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idoh

What does it do, what user segment are you looking at?

View on HN

It’s a “Rapid application development” tool, targeting developers who create internal apps.

Why not post it right here? Most HN users are developers.

I did.

It didn’t even reach the Show HN page. And I don’t want to spam by repeat-posting...

To save anyone else a few clicks: https://www.jigdev.com/index.html

This is definitely interesting but i imagine i wud use it so rarely that it wudnt warrant an install :(

Have you asked other developers if they want to use such a tool? (most developers don't want to use a custom, web-based IDE, also fear vendor lockin)

RAD or low-code should be targeted towards non-developers in the org.

This market is heavily saturated with most solutions falling short of expectations and being limited in what can be achieved.

This is the crux of the problem. In the organizations I have worked at, there were job positions for "business apps developers". Those people would make quick and dirty apps using whatever they can find (Excel, VBA, Windows Forms, etc.). They would have very little programming experience but would manage to bootstrap enough knowledge to get shit done. My view is that these people want web-based apps, but they struggle with html/css/test/deploy. Problem is these people are usually fine with what they already have.

In other organizations, such roles don't exist because it's too expensive to make business apps, and they don't want shitty solutions. It's a little hard to find how to put the foot in the door.

I think you could investigate offering a free open source version to the wider develop community to help them experiment and use the tool before committing to purchase it.

Then later on, plan on adding paid add-on features and professional support, etc.

Yes, the basic version is and will remain free. Will add paid features in the future.

Pricing will be somewhat similar to LinqPad.

I am building something similar [0] (think Jupyter for the web, without the Observable black box, supporting clientside Python), also to scratch my own itch. I think you need to solve a problem directly, instead of being "a new tool that I now have to learn".

In my case I am trying to get Javascript/visualization/web developers to embrace the literate programming paradigm. The tough part here is that those familiar with something like Jupyter don't often know web APIs very well to really build a simple "app" in 100 lines, and those who do have probably never used a "notebook" at all and wouldn't even consider it.

How I am currently adressing this issue is by embracing content authoring first. The base of my tool are now WYSIWYG blocks, with the "super powers" being use-as-you-learn. Think gitbook but it's actually notebooks: that's not too scary. In your case it may mean some pre-built drag and drop no-code visualizations.

Importantly: don't give up now. My project has gotten some attention, but not nearly as much as I think it deserves. Follow the advice of others: see who really has a need for your product and let them help guide your next steps.

Finally, check out ellx [1] too as it's quite similar in its target audience.

[0]: https://starboard.gg [1]: https://ellx.io/

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