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Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code

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Re: Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code

#271

Post by ozim »

patrickthebold wrote: post #183
cbdumas wrote: post #73

I think the thing that "coding without code" fundamentally misses is that learning to actually write Python or Java or whatever is not the hard part of being productive in a business context. The hard part of creating useful software is that you have to understand a business process and its requirements so precisely that you can write it down for the computer to do. I work with business stakeholders creating internal…

I'm pretty skeptical of your assertions, here's why I think this will be big: Many people aren't even going to try to do anything involving code, and it doesn't matter if they could if they tried, because they won't. Lots gets lost in communicating with a developer. Creating one of these honey comb things is going to force who is working on it to be precise, in a much better way than talking to a dev (or writing a st…

There always will be a developer, it might be some business person instead of dev but that will be an owner of some app. You don't want to create new application each time. Most of applications are there to be maintained.

You hire new accountant and what he does just throw away all records and build his own app from scratch?

Someone will create that honeycode thing and then he will be responsible for changes in that application.

In the end you have a maintainer on that app and lots will get lost in communication with him.

On the other hand you might have one off apps that are needed for specific task, but that is what excel is for. Reading about honeycode I see it is not about throwaway one off apps. So there will be someone who is "developer" who has to know details of honeycode and application he maintains and bunch of people with requests who don't bother learning what that honeycode thing is.

Re: Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code

#273

Post by ozim »

nickff wrote: post #81
cbdumas wrote: post #73

I think the thing that "coding without code" fundamentally misses is that learning to actually write Python or Java or whatever is not the hard part of being productive in a business context. The hard part of creating useful software is that you have to understand a business process and its requirements so precisely that you can write it down for the computer to do. I work with business stakeholders creating internal…

I think you are radically underestimating the perceived barriers to entry with programming. You sound a lot like the Linux advocates who think everyone should just memorize a bunch of commands, and get used to using shell. This type of insider view is often referred to as 'the curse of knowledge'.

Point of low code is to get rid of those smart ass developers who know those magic incantations and demand loads of money for their work.

What you get in low code reality are smart ass business consultants that know magic configuration options and demand loads of money for their work.

Just look at SAP, Salesforce etc. From my point of view any barrier to entry doesn't matter because at some level you just trade one complexity for the other.

For non complex stuff excel works fine and low code is not advertised as alternative to excel.

Re: Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code

#274

Post by Aeolun »

dataminded wrote: post #177
andrewzah wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still can't imagine going to the trouble of actually doing all of that if I can just log into HoneyComb and make everything nice and quick and just get it done. That sounds all nice and good until one inevitably runs into limitations of the software. And then it has to be made again, this time from scratch. > bashing it together with Django and deploying it to an EC2 VM is almost definitely not your differentiate…

> But I would never rely on it for a business. You sir have options. Every place I have ever worked has at least one app that someone hacked together through some combination of PDFs, Excel and Access. This is a tremendous opportunity for those folks. The ones who will never learn to code, never learn to deploy an application and never get enough visibility to have a developer assigned to their project. For the every…

I think it’s amazing people build a whole complex web of formulas and conditions, and then try to claim they didn’t use any code.

Re: Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code

#275

Post by serverQuestion »

zrobotics wrote: post #239
cbdumas wrote: post #73

I think the thing that "coding without code" fundamentally misses is that learning to actually write Python or Java or whatever is not the hard part of being productive in a business context. The hard part of creating useful software is that you have to understand a business process and its requirements so precisely that you can write it down for the computer to do. I work with business stakeholders creating internal…

>>the requirements ... are some variation of vague, ill-specified, and flat out wrong. And it's not their fault at all, it's just that unless you've gone through the process of writing code it's impossible to understand just how pedantic and explicit you need to be when building software versus, say, giving your human colleagues instructions. I (mainly) work in inventory management and this is so very true. For our s…

I think its good to realize that the waterfall method really encourages this. Thinking through everything before building can really help formalise informal workflows.

... then you get into standardised work flow diagrams and you are so far into UML that it just becomes programming again.

Re: Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code

#277

Post by Aeolun »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #91
avolcano wrote: post #3

Looks like a competitor to Retool, interesting. The focus on data permissions, mobile support, and push notifications is really interesting because none of those features are ones that Retool focuses on, I believe - those features being front and center makes me think Amazon has looked at the competition and wants to focus on what they offer that others don't, rather than just trying to be yet-another-tool in the spa…

>On the other hand, I absolutely loathe every single UI that has ever come out of AWS, and there is absolutely no chance I give the editor they've built here a shot without hearing lots of positive reactions first. I agree so much with this. I hate the AWS console UI so, so much and It blows my mind that such a large company can't seem to even get on the same page about what color scheme or menu bar position they wan…

> I agree so much with this. I hate the AWS console UI so much

Oh, I love, hate, detest, adore, or any number of other negative and positive adjectives the AWS console UI, all depending on what page I visit.

Re: Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code

#278

Post by Aeolun »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #209
julianeon wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to be the only person who likes the AWS UI. So here's my defense of it. AWS is like the hardware store. Who thinks Home Depot is elegant? It's not. Who think their organization scheme is a thing of beauty? It's clunky and just functional. But the idea is, when you go to Home Depot, you're there to get work done. The interior communicates that. The real work comes after you leave - Home Depot understands it's j…

You're not alone, and thanks for putting into words what had been the back of my mind. I could not care less about the aesthetics of their dashboard, when I'm on it I'm there to get something done and I never seem to have an issue with that.

Unless you are trying to search, and have to wait for 5000 items to load 50 items at a time :/

Oh, and then you find that search only supports either exact matches, or (for some reason) suffix matches.

Re: Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code

#279

Post by Aeolun »

tomlagier wrote: post #176
ihumanable wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone smarter than me explain why the AWS UI is so off-putting? I also find myself just put off by AWS UIs. I can't even figure out why I hate it so much. Looking at the screenshots though immediately filled me with the sense that this thing would just be awful to use. When I go back to the screenshots to try to find objective things I dislike about the UI, I can't really find anything. It seems to do the stuff…

I think a big part of it is this: > staring at a spinner spin for far too long. You probably didn't hate it the first or second time you opened it up. Only after recognizing that many operations are extremely sluggish did you start to build an aversion. I think the same this can be said about JIRA and many other sluggish, enterprise-y tools. The UI design is typically more-or-less OK, it's the experience of clicking…

5 clicks to accomplish something is fine if each takes 10ms. 5 clicks to accomplish something if each takes 5s is an eternity (JIRA).

Re: Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code

#280

Post by dsbanaj »

This works only for the development of simple applications. If these no-code/low-code platforms want to be considered for serious development, they need to decouple front-end and back-end tiers. A developer can build front-end in one no-code application (e.g Webflow), or Angular/React for slick single-page applications; and the backend in another backend APIs specific no-code application. It will also enable the backend code to be called from native iOS and Android apps.
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