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Comment by hex13 | Hacker News Reader

Been there, done that. When I coded games, I made some simple JSON based file format and almost whole game was in form of JSON. I even implemented conditional and loops in JSON.

But It can easy lead to inner platform effect. Not needed complexity. And in JSON you can't write JS code (needed for e.g. event handlers).

So I switched to JS. Still data-driven approach (simple hierarchical objects with data), but with power of JS (and if you're use Babel, you could use JSX for your DSL).

So: I don't think JSON is best format for what you try to achieve. It's just so limited.

Besides what is added value of Jasonette? When I look on Jasonette I have feeling that it's just reinvents ReactJS but in JSON not JSX. Not sure if there is much profit with JSON format alone.

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https://jasonette.github.io/documentation/actions/

yeah, predefined actions for often used features is good (if you assure that it would be possible to add some custom JS action if needed), but frankly I think this project could be better (I mean, really better, it would be killer app), if you would go further and made visual editor for that. Some sort of modern WYSIWYG. Nobody wants to edit manually plain JSON files... But if editor could let you to make apps without code and generate/modify these JSONs for you, it would be nice.

I think data-driven approach is huge win for that. It's all data after all.

What is the problem? Creating visual editor is hard. Idea is obvious, but implementation, ux etc. is hard (I see sometimes visual editors for apps and most of it are sh*t).

Thanks for the feedback! We discuss that issue here: https://github.com/Jasonette/JASONETTE-iOS/issues/4

Please follow the project if you're interested in finding out where this goes :)

Please consider reading this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner-platform_effect

I, too, went down the path of JSON -> Compiler -> Code, and I essentially just made a worse version of what I was looking to simplify.

Thanks for the article. I am sorry to hear what happened to your project, but I think, in my case because I didn't build this from scratch, but it was extracted out from an existing app, I was able to get this to a point where I'm very satisfied with the result.

My goal was to make something that will help myself build, iterate, extend my existing app much faster, and it really did, so that's when I realized it would be great if I can open this up so others can use it as well.

To be more specific, nowadays I can build, iterate, and extend apps significantly faster, as in what used to take couple of days I can now build in 30 minutes. Maybe it's just me but I'm sure if I can do it, anyone can do it.

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