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Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

anvil.works

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Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#201

Post by derstr »

hasenj wrote: post #184
gpsx wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure you are not the only one who thinks it is a bad idea. But I disagree with you. I think the future of programming (or I should say, one branch of it) is making programming easier, and letting the computer do more work. I definitely think working in this direction is a good idea. Regarding CMS, I view those as high level languages. And in that regard I think we can improve on them a lot.

> I think the future of programming (or I should say, one branch of it) is making programming easier, and letting the computer do more work. I think this is already what is happening. Computers now are orders of magnitude faster than they were 15 years ago, and yet fundamentally nothing really got better. We just have more people producing lesser quality programs. While producing something is easier than before, the…

There was a time when typing a document in your computer meant you have to know an macro language (remember wordstar?) ... the current state of programming is such and a big barrier for non programmers. We need to make it easy just like MS word made it easy to type complex documents in the computer.

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#202

Post by sipos »

meredydd wrote: post #38
esistgut wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any plan to open source the platform?

Honestly, we would absolutely love to open-source it! The issue is that we're a bootstrapped start-up, and it's rather difficult to make open source pay the bills, even if it becomes huge (see, eg, Docker's troubles). By charging for the product, we can claim some of the value we create, and be sustainable so the platform stays around.

I can't see my company (a small business with a number of small apps, with engineering and marketing people who it'd be great if they could just use something like this to build some things themselves) ever using something like this that is both closed source and somewhat prone to lock in by the nature of how it works.

While charging for use might seem like a good business model, I think an awful lot of potential customers will just never use it because of it. You may be able to find a model where you charge for the front-end page designer or something, but open source everything needed to run the site so that being locked in to a product you have to pay for and can't modify is less of a concern.

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#204

Post by hasenj »

derstr wrote: post #201
hasenj wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the future of programming (or I should say, one branch of it) is making programming easier, and letting the computer do more work. I think this is already what is happening. Computers now are orders of magnitude faster than they were 15 years ago, and yet fundamentally nothing really got better. We just have more people producing lesser quality programs. While producing something is easier than before, the…

There was a time when typing a document in your computer meant you have to know an macro language (remember wordstar?) ... the current state of programming is such and a big barrier for non programmers. We need to make it easy just like MS word made it easy to type complex documents in the computer.

Writing documents is a use case for the general public.

Writing code is not the same. In general, programming tools _are_ getting better (text editors, debuggers, IDEs, etc).

The only barrier to non-programmers is learning how to program.

It's the same with writing. The tools _are_ available. But you still need to know how to write. I mean how to put words together in a way that people would want to read.

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#205

Post by wruza »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #119
bobjordan wrote: post #58

So I've been working on a python flask web app in part time/spare time for my business for almost two years (in addition to running a company doing several million USD in sales over that time without the app.) In that two years, I've tracked my programming time with wakatime and I'm at >1000hrs now, more than 25 full-time 40hr work weeks of actual coding time. I'm running the app on a dedicated GPU server, as part of…

My personal experience with Flask has led me to believe it's many times easier to expand on vanilla Flask then it is to try and incorporate any of the flask-* libraries.

My personal experience with http is that you parse url and cookies by hand and never bother to use any crap “framework”. Of course, it has to be reverse-proxied with all irrelevant headers cleared, e.g. via nginx, which can also serve /static efficiently and provide https-http conversion. If you’re familiar with Lua, then writing http to json-only or binary-only unix socket is a no brainer in OpenResty, so you can skip backend-side parsing at all.

Flask/etc was useful magic only until I figured out what it really does between me and underlying socket.

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#206

Post by wallace_f »

mephitix wrote: post #154

I love it. But seeing this now, in 2017, is a bit depressing to me. For the last 15 years Microsoft has been putting out the same RAD tools, but based on ASP.NET/C#/Visual Studio. Things like drop-in provider-based OAuth, editing versioned database projects, WYSIWYG UI, etc. Publishing to the web, even the flow of clicking on a button to edit its handler looks like it was based directly on Winforms which is a 12 year…

Can I ask, if I understand correctly, your reason for saying this dev stack is depressing is that it is yet another all-new stack. The problem here is the cost-benefit test of re-learning frameworks would fail in comparison to building on additional frameworks?

But I guess my question is, is it really depressing, because how would the indutry otherwise motivate giants like MS to innovate without such competition?

Or maybe I just misunderstood?

Re: Anvil: full stack web apps built only with Python

#207

Post by ontouchstart »

meredydd wrote: post #10

Hi there! Founder here, slightly gobsmacked to see this top of HN. Do feel free to ask me any questions about the platform :) We also have a bunch of tutorial-cum-demo videos at: https://anvil.works/learn#tutorials

Hi Meredydd,

I just had a video demo tutorial with your colleague @daviesian. He is such an intelligent and effective communicator. I learned a lot about your platform in a short 30-minute screen sharing.

In the crowded world of PaaS, human factors might have equal (if not more) importance than the technology magic. From my experience with Ian, I do see the bright future of your platform. You have a great team that people will trust.

Keep up the good work!

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