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Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

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31–40 of 74 posts

Re: Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

#31
Hey, fast-try/illacloud,

I know this is petty, but, if you mess with history and make it impossible for me to back out of your web page (by clicking the back button), I will immediately assume you are a untrustworthy company, and I will never return later to make an account.

I hate this practice, it's rude, it shows contempt for your users (in this case future-users), and its one of the many dark UI patterns that is ruining the modern web.

Please don't do it.

Re: Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

#32
post #31

Hey, fast-try/illacloud, I know this is petty, but, if you mess with history and make it impossible for me to back out of your web page (by clicking the back button), I will immediately assume you are a untrustworthy company, and I will never return later to make an account. I hate this practice, it's rude, it shows contempt for your users (in this case future-users), and its one of the many dark UI patterns that is…

I agree. But I think most of the time it’s not malice, just website design not being a core skill of the team. Nevertheless, it does send a signal like many a dark pattern.

Re: Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

#33

I've been curious why so many of these low-code dev tools target enterprise/business with internal apps. Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks!

We have been looking to replace our FE devs with a low-code tool, but haven't found any that will suit complex authentication, permissions, and global theming (per client). I expect these internal tools will mature and come out with next-gen Bubble.io type of tools in a few years.

Re: Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

#34
post #13

A comment by the OP is dead. This is unfortunate since readers should have a chance to question the OP, who seems to be associated with the project. Maybe the mods could fix this?

thx much appreciated!

No worries. A hint about why your comments (most likely) got flagged on the other thread: you pointed at your own competing tool, without disclosing that you develop it, and also without giving any reason to check it out. This space is friendly to people starting new things, so it will actually work better to be upfront and say its yours. People will appreciate the chance to get information from you directly, since obviously you know the tool best, as long as you treat them as peers. With a nearly bare link, it just looks like link spam.

Re: Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

#35
post #27

I like open source projects but what I don't like if someone else's ideas are just copied. The interface looks almost like a 1:1 copy of retool.

It’s a great interface. I’m sure Retool can compete on something more salient than their interface.

Yes, it's a great interface. But I'm not sure what you want to say with your second sentence.

Re: Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

#36
post #8

The real devils is in authorization and computed fields. For CRUD, a generator can do it for developers.

May you elaborate?

Not OP but authentication is easy, authorization is a cross-cutting concern that often requires custom code. E.g., there are people and teams, both of which can have different kinds of access to something (read/write). Sometimes teams have sub-teams. Do the sub-teams have access to the parent teams' resources and/or vice versa? Also what kind of sharing are you going to support? Do people have to have an account to view stuff shared to them or can you just send a link? There are some efforts to make custom DSLs for describing authorization policies, to avoid cross-cutting code[1].

Computed fields require different treatment at every level of the stack. This isn't inherently hard, but it is an extra feature these low-code/no-code platforms need. Where things get difficult is in migrations. It's common for a field that is computed at the beginning to become customizable, or for the computation to change. When that happens, what should the value be for old columns? Computed fields also often pull data from multiple other tables, which may require some combination of custom queries and database optimization.

[1] https://github.com/osohq/oso

Re: Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

#37
post #8

The real devils is in authorization and computed fields. For CRUD, a generator can do it for developers.

May you elaborate?

One example, you're creating order form, which contains many order lines.

When we create a new order line, the tax, remainaining inventory for item must be dynamically computed before submitted and also to display after successfully saving.

Re: Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

#38

What does Show HN posts don't begin describing what the tool does? Indeed Illa's README doesn't clearly state what it does!

Yes. No context provided to introduce the tool. It seems to be all too common. It's like they are only speaking to their own team. I've noticed this is all too common in all parts of the web.

Re: Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

#39

I like open source projects but what I don't like if someone else's ideas are just copied. The interface looks almost like a 1:1 copy of retool.

I agree with this sentiment. Even the font is the same. Show some creativity.

Re: Show HN: Illa – An open-source alternative to Retool

#40
post #25
post #12

I count at least a dozen open-source alternatives to @Retool and they are all growing nicely. Feels like devs don't like to be trapped!

Also feels like an enormous waste to me. Imagine all these devs combining efforts in one great OSS iso multiple small alternatives that all just miss the required list of features by a bit forcing me to stay at retool.

Half of these devs are looking to pull you in and make money out of you, so they're not going to work together. The other half hates the idea and is busy disagreeing on the tech stack so they make their own
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