. But trying to use it for general purpose programming seems to lead to more complicity, not less.