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

New Product From 280North: Atlas

280atlas.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 77 posts

Re: New Product From 280North: Atlas

#51

Post by fauigerzigerk »

gstar wrote: post #45
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #39

These guys are awesome and I feel kind of bad to say this, but it's the perferction of a failed idea. I've been trying these kinds of GUI builders for almost 20 years, starting with VB and PowerBuilder, and I always ended up not actually using them. The usual criticism is that they generate awful code, but that's not necessarily the case. The problem is really that these tools ask you to keep clicking on lots of litt…

You've got some good points, but Interface Builder (and I imagine Atlas) departs fundamentally from VB and PowerBuilder in that the code doesn't live directly behind the GUI elements. Instead, it's connected by a series of inlets and outlets that are designed to allow for reusability and model-view-controller disconnect. You can also define UI things in code in Cappuccino (as well as Obj-C). IB is optional with Obj-C…

IB is a standard run-of-the-mill GUI builder. I found nothing in it that current versions of Microsoft tools don't do, quite the contrary. But the important thing is that separating code from the UI a bit better than VB did in 1992 is not what I mean by abstraction.

There are a few fundamental requirements for a language to allow for powerful abstractions. I think self-referentiality and closure (in the maths sense not in the CS sense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closure_(mathematics) ) are among those requirements.

GUI tools are ages behind what today's programming languages can do in terms of abstraction. So I don't see why it should be a good idea to limit the expressiveness of my toolset by inserting static blobs or nibs of visual somethings everywhere.

To make it perfectly clear: I want to be able to insert a function in place of any static structure, anywhere! I don't want barriers that make this process more difficult. And that's what GUI builders do.

You say I can define UI things in code as well. Great, I'll gladly take that offer, thank you very much ;-)

Re: New Product From 280North: Atlas

#52

Post by 10ren »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #50
10ren wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stimulating points, but it's far from "failed" in commercial terms; and the best GUI designers often aren't coders, but designers. Different tasks, different values. Challenge: how could one make a visual version of abstraction? Would you say that there is no abstraction in templates?

You're right about the designer/coder separation. I didn't think of that because I have never worked in an environment where designers created functional UIs. Yes there is abstraction in templates. Templates typically let you indicate (visually or otherwise) what the static parts look like and where the dynamic parts go. That's it. We have done that forever. There's no progress. Templates don't describe interaction a…

Templates can be reused across projects, and there could be a hierarchy of inheritance (don't know if that's done though).

I agree that visual programming seems to be one of the great failed dreams - lots of academics and practitioners tried it, and it just doesn't seem to work. Although, the crop of XML-mappers (mapforce, biztalk mapper) do represent simple functions in a visual language, and seem to own that market. I agree it's not serious programming, but more "coding for non-coders" (and it's marketed as such). Yet, it has a place - this time, for business analysts. There are non-programmers everywhere who need to do some kind of coding - and creating a safe, useful tool for them is worthwhile. And maybe even for coders sometimes, if (and only if) the task really doesn't need serious programming. Examples: make; regular expressions; paths; printf/scanf; JSON; HTML (though these mini-languages aren't visual, they also aren't suitable for serious programming). I'd add SQL, bash, sed and awk, but they are powerful enough; just awkward.

I was intrigued by your suggestion that one can't abstract a visual language. While there are templates, maybe one can do better. The anchors and widgets changing the placement on resize are a kind of abstraction - but you're right, you can't make your own abstractions. No one's done it - it doesn't mean there isn't a way to do it. Maybe there is.

However, for interaction, I think you're pretty right. Although some standard styles of interaction, and standard ways of generalizing/abstracting them could be captured, you can't have create new styles or generalizations using this system. It isn't powerful enough.

> Maybe we could create a better visual version of abstraction, but I don't feel it's the most promising direction to take in order to make abstraction more powerful.

The thing about visual programming is that it helps people. I agree it's unlikely to make abstraction more powerful (though with pure research you don't know what you'll find). I think it would be really cool to create visual abstraction, that is usable and intuitive, when it seemed impossible.

PS: just a thought: if an "interaction" a kind of mapping where by if you do X, then Y happens, could that not be represented in the same visual way that XML mappers use (above)? Functional abstraction could also be represented as a visual mapping - but it certainly is not a natural or intuitive form for it.

Re: New Product From 280North: Atlas

#53

Post by ashleytowers »

gstar wrote: post #49
ashleytowers wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be precise Interface Builder doesn't actually generate ANY code at all. You are manipulating in-memory objects and setting their properties. When you save your UI it's effectively just a serialized form of the objects you were playing with.

The key point that I was trying to make is that IB is fundamentally separate from the code that is running in the application. In traditional RAD tools like VB, Delphi and Powerbuilder the interface and application logic are one and the same, you literally have code behind each form and each UI element. I didn't say anything about IB generating code.

Apologies - I read "in that the code doesn't live directly behind the GUI elements" as an inference that it lived somewhere else. I just wanted to add a clarification in case others read it the same way.

Re: New Product From 280North: Atlas

#55

Post by wallflower »

10ren wrote: post #47
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #39

These guys are awesome and I feel kind of bad to say this, but it's the perferction of a failed idea. I've been trying these kinds of GUI builders for almost 20 years, starting with VB and PowerBuilder, and I always ended up not actually using them. The usual criticism is that they generate awful code, but that's not necessarily the case. The problem is really that these tools ask you to keep clicking on lots of litt…

Stimulating points, but it's far from "failed" in commercial terms; and the best GUI designers often aren't coders, but designers. Different tasks, different values. Challenge: how could one make a visual version of abstraction? Would you say that there is no abstraction in templates?

Adobe is working on a promising product called Catalyst that aims to allow designers working on Illustrator/Photoshop templates to convert them into Adobe Flex UI screens (mxml). It is promising because from what I've seen so far the mxml isn't very developer friendly.

The aim, of course, is for the designer to generate the exact look and feel for the wireframes and render them (using Catalyst) to MXML for the Adobe Flash/Flex developer to code in the behavior/functionality. Catalyst will require Flex Builder 4 (which will not be out until 2nd half of 2009).

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcatalyst/

FXG (the interchange format spec):

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/FXG+1.0+Spe...

As an aside, I work on a large project (at least 10 UI developers) that uses Flex. We don't even use the GUI builder.

Re: New Product From 280North: Atlas

#56

Post by tlrobinson »

rman666 wrote: post #54

Tried to get to it last nite and this morning. No luck. Is it the "slashdot" effect, or is something else going on?

Sorry about that. We're still in a hotel in Miami with shitty Internet. Will be back in California tonight and everything should be smooth sailing after that.

Re: New Product From 280North: Atlas

#58

Post by 10ren »

wallflower wrote: post #55
10ren wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stimulating points, but it's far from "failed" in commercial terms; and the best GUI designers often aren't coders, but designers. Different tasks, different values. Challenge: how could one make a visual version of abstraction? Would you say that there is no abstraction in templates?

Adobe is working on a promising product called Catalyst that aims to allow designers working on Illustrator/Photoshop templates to convert them into Adobe Flex UI screens (mxml). It is promising because from what I've seen so far the mxml isn't very developer friendly. The aim, of course, is for the designer to generate the exact look and feel for the wireframes and render them (using Catalyst) to MXML for the Adobe…

Adobe (and the assimilated Macromedia) are the state of the art at UI for designers (Photoshop; Flash authoring tools). While they can include interactivity for many standard widgets (much as Word includes code for many standard typographical symbols), they can't customize the interactivity within the tool. It still needs developers, who must work with the generated code...

OTOH, there's an argument that standard interaction is a good thing, so maybe a lack of customization/abstraction isn't so bad?

Re: New Product From 280North: Atlas

#59

Post by sammcd »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #39

These guys are awesome and I feel kind of bad to say this, but it's the perferction of a failed idea. I've been trying these kinds of GUI builders for almost 20 years, starting with VB and PowerBuilder, and I always ended up not actually using them. The usual criticism is that they generate awful code, but that's not necessarily the case. The problem is really that these tools ask you to keep clicking on lots of litt…

I think you need to take a closer look at the Mac third party application Community. We have been using a GUI builder called interface builder since NextStep existed, and it is far from failed for us. When it is done right it works well.

I'm not sure how Atlas works, but on the mac code is not Generated in the way you are thinking. You should really check it out.

Re: New Product From 280North: Atlas

#60

Post by pxlpshr »

gstar wrote: post #21
dmix wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"-enterprise IT as a business with no future. He'll be right, in more ways than one." Can you clarify? Because that seems very misinformed. Unless you mean on-premise deployments, which has been on the way out for years. With SaaS + cloud computing, Enterprise IT is just starting to get interesting again.

I can't give this topic the justice it deserves in an HN comment, but yes I'll clarify. In 10 years time, the "IT Department" virtually won't exist at most small-mid size businesses. I think a lot of business software is going to be taken off-the-peg, or plug-boarded from open source software as interfaces approach ubiquity and organisations like government, banking and b2b start to expose consistent "APIs". It's alr…

Absolutely agree with you on all points. I've been saying this for a few years too, and you see it happening now with cloud computing replacing IT guys in startups.

I'm actually very happy this is occurring because more than 50% of the time, dealing with the IT guy is like dealing with a bad police officer. It seems like they're always on some kind of misplaced power trip...

Post reply on HN