brunovcosta

Have you ever tried to use [name the tool here] form builder and got stuck on simple things like:

- Adding complex logic

- Making requests in the middle of the form

- Doing any complicated math

At the same time, developing a web server that handles multiple states requires you to persist things on a database or handle query strings + validation

For that reason, we developed Hackerforms (https://hackerforms.com). You can just write a python script as you would do with a CLI app and that's it: You have a form-like app online + auth + database (if you wish)

This is great for:

- Scripts that require user input

- Approval workflows

- Customer setup

I'm happy to hear any feedback

Super biased here, but you should definitely try Abstra (https://abstra.app/)

It allows you to create CRUD apps visually with little to no JS code

Abstra, YC S21 (https://abstra.app) is great for frontends!

It allows you to easily integrate with any backend and have a smoother learning curve. Also it is easily extensible by code, so you will never be stuck in feature limitations

Full disclosure: I’m the founder ;D

Comments like this warm our hearts and makes us super motivated! Thank you very much!

Excelent feedback! We will fix that!

We saw limitations on all libs we tried, so we decided to implement drag-n-drop by ourselves using setIntervals, getBoundingRects and absolute positions for arrows and other visual elements

Yes! We have a customer which have blind users. So we are prepared for this!

Here is a quick demo: https://accessibility-demo.abstra.app/

Thank you! I think there always an abstraction bias that makes webdev frameworks so coupled with HTML.

Great to hear that you liked!

Thank you! We are using Vue+Typescript for the frontend and Haskell & Node for the backend microservices.

For your case (and maybe for us in the future), I would take a look at rust+webasm or using WebGL directly

Thank you!!

Great, thank you! If you have any questions or thoughts about our tool, you can contact me (bruno [at] abstra.app). I would love to get your feedback on it.

Good call! done! bruno [at] abstra.app

Thank you! We will change that!

Great, thank you!

The next level is "complex apps" because code is still a better way to create customized abstractions.

That said, you can scale simple/CRUD applications with Abstra for tons of users without having to mind about infrastructure

I'm Bruno, founder of Abstra (https://abstra.app/). Abstra is a no-code tool that allows designers to build web apps. Imagine Figma, but we export a functional web application. Here's a timelapsed demo showing it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fObVcHcd_w.

As opposed to most famous no-code tools, we don't do any nested-based editing (e.g. tree structure like Webflow - which is an amazing tool, but is basically a visual HTML editor requiring almost the same skills). Instead, we have free canvas-based editing, so we let designers freely iterate as they do with prototyping tools like Figma/AdobeXD/Sketch/etc.

Our visual interface builder lets you add controls using "springs". This is a kind of constraint layout (like XCode/Android studio does) without Cassowary solver (which means more tolerance to inconsistencies). This idea actually came from a master thesis project with my girlfriend where we created methods to simulate elastic material deformations. Then I realized that those abstractions (elastic springs) are easier to understand than the flexbox/grid/box model for UI layout.

Abstra is great for companies that want to make MVPs in production, learn with real data and move faster. We already have a few companies using Abstra. One of them is Stone (Nasdaq: STNE), which uses us to build internal tools faster than coding by hand. Examples of what people have built so far include a customer support portal, a field sales collaborative notes app, financial controls, timesheets, an employee evaluation tool, and a student enrollment control.

Full disclosure, I made this tool

If you want something more “hackable” (making changes on data, or use SSO), I recommend going with Abstra (https://abstra.app)

Hi there, I'm Bruno, founder of Abstra.

We are making a low-code tool focused on secondary apps and MVPs.

The idea is that is that it is focused on people with basic coding background (even if it is not web dev).

We have good integration features that allow us to fit into existing companies or stacks very easy.

We need more feedback on the platform, so I would be very thankful with any comments or messages in this direction!

Great article!

I have a different point of view.

There are two assumptions I disagree:

Assumption 1: No-code will not benefit from code learnings (or do some equivalent progress)

Probably, because the nature of domain (code vs GUI), the solutions may be different, but it's possible to attack the same problems.

many no-code tools have some type of versioning plus real time sync

many no-code tools have some type of abstraction level extensibility with plugins

...

Assumption 2: Software development is mainly solving complex problems

The other force no-code in the no-code side is, as software industry gets more mature, more patterns are discovered.

Just look how much boilerplate is in each company or unnecessary rework with bad abstractions. Most of companies doing software today are just rearranging things on screen, or creating some simple pipelines.

Even though RAD, low-code, model driven, etc.. is not a new thing, time has a important role here:

Also as software is getting more popular in last decade, we saw a lot of space for "almost the same" solutions to coexist, allowing more of the production process to be "productized"

This can be different to silicon valley style startups, but most of the market is solving the same old problems everyday.

Full disclosure, I actually have a no-code/low-code startup (https://abstra.app) hence I'm very biased!

Hi there, I'm working in a serverless solution for my startup (https://abstra.app) where you can deploy functions with just a command.

We create this experimental feature to understand what is the best experience for an developer shipping MVP APIs

I would love to hear more about your thoughts about this!