5 ms·

Ask HN: Desktop tools for aws services? None to be found why?

4 points by isrsan 11y ago

Hi there, I have been working with aws services(read DynamoDB, S3,SNS, SQS, etc) for a while now, and I am starting to get frustated with the state of affairs when in comes to the tools. I mean, don't get me wrong aws provides a fairly practical web console, where you can get your job done, however it is far from a pleasure to work with. Why is that there is not desktop tools for aws services? Is the status-quo good enough for people out there. I can see at least a few ways in which a desktop tool can make life much easier specially when dealing with DynamoDB. I know that S3(, EC2?) do have some desktop counterparts but that is it. In any case love to hear what people thing about it.

mattkrea 11y ago
I believe many that use these services are happy enough with awscli. They are targeting developers after all.
brianmurphy 11y ago
It's good enough for me. After my resource is spun up, I'm talking to it directly through protocol so the AWS console is a quick and dirty on/off add/remove interface. As someone who has worked with a lot of enterprise management tools, the situation could be MUCH worse than what AWS provides. Maybe that's why it doesn't bother me. :)
anigbrowl 11y ago
Make some, even if they're minimal - it might be that Amazon themselves will be interested.
msie 11y ago
I've seen desktop tools in the past but they seem to have been abandoned.
- isrsan 11y ago
  Would you have those links at hand maybe?
lovelearning 11y ago
What features are you looking for?
sdrinf 11y ago
A handful of reasons (disclaimer: painting with very wide brush here, in the hope that you get the strategic picture) * The desktop market is fragmented. Pick your poison: walled garden with crappy devtools, OSS fanatics who will not pay for software in a million years; or warezing pirates. Note that whichever you choose, your app will still end up on torrent sites ~2 days after release anyways. * The cross-OS development tools' end results are usually sub-pair, even compared with javascript. * Desktop usage is, and has been stagnating for a while now; while mobile usage is growing at an incredible rate. Mobile native market is also highly fragmented. * The lowest common denominator across all of these markets is the web: develop it once using responsive design, run it on everything for at least the next decade, or so. * People have been voting for this platform with their wallets for a while now; specifically by being unable to pirate web apps. * The stakeholders in selling AWS are: developers (for whom command line & APIs are the critical part), and business decision makers (who are looking for easy leverage). Neither target group is particularly interested in desktop apps. * Specifically regarding to their propriatory tech (eg dynamoDB), developing a third-party desktop tool for it is a high-risk-no-reward endavour: you either get traction, in which case Amazon will gladly oblige with an app of their own; or it won't, in which case you're out with $lots$. Joel Spolsky put it best: "Filling little gaps in another company's product lineup is snatching nickels from the path of an oncoming steam roller." ( http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/06/10c.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/06/10c.html )
- isrsan 11y ago
  Enlightening comments, it indeed feels like a risky proposition given that any tech produced by a 3rd party vendor will always have the loosing hand against, tech produced inside Amazon. Though desktop usage is stagnating, aws stakeholders probably do do their tasks in desktops, I really can't see a lot of devs moving to mobile devices to build things, thus this point seems mute to me. The real question, as you said is, do developers really need/want these sort of tools? I am actually not 100% that a lot of devs will shy away from well engineered desktop tools, but at this point this is mostly a hunch feed by my own frustrations with the tools In any case thanks for the bottom link, I enjoyed reading it.
giaour 11y ago
If all you need is DynamoDB views, you could try RazorSQL http://razorsql.com/articles/razorsql_amazon_dynamodb.html http://razorsql.com/articles/razorsql_amazon_dynamodb.html