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Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

alan-platform.com

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Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#171
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we updated the title to try to clarify.

Only the people who use the term "low code" seem to think its a term in widespread use. No one else has heard of it.

That's probably the intention. You either get the term and find it self-evident (win), or you ask what that means or click so you can find out what low code means. Either way they win.

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As someone who's not a developer but still occasionally looks through these "build an app" tutorials, password/authentication portions always worry me. I wish I could know that best-practices were shown as far as storing/encrypting user data/passwords.

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#175

On this page: https://alan-platform.com/pages/tuts/bottom-up.html The ASCII art isn't rendering correctly. (In Chrome on a tablet.)

Correct rendering on Firefox, Chromium and Netsurf on Debian testing, wrong rendering on Firefox Mobile and the Browser app on Android.

Most probably a font issue.

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know jasonette in detail, but you should think of Alan primarily as a way of building and iterating on apps with lots of guarantees about data quality and matching specs, not necessarily a way to build an app quickly.

How does it compare to the current low-code/no-code platforms such as Caspio ( https://caspio.com ), Zoho Creator( https://zoho.com/creator , or ZenBase ( https://getzenbase.com )?

Not exactly a fair comparison because zenbase is NO code, one more step further. With zoho, one must also learn a rather strange proprietary programming language called Deluge.

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#177
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, in the early days we thought about whether to go text-based or not, for instance going for a boxes-and-lines type of modeling environment. We concluded that for serious modeling, 80% or more of what one does is giving names to concepts, leading to the usage of a lot of text any way. And that boxes-and-lines introduces a lot of 'clutter' which is probably meaningful, but not in a strict enough way to do anyt…

Most model editors for CRUD aren't boxes and lines, since as you say moving around and connecting boxes isn't generally useful. So I'm not sure why you were starting with that UI. To me, projectional editing is the most sensible type of programming. Unfortunately projectional editors have not had as warm a reception on HN, because programming is narrowly defined by complex text editing. Anything with a UI and program…

The boxes-and-lines is a very common way of visualizing tables and relations or types and subtypes and/or components. Also in most other so called low-code platforms. That is why it was under consideration: familiarity. I agree it is not very useful though.

Projectional editors can of course show the model as text and in other formats as well, like boxes-and-lines. You wouldn't be able to permanently place them in any specific spot then, so moving them around would at most be supported during a viewing session.

Re: Show HN: Alan – a low-code application platform

#178

Hi, Alan is a new approach to "low code" for the rapid development of data centric applications. I'm one of the developers of the platform. > Instead of the traditional relational database + 3GL or 4GL language, the core of Alan is a data modelling language that automatically generates full stack applications. If you'd like to know more, we'll be monitoring this HN post and we have a forum: https://forum.alan-platfor…

Sounds a bit like naked objects?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_objects

http://downloads.nakedobjects.net/resources/Pawson%20thesis....

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