Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 159 posts

Re: App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

#101

Post by ehsankia »

chasingthewind wrote: post #88
dgudkov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all relative. One can argue that "true" programmers program in Assembly and languages like Python or Javascript are just high-level abstractions over Assembly. SQL is another type of abstraction which was originally intended to be used by business users (hence the English-like syntax) yet developers are happy with it now. There is a need for wide variety of programming tools, ranging from very low-level to very…

>Picking the right tool for the right job will always be a problem to solve My experience has been that this is a very challenging problem. Business leaders consistently apply pressure for faster results (rightly so!) which means that technology leaders will also be under pressure to deliver faster results. Tools at the highest level of abstraction (like the various "declarative programming" app builders) trade away…

Right, that's why the best abstractions are built on solid tools, and if needed, give you access to that lower level foundation.

If I can do 95% of my work using the super simple UI, and then for that last 5%, I can go in and hack my way with some code, I'm much happier than having to write 100% of the code with code.

Of course, if that last 5% is impossible to achieve at all, then yes, you're definitely not going to be happy and that 95% will have been a total waste.

Re: App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

#102

Post by commandlinefan »

royjacobs wrote: post #25
bigato wrote: post #17

After more than two decades in the industry, you start getting cynical towards these kind of "programming for non-programmers" tools. All of them are trying to abstract away the complex parts of the programming problem. Guess what, it doesn't matter how many layers of abstraction you pile up, you never abstract away the need for consistent logic. You end up requiring the same kind of people that have the brain skills…

But a lot of apps nowadays are essentially just forms to send data to a backend. If those apps can be 'trivially' made then that's a clear win, I'd say? It will certainly not replace a lot of complex applications, but if you just want a quick "order a mouse at the internal servicedesk" app then what's the harm?

> a lot of apps nowadays are essentially just forms to send data to a backend

That was true 30 years ago, when VB was popular, too. Heck, that was true 50 years ago, when CICS was popular. "Forms to send data to a backend" is deceptively complex.

Re: App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

#103

Post by slantyyz »

Drakim wrote: post #12
rahimnathwani wrote: post #2

During my first job after university, I spent a bunch of time developing apps using Lotus Notes. Because all of the company's 2000+ employees already used Lotus Notes for email and calendering, deploying these apps was easy. And in many cases I was able to develop the basic functionality of a workflow app whilst I was talking with the main user to gather requirements. And, although the platform supported a proper pro…

Tools like that can be extremely productive, and easy for people of no or low programming ability to utilize. But just like excel, it's a double edged sword, as people "specialize" in it and create monstrous abomination applications way larger than the tool is fit to sustain. It becomes a rat maze of gotchas and obscure tricks, and nobody but the original creator really knows what's going on.

>> Tools like that can be extremely productive, and easy for people of no or low programming ability to utilize.

Absolutely. BUT, in the early days, the value of return for end users is higher than the cost of development and maintenance. If the tool is useful and grows, it's going to flip where the cost of development and maintenance is higher the the return, and some tough decisions need to be made.

Re: App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

#104

Post by neurobashing »

bigato wrote: post #17

After more than two decades in the industry, you start getting cynical towards these kind of "programming for non-programmers" tools. All of them are trying to abstract away the complex parts of the programming problem. Guess what, it doesn't matter how many layers of abstraction you pile up, you never abstract away the need for consistent logic. You end up requiring the same kind of people that have the brain skills…

I had a lot of the same opinions, and then I actually got a job at a low-code platform vendor.

The biggest thing I learned, the secret truth, is that "low-code" is intended to be a force multiplier for "real programmers". Low-code dev shops look exactly like every "real" shop I've seen: source control, sprints, Jira, "omg feature creep" meetings, insane stakeholders, the works.

"low-code" developers are "real" software developers. They are developing software that is intended to be used at scale by real people to perform a business task that produces value. This stuff is deployed at "real" companies. I'd wager any sum you're using products and services every day that are connected to one of these platforms. (I'm talking, are you an American who goes to the doctor, goes to any national retail chain, buys products and services from large online vendors, etc)

It's a complicated and weird industry but it's been incredibly eye-opening.

Re: App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

#105

Post by candiodari »

projectramo wrote: post #37

Isn’t Google scripts, forms, tables and drive already a Google App maker?

Google is a huge company. You might wonder what that has to do with anything, but ... after years of frustration let me just state with absolute certainty:

With VERY few exceptions (like, say, the build system or some backend infrastructure) EVERY Google project has essentially it's own private structure, base libraries, framework and things that look extremely close ... aren't really. Also, even components of the same app don't use the same framework throughout. It wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't just the case that Docs and Sheets aren't written in the same language but that the drawings you can embed in both are implemented in yet another language.

Re: App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

#106

Post by candiodari »

freekh wrote: post #15

Don't want to sound overly negative but for some reason this makes me think of SharePoint. I'm sure it's nothing like it though :)

This is Google. We know it'll be one of two things :

1) it'll be convoluted like you wouldn't believe, and enforce an entire nonsensical 20-tier architecture on you. It'll be forced on everyone for decades and grow and grow and grow, with 20 different versions deployed which all support and/or require seemingly random combinations of those 20 tiers (ie. android)

2) It'll be great, fantastic, simple and work ! Oh, and it'll be canceled before sundown.

And of course there will be absolutely no-one who ever answers a single question about it, ever.

Re: App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

#107

Post by slantyyz »

wycy wrote: post #32
mcroft wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always got the impression that Lotus Notes was a great idea, but very poorly implemented. The concepts in it were good, it was just a shame it inflicted so much suffering.

What aspects of Lotus Notes seemed like a good idea? Genuine question. I remember being horrified by almost everything about Lotus Notes. Sametime was great, though.

I'll bite...

1 - Document Store (iirc, CouchDB was inspired by Notes/Domino)

2 - Replication - even past the 90s, it was one of the best tools for disconnected users

3 - Low barrier to application creation (it was about as easy as building something in Filemaker Pro)

4 - Easy publication of applications to the web (this was BEFORE 2000, so kind of a big deal back then)

5 - Administration of servers was pretty easy

6 - LotusScript (similar to vba) let you go much further than the prebuilt formula language (if you were willing to learn it)

Keep in mind, these benefits were available pre-2000, and in that time many were strong competitive advantages.

Re: App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

#108

Post by bitmapbrother »

zenovision wrote: post #56

In the past years Google has deprecated more than 100 services, so I will never trust them to build any software using their proprietary stack.

>In the past years Google has deprecated more than 100 services, so I will never trust them to build any software using their proprietary stack.

And Microsoft has abandoned over 220+ products and services.

https://pastebin.com/UJh2XNFE

Re: App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

#109

Post by m_mueller »

slantyyz wrote: post #97
m_mueller wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm all of the features you describe can be done with Notes/Domino. Granted, it's not pretty, but it's there.

Yeah, Notes/Domino got a bad rap for a lot of stuff, like the cruddy 90s UI that never got updated, but it was quite powerful for what it was. A couple of things in particular were really good - reliable replication (which meant your workers could work offline and sync back later) and the document based store. Fast forward 20 years from Domino 3, and you'll notice that the document based store model is still around i…

Exactly. Domino was NoSQL before it was cool...

Re: App Maker, Google’s low-code tool for building business apps, comes out of beta

#110

Post by bigtex »

prepend wrote: post #51
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but there are many people who can handle consistent logic but are not familiar with all the technical detail required for general purpose software development. There is a lot of complexity that is completely unrelated to the core logic of a solution to a particular problem.

I have not experienced this. Every 4GL/5GL/wysiwyg in my decades ended up with some specialized user type learning the syntax of dragging blocks or whatnot. I’ve seen lots of demos (and bought lots) of reporting or automation tools intended for the “CEO” to make their own ad how reports only to have that mean that consultants are hired or someone else do it. At the end of the day, the hard part for many people is the…

Yes. At my employer we have evaluated many BI solutions who offer simple tools to develop solutions and really at the end of the day the IT people are going to be the ones doing the work. We have a few power users but investing in an expensive tool for just the dev team to develop in seems to be over doing it.
Post reply on HN