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It is not difficult to see there is considerable effort spent building this. However, why would anybody use it ? I see following issues - Editors are getting

by samblr 7y ago

It is not difficult to see there is considerable effort spent building this. However, why would anybody use it ? I see following issues - Editors are getting mighty powerful. So why would a developer trade their favourite tool to your editor in browser ? I wouldn't switch to another editor even somebody is going to pay me more. - The process-and-cost of deploying backend has gotten way easier-and-so-cheaper - why would anybody write trivial code in autocode and then deploy on your servers ? Having said the above - I liked autocomplete provided for different apis in your editor. Sorry, if that was harsh.

zerkten 7y ago
I think the real market for software like this is large enterprises. There are lots of part-time developers or folks that need things glued together. Solutions like this are quite attractive to those organizations because the limited technical expertise they have is focused elsewhere. The process and cost of deploying backends is still significant for them. It is only a mostly solved problem for startups and medium-sized organizations. There is validation for this with Microsoft's "Power" platforms (Flow, PowerApps, etc) effort. This tool seems to have attached itself to competing platforms (Slack, etc.) Right now, an enterprise customer probably wouldn't get all of the pitch since the examples don't tie together their boring tech, but I guess the pitch is that they'll invest in that later.
keithwhor 7y ago
No problem! It's not harsh at all. I think what a lot of savvy professional developers don't necessarily grok is that they're just the tip of the iceberg, or the top of the pyramid, in terms of the types of people writing and delivering solutions with software inside of organizations. Let's say BIGCO pays you $X00k to build big, awesome production systems. There are 10x as many professional developers as you building small, hacky transient code within enterprise cos and SMBs and 100x as many tinkerers, creatives, admins, product managers and more just slapping together Airtable and Zapier as fast as possible to automate their jobs. Autocode isn't designed for the top of the pyramid. I mean, all the features can (and should!) certainly be used by folks at the top. You'll find that for a huge # of simple tasks -- tasks that don't matter where they live, like one-off daily crons -- Autocode is just plain faster. But the important thing to think about is the folks a bit downstream of the "top", the ones implementing solutions less focused on architecture and more focused on solving immediate business problems... that's where Autocode is designed to play well. Hope that helps!
- samblr 7y ago
  >> You'll find that for a huge # of simple tasks -- tasks that don't matter where they live, like one-off daily crons -- Autocode is just plain faster This is what you are building. Perhaps title of post is totally misleading/off-putting - 'Automatically generate API code for SaaS apps' ? Title could have been easily 'A serverless platform with zapier abilities' ? :) - could you argue why autocode is not ? :) Getting your message to early adopters is so important. I hope it helps!
- soonnow 7y ago
  Hi Keith, congratulations on building autocode. I'm by no means a naming expert, probably you should do the opposite of what I say. Also I know building stuff is hard. But I feel that autocode is a weak way to name the product. If I am a business user, or tinkerer I would want the opposite of an autocode app. I wanted a solution of how to connect APIs. Or how to automate my processes. The name itself is pretty good tbh, but in my opinion it just doesn't speak to your core value proposition.

by samblr 7y ago

zerkten 7y ago

I think the real market for software like this is large enterprises. There are lots of part-time developers or folks that need things glued together. Solutions like this are quite attractive to those organizations because the limited technical expertise they have is focused elsewhere. The process and cost of deploying backends is still significant for them. It is only a mostly solved problem for startups and medium-sized organizations. There is validation for this with Microsoft's "Power" platforms (Flow, PowerApps, etc) effort. This tool seems to have attached itself to competing platforms (Slack, etc.) Right now, an enterprise customer probably wouldn't get all of the pitch since the examples don't tie together their boring tech, but I guess the pitch is that they'll invest in that later.

keithwhor 7y ago

No problem! It's not harsh at all. I think what a lot of savvy professional developers don't necessarily grok is that they're just the tip of the iceberg, or the top of the pyramid, in terms of the types of people writing and delivering solutions with software inside of organizations. Let's say BIGCO pays you $X00k to build big, awesome production systems. There are 10x as many professional developers as you building small, hacky transient code within enterprise cos and SMBs and 100x as many tinkerers, creatives, admins, product managers and more just slapping together Airtable and Zapier as fast as possible to automate their jobs. Autocode isn't designed for the top of the pyramid. I mean, all the features can (and should!) certainly be used by folks at the top. You'll find that for a huge # of simple tasks -- tasks that don't matter where they live, like one-off daily crons -- Autocode is just plain faster. But the important thing to think about is the folks a bit downstream of the "top", the ones implementing solutions less focused on architecture and more focused on solving immediate business problems... that's where Autocode is designed to play well. Hope that helps!

samblr 7y ago
>> You'll find that for a huge # of simple tasks -- tasks that don't matter where they live, like one-off daily crons -- Autocode is just plain faster This is what you are building. Perhaps title of post is totally misleading/off-putting - 'Automatically generate API code for SaaS apps' ? Title could have been easily 'A serverless platform with zapier abilities' ? :) - could you argue why autocode is not ? :) Getting your message to early adopters is so important. I hope it helps!
soonnow 7y ago
Hi Keith, congratulations on building autocode. I'm by no means a naming expert, probably you should do the opposite of what I say. Also I know building stuff is hard. But I feel that autocode is a weak way to name the product. If I am a business user, or tinkerer I would want the opposite of an autocode app. I wanted a solution of how to connect APIs. Or how to automate my processes. The name itself is pretty good tbh, but in my opinion it just doesn't speak to your core value proposition.