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Amazon Honeycode – build web and mobile apps without writing code

aws.amazon.com

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

#301

Post by tguedes »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #110
outworlder wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 want to use. Isn't it the other way around? Being a large company makes coordinating on an uniform look and feel much harder, not easier.

You're right, and I did think of that after I clicked "reply". What I meant was that a company with so much resources doesn't seem to have that capability. Even with such a large size, I would imagine Amazon of all companies would have the resources to say "this is the design, now get on board" and make it happen. This goes for other aspects of AWS as well, such as consistency in the way services report to CloudTrail…

I have read this is the intended trade-off. They want each AWS service to release new features as quickly as possible. If they were required to coordinate with other teams on UI decisions, that would slow them down.

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

#302

Post by bram2w »

zubairq wrote: post #300
bram2w wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! I agree, was surprised to learn that there aren't that many good open source no-code tools out there.

I couldn't find the source code, where is it on github?

The open source release will probably happen within 3 weeks from now. It is an early test version that is running on baserow.io, but this is for trying it out only. I still need to write documentation, an openapi spec, a plugin boilerplate and some other small things. When that is finished I will make the code available publicly.

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

#303

Post by pjmlp »

OOPMan wrote: post #288
pjmlp wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I do, my UNIX experience goes all the way back to Xenix and I have used most of the UNIX commercial clones, and also did porting across multiple platforms. Whatever the UNIX shell provides, can be more comfortably over an interactive graphical REPL, which even allows for proper graphical debugging tools when pipelines don't work as they are supposed to be. Secondly, since UI/UX has always been one of my focus, I…

So...where I can get this awesome new shell it sounds like you're working on?

https://franz.com/products/allegro-common-lisp/

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

#304

Post by DoctorOW »

pradn wrote: post #295

I don't see Microsoft PowerApps mentioned in the comments. ( https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/ ) It's one of the most significant recent entrants into the "make an app" space. It looks like Powerpoint and its coding is simple, with formulas like Excel. They sell licenses mainly to companies (creating internal app stores).

Not sure if this includes Power Automate but I find it really handy for the work I do. If you're not already familiar with how an API works, being able to point and click on an icon to setup automation is great.

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

#306

Post by MangoCoffee »

mg794613 wrote: post #7

Ok honestly, my first thought was "here we go again", BUT when you look at the @jeffbar provided, you can see, that yes, it is "visual" programming. It does however require a certain logical fluency. So I was wrong: It is _not_ the sales/ceo dream of no longer having pesky engineers. It's a proper gateway drug into programming.

Visual Basic?

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

#307

Post by coliveira »

nightski wrote: post #88
coliveira wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that coding is the easy part. But exactly because of that it shouldn't get into the way. I really think that is useful to have tools to generate simple apps without coding. Who wants to create the thousandth CRUD app? It is nice to have a tool capable of create apps from simple logic and reserve programming for when it's needed.

At the end of the day you have to translate requirements into software. Whether that is through a GUI or textual. Textual just happens to be an extremely effective method to do so. Every application in existence is a CRUD app. Software is just data processing after all, reading and writing bits.

I think it is extremely egotistical to think that your way is the only way to do things. If some people are not good enough with text files, then by all means we should provide tools so they can help create simple apps without traditional programming skills.

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

#308

Post by datavirtue »

ozim wrote: post #273
nickff wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Yeah, this. Low code has been around for decades. It just results in greater complexity with an additional reliance on a propietary tool that few people understand at all. Honeycode is just a slightly better Microsoft Access. Good for doing mockups and POCs though.

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

#309

Post by datavirtue »

danudey wrote: post #155
cbdumas wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right about perceived barriers to entry, and I certainly didn't say (nor did I mean to imply) that anyone should "just" learn to code. But I think the promise of "apps without code" is a siren song, always ending in frustration. I'd never tell anyone that learning to code is easy (only that most people can do it with some hard work), but I would also never tell anyone that tools like this will make it…

My counterpoint (to your original point) is that it's not about writing code. Making an app like this and putting it online (with roughly the same level of features) requires: * Learning a backend language, like Python * Learning how to design a data model * Learning how to design an admin interface * Managing authentication, security, and performance * Learning HTML, CSS, and Javascript * Learning how to set up a uw…

Exactly. But the Honeycode people aren't going to sell it like that. They are going to claim it's made of unicorns all the way down and that it can be used to build real applications. Ever port Microsoft Access "solutions" for a business?

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

#310

Post by throwaway894345 »

ozim wrote: post #273
nickff wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Presumably we would agree that writing a web app is more economical in Python, Ruby, Go, etc than in C or ASM. Both C devs and HLL (higher level language) devs are well-paid and well-versed in their tool set. The difference is that HLL devs can deliver value at a higher rate than C devs for this domain.

If we can agree on the above, then presumably it's conceivable that the same abstraction principle applies with low code solutions--yes, low code users will know their tool well and earn loads of money, but they will probably move faster than traditional programmers for this domain.

In my mind, this only holds as long as these low-code tools are really more abstract and not just a visual/graphical programming language (I'm sure there are very low-level visual programming tools that would allow you to manage your own memory, etc). It also depends on the domain being amenable to abstraction--if you have to drop out of the tool with some regularity to do things the tool doesn't support (e.g., performance, custom analytics, etc), there's a threshold at which the overhead of calling into a lower level language exceeds the benefits of the tool. I don't know where this threshold is, largely because the domain isn't well defined.

But I do think low code solutions are conceivable for certain domains. I would make the argument that Microsoft Access and Excel either qualify as "low code" solutions or they are at least proto-low-code solutions, and they both deliver tremendous value. I would perhaps even say that Access/Excel are to client-side applications what these new low-code solutions are to web applications. Not a perfect analogy, but I think there's something insightful in there.

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