5 ms·

MIT App Inventor

74 points by dfc 15y ago

bigiain 15y ago
Ahhh, "4th generation languages" come to mobile apps. I'm _so_ glad all those "idea types" and "business cofounders" won't need my advice or services anymore, 'cause now they can make their own apps without needing any of us annoying technical types telling them "actually, you can't do that"… (Who wants to port RAMIS to iOS?)
philip1209 15y ago
Can anybody comment on its efficaciousness?
kennywinker 15y ago
This looks like google app inventor reborn, yeah? Seems like a noble goal, but not implemented in a satisfying way. I'd like to see an example of something decent created with these tools. I would definitely be more interested in this kind of thing if it ran on-device, as well. Like AIDE (which is awesome, btw).
- seanmcdirmid 15y ago
  Many of us are working on touch-based programming on tablets, I think there will be many interesting tablet-based programming environments coming on line this year. One of the problems I have with AppInventor is that it feels like procedures (in a hidden event loop) are not the right abstraction for the high-level programming model that they are aiming for.
- d4rti 15y ago
  The top hit from google for AIDE is not the AIDE kennywinker is referring to. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&#3... is the Android Java IDE, which is the AIDE referred to.
  - kennywinker 15y ago
    Thank you, I didn't take the time to check my googles before omitting a link. :)
th0ma5 15y ago
I thought they were going to open source this, but it is still a hosted software as a service?
- cmelbye 15y ago
  It is open source: http://code.google.com/p/app-inventor-releases/ http://code.google.com/p/app-inventor-releases/
nextparadigms 15y ago
Will they allow apps made with App Inventor to be published on the Play Store this time? Because I think when Google owned it they said they won't accept apps made with it on the market.
- nl 15y ago
  Because I think when Google owned it they said they won't accept apps made with it on the market. That's not true at all. I'm not aware of anyone who actually did publish anything, but Google didn't stop you doing it.
  - zacharycohn 15y ago
    Wrong. Apps made in Google App Inventor could not be published to the market.
    - nl 15y ago
      Here's how you did it: http://appinventor.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/how-to-publish-app-iinventor.html http://appinventor.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/how-to-publish-ap... Here's another example: http://www.crucialthought.com/2011/05/15/publishing-an-app-inventor-app-to-the-android-market/ http://www.crucialthought.com/2011/05/15/publishing-an-app-i... I think the confusion was that the AppInventor FAQ said you couldn't do it - but only because they didn't provide an out-of-the-box way to do it. That's quite different from banning it (which is what the OP implied). Edit: and here is a thread about doing it with the MIT hosted version: https://groups.google.com/forum/embed/?fragments=true#!topic/appinventor/0orRcSKTUQ4/discussion https://groups.google.com/forum/embed/?fragments=true#!topic...
hypermike 15y ago
I made their sample app in about 10 minutes, its fun at least.
ilovecomputers 15y ago
Is this based on Scratch? http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/
- tesseract 15y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_App_Inventor#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_App_Inventor#History
exDM69 15y ago
I like the ideas behind the app inventor programming language. It has a lisp-ey look and feel to it. The language is made out of blocks that look like puzzle pieces. The shape of the piece stands for it's syntactic meaning, there's a distinct shape for expressions and statements. The color of the piece is it's type, e.g. red for boolean. So an "if" statement is a statement piece that has places to plug in a boolean (red) expression piece and two statement pieces. That's structure and interpretation of programming languages for you. The weakness of the language is the difficulty of representing recursion. I think there was another MIT project that did this well, their program representation was a visual graph where recursion was represented as back edges. This is similar to how the Haskell compiler stores programs internally as graphs. An interesting feature of the visual graph programming language was that all variable and function names are optional (but useful) comments. I feel that researching and experimenting with non-text representations of computer programs is worth the effort.
- wladimir 15y ago
  An interesting feature of the visual graph programming language was that all variable and function names are optional (but useful) comments Do you perhaps remember the name of the project? This is mightily interesting. I've thought about this many times, that if you represent a program as a graph (instead of a tree) you don't really need 'names' or 'symbols' as such (except to make it understandable to humans), just connections. This allows for a cleaner separation of syntax and semantics, and would make it easier to manipulate programs without having to type.
  - exDM69 15y ago
    I wish I remembered it, but I have forgotten the name and can't find it with google. If you find it, please reply to this thread.
- andyjohnson0 15y ago
  My seven-year-old son has recently been getting his first experience of programming using the Lego Mindstorms visual programming environment [1]. It uses a similar 'jigsaw puzzle' representation, and he just found it instantly intuitive. It has similar limitations to App Inventor, but I don't see support for recursion as being too important for this type of programming. [1] Example: http://www.techno-stuff.com/AirPressure.htm http://www.techno-stuff.com/AirPressure.htm
pshapiro 15y ago
iPhone alternative: https://blueprint.io https://blueprint.io

74 points by dfc 15y ago

Ahhh, "4th generation languages" come to mobile apps. I'm _so_ glad all those "idea types" and "business cofounders" won't need my advice or services anymore, 'cause now they can make their own apps without needing any of us annoying technical types telling them "actually, you can't do that"… (Who wants to port RAMIS to iOS?)

philip1209 15y ago

Can anybody comment on its efficaciousness?

kennywinker 15y ago

This looks like google app inventor reborn, yeah? Seems like a noble goal, but not implemented in a satisfying way. I'd like to see an example of something decent created with these tools. I would definitely be more interested in this kind of thing if it ran on-device, as well. Like AIDE (which is awesome, btw).

seanmcdirmid 15y ago
Many of us are working on touch-based programming on tablets, I think there will be many interesting tablet-based programming environments coming on line this year. One of the problems I have with AppInventor is that it feels like procedures (in a hidden event loop) are not the right abstraction for the high-level programming model that they are aiming for.
d4rti 15y ago
The top hit from google for AIDE is not the AIDE kennywinker is referring to. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&#3... is the Android Java IDE, which is the AIDE referred to.
- kennywinker 15y ago
  Thank you, I didn't take the time to check my googles before omitting a link. :)

th0ma5 15y ago

I thought they were going to open source this, but it is still a hosted software as a service?

cmelbye 15y ago
It is open source: http://code.google.com/p/app-inventor-releases/ http://code.google.com/p/app-inventor-releases/

nextparadigms 15y ago

Will they allow apps made with App Inventor to be published on the Play Store this time? Because I think when Google owned it they said they won't accept apps made with it on the market.

nl 15y ago
Because I think when Google owned it they said they won't accept apps made with it on the market. That's not true at all. I'm not aware of anyone who actually did publish anything, but Google didn't stop you doing it.
- zacharycohn 15y ago
  Wrong. Apps made in Google App Inventor could not be published to the market.
  - nl 15y ago
    Here's how you did it: http://appinventor.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/how-to-publish-app-iinventor.html http://appinventor.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/how-to-publish-ap... Here's another example: http://www.crucialthought.com/2011/05/15/publishing-an-app-inventor-app-to-the-android-market/ http://www.crucialthought.com/2011/05/15/publishing-an-app-i... I think the confusion was that the AppInventor FAQ said you couldn't do it - but only because they didn't provide an out-of-the-box way to do it. That's quite different from banning it (which is what the OP implied). Edit: and here is a thread about doing it with the MIT hosted version: https://groups.google.com/forum/embed/?fragments=true#!topic/appinventor/0orRcSKTUQ4/discussion https://groups.google.com/forum/embed/?fragments=true#!topic...

hypermike 15y ago

I made their sample app in about 10 minutes, its fun at least.

ilovecomputers 15y ago

Is this based on Scratch? http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/

tesseract 15y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_App_Inventor#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_App_Inventor#History

exDM69 15y ago

I like the ideas behind the app inventor programming language. It has a lisp-ey look and feel to it. The language is made out of blocks that look like puzzle pieces. The shape of the piece stands for it's syntactic meaning, there's a distinct shape for expressions and statements. The color of the piece is it's type, e.g. red for boolean. So an "if" statement is a statement piece that has places to plug in a boolean (red) expression piece and two statement pieces. That's structure and interpretation of programming languages for you. The weakness of the language is the difficulty of representing recursion. I think there was another MIT project that did this well, their program representation was a visual graph where recursion was represented as back edges. This is similar to how the Haskell compiler stores programs internally as graphs. An interesting feature of the visual graph programming language was that all variable and function names are optional (but useful) comments. I feel that researching and experimenting with non-text representations of computer programs is worth the effort.

wladimir 15y ago
An interesting feature of the visual graph programming language was that all variable and function names are optional (but useful) comments Do you perhaps remember the name of the project? This is mightily interesting. I've thought about this many times, that if you represent a program as a graph (instead of a tree) you don't really need 'names' or 'symbols' as such (except to make it understandable to humans), just connections. This allows for a cleaner separation of syntax and semantics, and would make it easier to manipulate programs without having to type.
- exDM69 15y ago
  I wish I remembered it, but I have forgotten the name and can't find it with google. If you find it, please reply to this thread.
andyjohnson0 15y ago
My seven-year-old son has recently been getting his first experience of programming using the Lego Mindstorms visual programming environment [1]. It uses a similar 'jigsaw puzzle' representation, and he just found it instantly intuitive. It has similar limitations to App Inventor, but I don't see support for recursion as being too important for this type of programming. [1] Example: http://www.techno-stuff.com/AirPressure.htm http://www.techno-stuff.com/AirPressure.htm

pshapiro 15y ago

iPhone alternative: https://blueprint.io https://blueprint.io