‘M-Industries’? Any relation to the defunct Microsoft Oslo/M-Language model-driven development platform?
Nope, no relation. It's a long story for some other day ;)
Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
81–90 of 178 posts
Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
#82Hey Koen, congrats on you and Corno making front-page on HN! I can definitely confirm for others reading this that it indeed has been something like 10 years in the making; I was working with a prototype of it 8-9 years ago and found those data models so nice that I actually reimplemented the core idea in a repository on GitHub, though it didn't really go anywhere except for my own web site. I have also been able to…
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Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
#83[deleted]
Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
#84I feel like there should be a link to a demo application more easily accessible. I'm interested in what type of things I could build with it, is the only way to check that out forking the tutorial repo and building it etc?
Right now it is. Getting it to run should be pretty straight forward. We should do a video demo though, so perhaps check back later this week.
Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
#85As much as I like the idea. There seems to be a fair number of requirements. I don't particularly feel like installing an 'alan' server, or an 'alan' connector just to test out my application. Is there any reason why 'alan run' couldn't do these things for me automatically and run it on my local host?
Well it could. We find in practice that it's easier to just have a server running "somewhere" (locally if you have the resources) and push applications to it. But if the feedback shows that the first-run experience needs to improve that's definitely an area we would be looking at.
Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
#86I've long thought that this is the way applications should be built. 90% of what we do as app developers could be automated away. This looks really promising.
That having been said, I'd like to echo some of the other comments here. You need better docs.
As an app developer, I want to see some things right away:
1. What's the server written in? Can I see the code? It isn't clear which of your Github repos contain the server. If your server is proprietary or secret, make that clear.
2. I'm not going to install VirtualBox. Just give me a binary that I can install so I can see what's going on.
3. I want to see what a finished app looks like. Either do a video, or better yet, put up a demo site. Don't make me install the Hours app just to see it.
4. What is the Alan Connect app? I want to see it before I install it.
5. Give me a way to escape the system. I get that I don't need to write code, but for some things, I really do. In what language do I write custom functions? How do I customize the UI?
I understand that I could slog through the docs to find the answers for all these things, but your adoption rate will go way up if you make it easier. When I evaluate new software, if I can't find the answers to the big questions in 20 or 30 minutes, I move on.
Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Specifying something as password hashing as (sha256? salted sha256?) without telling it to seems like magic to me.
So to clarify, it's this password: declaration which tells the framework to hash the input?
users
dynamic : . 'Users'
password : . 'Password'
interfaces
root {
}
numerical-types
Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
#88How do you compare yourself against other "low code" platforms in the 4GL landscape? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_programming_...
I would also like to see this comparison. Another thing is; HN is really the wrong audience for this. Technologists here will spin up a vm/container with their stack of choice. Indeed; ruby and rails, django, node, all fill the void 4GLs did decades ago. Finding and reaching users for this type of tool is the challenge imo. Implementation is the easy part.
I dunno. This is exactly the kind of thing I come here for. Even if I never use it myself, it's an idea I've thought about myself, so it's good to see someone else made it.
Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
#89I've long thought that this is the way applications should be built. 90% of what we do as app developers could be automated away. This looks really promising. That having been said, I'd like to echo some of the other comments here. You need better docs. As an app developer, I want to see some things right away: 1. What's the server written in? Can I see the code? It isn't clear which of your Github repos contain the…
Thanks for the feedback, this is exactly what we're looking for here. Perhaps some of this is "how to launch a platform 101", but we can't guess all the concerns everyone may have. Also, we're not necessarily looking to really kick start adoption for a wide audience right now. The platform lacks maturity on a number of levels to properly support that.
We'll continue to work on our documentation and clarify some of the things you mention here. A grab bag of quick responses:
The server is in-house, written in C and C++ and (at this moment) closed source.
If you're on Linux or MacOS you can simply run the server from the command line: https://alan-platform.com/pages/tuts/reference.html#starting...
We don't support custom functions, but we do support custom applications that run alongside the stack. They can be written in anything, and we have tools to quickly develop such systems in JS, TypeScript and C++. They're not part of what we're making available to community users right now, so documentation is still a bit limited.
We understand people want to see the UI, but it's not the key selling point. Pretty apps isn't what you'd use Alan for (although you could). We try to focus on the modeling language, as it's hopefully unique and cool enough to draw the right audience in.
Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform
#90How do you take this from here to the next step? Let's say I want to develop a multi user todo and I've followed the examples and now have some Users who log in entering a password. Someone points out that I shouldn't be storing passwords in plain text so I want to store them hashed. Despite there being hints in the documentation that this is possible (migrations shows the password hashed), it's not clear how to carr…
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
It looks like you're using SHA256(username||password) in this example. Even if it's only an example, why use a homebrew password hashing scheme based on an unsuitable hash function and bad ad-hoc salt handling, instead of a strong standard password hash with built in salt handling? And what code/specification is required to use a secure algorithm, like bcrypt with a random salt?
People often copy from such tutorials and will then end up with insecure password storage.