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Cut Web app development speed by 50% using complex source code generators

1 points by ipselon 11y ago

Imagine you should start a greenfield project for a Web app with modern UI (for example, a new micro service, which will have a Web app for the administration purpose). And imagine, you have a starter-kit with a bunch of ready to use React UI components along with infrastructure for a Web app (for example, react-redux-starter-kit, but with React Bootstrap and React Widgets libs inside). In addition, you have a tool, which allows visually combine any type of components on the Web page. Moreover, this tool has an ability to generate a scaffolded source code for UI components connected to any kind of frameworks like Redux, Relay, etc. (with actions, reducers, routes, so on…). The tool automatically compiles all new source code and reuses all generated components on the page. Of cause, you are not limited in editing the source code of the project in your favourite IDE, because compiler and hot-loader will patch pages with your changes in tool's workspace. Would you like to use such a tool in your project? And if yes, what type of the scaffolds for the source code you would like to use? a) Infrastructure generators: - Generate REST service with Swagger docs by entered Swagger configuration format. - Generate GraphQL server by entered data structure in GraphQL schema format. b) Component generators: - Generate Redux wrapped components connected to existing REST API. - Generate Relay wrapper components connected to existing GraphQL server. BTW, such a tool is already existing: https://github.com/ipselon/structor

phantom_oracle 11y ago
The problem with these novel ideas is two-fold: 1) The market it appeals to would rather just write the code themselves (programmers don't seem to like drag and drop tools - or so I am told) 2) The technology behind them is chosen through flavour-of-the-year/month - If this was 2013, it would have been some other JS library instead of React. -------------------------------- A better solution would be to create a CRUD-generator in the raw languages themselves that can kick-start or help get MVPs out a lot quicker than normal (or basically eliminate the need of "I need a tech-guy to build my idea" part of starting a startup). Eg. you have an application that is drag-and-drop-like that generates pure Python-3 for the backend and pure ES6 for the frontend and moves along with these languages (and not tied to any framework). The only catch is that it will appeal to a small market and will never be something you can comfortably make money from. As long as the generated-code is 'good', the project will live on for years.

1 points by ipselon 11y ago

phantom_oracle 11y ago

The problem with these novel ideas is two-fold: 1) The market it appeals to would rather just write the code themselves (programmers don't seem to like drag and drop tools - or so I am told) 2) The technology behind them is chosen through flavour-of-the-year/month - If this was 2013, it would have been some other JS library instead of React. -------------------------------- A better solution would be to create a CRUD-generator in the raw languages themselves that can kick-start or help get MVPs out a lot quicker than normal (or basically eliminate the need of "I need a tech-guy to build my idea" part of starting a startup). Eg. you have an application that is drag-and-drop-like that generates pure Python-3 for the backend and pure ES6 for the frontend and moves along with these languages (and not tied to any framework). The only catch is that it will appeal to a small market and will never be something you can comfortably make money from. As long as the generated-code is 'good', the project will live on for years.