> © Metacode, Inc. dba Aspect Is this the Metacode that got YC funding?
Yes. I’m super passionate about software that creates software.
Out of topic, are you worried that Meta might target you at some point?
Show HN: A Visual IDE for React
121–130 of 148 posts
Re: Show HN: A Visual IDE for React
#122Good luck, looks great already! I spent years of my life on the problem of generating useful multi-platform code from a GUI tool and integrating it into designer and developer workflows. Before giving up I made React Studio ( https://reactstudio.com ) which is owned by my co-founders now. It's insanely difficult. Nobody's needs are exactly the same, and nobody can agree even on the basics of how a web app is structur…
Yeah I can learn a lot from React Studio—I think a lot about keeping the learning curve down for growth, so I'm glad you pointed that out. I'm focusing on enterprise sales next and actively looking for people to help with that, so again I think you're right. Thanks for the feedback!
Re: Show HN: A Visual IDE for React
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I even have the browser and code on the monitor at the same time. And with pretty much all modern web frameworks you have a dev server that automatically does hot module replacement, so you instantly see your changes without reloading anything yourself.
I've never seen a hot reload that worked fast enough to not be annoying. React does it all quickly when all it's re processing is css but anything js related and it seems not to be able to treeshake down to bare minimum updates. We're talking 750ms to 1.5s, and I admit it's still a marvel compared to things I used to have to deal with, but it's still enough to feel cludgy. Flutter is another example of this. It's not…
As a Svelte developer, I can’t remember the last time I had to work _without_ an instant HMR with optical state preservation. That sounds like a nightmare and a huge productivity killer.
Re: Show HN: A Visual IDE for React
#124Good luck, looks great already! I spent years of my life on the problem of generating useful multi-platform code from a GUI tool and integrating it into designer and developer workflows. Before giving up I made React Studio ( https://reactstudio.com ) which is owned by my co-founders now. It's insanely difficult. Nobody's needs are exactly the same, and nobody can agree even on the basics of how a web app is structur…
Yeah I can learn a lot from React Studio—I think a lot about keeping the learning curve down for growth, so I'm glad you pointed that out. I'm focusing on enterprise sales next and actively looking for people to help with that, so again I think you're right. Thanks for the feedback!
You're welcome, and I hope you crack this — the industry is stuck in a local maximum with tools based on what are essentially 1970s concepts (unstructured code-as-text and unstructured vector graphics).
Two more random thoughts on this topic...
I've long felt there's an important role missing in our industry. Architects don't draw a bunch of façade sketches, ask people if they look good, and then send them to construction engineers to figure out what the beige box in the drawing might actually mean. But that's how a lot of software is made. The problem is that we only have designers and programmers. The construction industry has many kind of design engineering roles in the middle, and they have specialized tools.
In my mind, the missing role is something like an interaction architect. Someone who emphatically is not a graphic designer nor a front-end developer, but an expert on the structure of applications, how UX affordances translate into maintainable and accessible UI structures, etc. (This is the kind of role I hoped to enable with React Studio, but it was a failure and I'm too burned out from the experience to ever try again, probably.)
The second thing I wanted to note is a warning example. I worked a couple of years at Facebook, and they had an internal React GUI design tool that was one of the best I've ever seen. Yet it was discontinued last year. The replacement was basically "We'll somehow make Figma do this eventually", which disappointed the people who had come to depend on the internal tool.
Facebook/Meta is known for having some of the best internal tools in the industry, and spending a lot of resources to make those tools better. Why didn't it work out? My guess is that the team required to build this complexity was too large and projected usage was too low to justify development... But it's a worrying sign that even Facebook couldn't make this kind of tooling work. There was a captive audience of users who could have been required to adopt the software if the benefits were large enough. But it just didn't seem to cross the treshold from "interesting, very cool achievement" to "compelling, we'll fall behind if we don't use this."
Re: Show HN: A Visual IDE for React
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been wondering whether it would be possible to leverage ML/AI to "infer" a layout from a visual mockup. So like if two elements have the same X position, they're assumed to be left aligned with one another. If three elements are the same width and sit side-by-side with the same distance between them, they're assumed to be a 3-grid column. Etc etc.
We're actually in review on the Figma plugin store for exactly this. Should be out soon.
Very nice. One pain point I've noticed with AutoLayout is that once a layout is set, it's very difficult to "just shift something around", which is what's so nice about a visual editing tool to begin with. The benefit of an automated layout inference tool is that it could theoretically let you toggle the layout off, do your quick and easy shifting, then turn it back on and let the tool infer the changes you made.
Re: Show HN: A Visual IDE for React
#126> "Aspect is built using Aspect" That is extremely impressive.
Agreed. Bootstrapping your code with your own code shows a lot of self-reliance and belief in the product.
Re: Show HN: A Visual IDE for React
#127Visual editors are great! However closed source development tools tend to not do very well.
Open source doesn't make software inherently better, more reliable or secure. Without a dedicated development direction that is supported financially, you are banking on the generosity of the github author. I have no problem with paid tools, I do have an issue with Stallmanism, gaslighting micro-ISV as evil, while telling OSS devs to suck it up and ask for donations to fund their widely used work.
I don't have an issue with paid tools either. I have an issue with non-extensibility and relying on small companies that may go out of business at any moment.
You could arguably remediate the former issue with a good plugin API. Then again this program may not be aimed at developers, but more at designers, which may care a bit less about extensibility and covering special use cases.
Re: Show HN: A Visual IDE for React
#128Any thoughts on Framer? They seem to do the design aspect as well as the site-building aspect.
Re: Show HN: A Visual IDE for React
#129Bravo. Soon, developing point-and-click, drag-and-drop apps will be almost as easy as it was in 1998 with Visual Basic 6.
I (mostly) jest, but yeah, this is marvelous. I'm developing a small React app this weekend, I'll use this and make sure to report any bugs or issues along the way.
Thanks a lot for making something that makes other people (me!) excited!
Re: Show HN: A Visual IDE for React
#130This looks really interesting! I like seeing more domain specific IDEs coming out