AWS Launches 'Amazon Honeycode', a No-Code App Building Service (zdnet.com) 43
"Amazon Web Services on Wednesday launched Amazon Honeycode, a fully-managed service that enables companies to build mobile and web applications without any programming," reports ZDNet:
Customers can use the service to build apps that leverage an AWS-built database, such as a simple task-tracking application or a more complex project management app to manage multiple workflows. "Customers have told us that the need for custom applications far outstrips the capacity of developers to create them," AWS VP Larry Augustin said in a statement.
Low-code and no-code tools have been growing in popularity in recent years, enabling people with little or no coding experience to be able to build the applications they need. Other major cloud companies like Salesforce offer low-code app builders. With IT teams stretched thin during the COVID-19 pandemic, low-code tools can prove particularly useful.
Customers "can get started by selecting a pre-built template, where the data model, business logic, and applications are pre-defined and ready-to-use..." Amazon explains in a press release. "Or, they can import data into a blank workbook, use the familiar spreadsheet interface to define the data model, and design the application screens with objects like lists, buttons, and input fields.
"Builders can also add automations to their applications to drive notifications, reminders, approvals, and other actions based on conditions. Once the application is built, customers simply click a button to share it with team members."
Low-code and no-code tools have been growing in popularity in recent years, enabling people with little or no coding experience to be able to build the applications they need. Other major cloud companies like Salesforce offer low-code app builders. With IT teams stretched thin during the COVID-19 pandemic, low-code tools can prove particularly useful.
Customers "can get started by selecting a pre-built template, where the data model, business logic, and applications are pre-defined and ready-to-use..." Amazon explains in a press release. "Or, they can import data into a blank workbook, use the familiar spreadsheet interface to define the data model, and design the application screens with objects like lists, buttons, and input fields.
"Builders can also add automations to their applications to drive notifications, reminders, approvals, and other actions based on conditions. Once the application is built, customers simply click a button to share it with team members."
Aand the next genetation to learn on their own... (Score:5, Interesting)
... that "no-code" always leads to a cumbersome spaghetti mess and an inner-platform effect due to the no-code environment growing to be a shitter version of the platform below.
We see that every dozen years or so.
I still remember Yahoo and Apple trying it.
Frankly, something like Python already is trivial. Each concept used in scripting is one every normal person uses every day. We reached maximum simplicity, decades ago. All that happens now, is crippling power in the name of simplicity, resulting on limiting, cunpersome interfaces.
Stop fostering laziness and stupidity and crippling the power of those who aren't. (Example: Smartphones.)
If you can't master at least Python by the age of 12 (median age: 10), you need to be moved to a school for the mentally disabled. (Ditto for the artsy, social, financial, linguistic, nutritional, etc equivalents.)
Re: Aand the next genetation to learn on their own (Score:2)
I'm sorry for the typos. Bad day. Please assume I fixed them, before modding or replying. *tips invisible hat*
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I did one of these, way back in the day - turned out that microsoft looked at our code (we took it to their labs for perf testing a sa partner) and next thing you know, Biztalk was remarkably similar.
Coincidence I'm sure.
Anyway, what we found was that the simplest stuff was easy and simple to do - looked great in demos.
But when you tried to do a real application, the number of non-programmers configuring it to work was more than the number of programmers you'd have hired to do it.
I think what we really need
Re: Aand the next genetation to learn on their own (Score:2)
Each concept used in scripting is one every normal person uses every day.
*golf clap*
I think think the general public, fooled into believing "tech companies" have anything to do with tech, and observing the dumpster fire of "boot camps" run by these companies, miss the bigger truth that there is legitimacy to the "everyone should learn to code" educational philosophy.
The concepts in scripts, even functions, are well understood by any 5 year old who plays with some form of construction set type toy.
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I take it you aren't a fan of Inform7.
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I set up a trial account and gave it a go, and, yup, it's a CRUD generator
You can write a Flappy Bird in UE4 with one YouTube tutorial and zero code, but, that has one input ... flap...
A generic CRUD is a great thing, but, I can only see horrible excel type mashups with a funky front end
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So why isn't an unemployed coal miner taking your job if it's so easy? BECAUSE IT'S NOT! Sure, structured code is clear and obvious to you, but not everyone's mind works the same way. My wife is extremely intelligent, smarter than I am in many ways, but in college relational databases made absolutely no sense to her. She can manage teams of 35 people (some of whom cried when she retired) but the reason for having a key field was a mystery to her. She can make schedules and plan projects for all those p
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Get back to me when you can take a look at deliveries and outages for a store that sells $50,000-$120,000 worth of goods per day, scan the list of people who are scheduled to work that day, fifteen minutes after you've arrived dispatch them all to their duties, and be successful at it day after day for years. If you're too stupid to realize how complex that bit of magic is then I'm amazed you can remember to keep breathing.
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> If you can't master at least Python by the age of 12 (median age: 10), you need to be moved to a school for the mentally disabled. (Ditto for the artsy, social, financial, linguistic, nutritional, etc equivalents.)
How many 12 year olds have mastered a foreign language? How about any other subject for that matter? The tech world seems plagued by people who think something is simple because it is *in hindsight*..
My degree is in the natural sciences. The number of software developers who can't accurately
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If you can't master at least Python by the age of 12 (median age: 10), you need to be moved to a school for the mentally disabled. (Ditto for the artsy, social, financial, linguistic, nutritional, etc equivalents.)
I think you have some severe mis-estimation of the average here. Sure, smart people may be able to do this given first-rate teaching. In some areas. But the average is far, far removed from being able to master the _basics_ of Python at any time in their lives.
Of course, "low-code/no-code" is completely misguided, as somebody that cannot master the basics of coding is not going to be able to to the basics of problem solving either. Hence these people (who are the vast majority) can produce code that runs wi
A little on the nose (Score:3)
Romeo and Juliet (Score:2)
Isn't code by another name still code?
The crappyfication of software development (Score:5, Insightful)
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Honeycode? (Score:3)
Max Rows: 2020 AWS Honeycode vs 1985 Excel for Mac (Score:4, Informative)
2020 Honeycode PLUS [honeycode.aws]: 10,000 rows/workbook ($19.99/month). 1985 Excel 1.0 for Mac [nytimes.com]: 16,384 rows/workbook
The syntax is not the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
What keeps them from being able to write a piece of software is that they cannot specify their problem, and thus much less a solution to it.
Even if you systematically question them about what their input data could be and what output data they would expect, they are unable to provide consistent, non-self-contradictory natural language answers to such questions.
"No-Code" does not address that inability.
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Even if this doesn't address the issue it is designed for it may at least help to address the issue you point out. It's likely (some of them, anyway) they don't understand **why** you're asking the questions or what a reasonable answer might be Maybe if they are presented with the opportunity to see what is needed and why you're asking what you're asking. That's my hope, anyway.
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Lost part of the post, somehow.
Maybe if they are presented with the opportunity to see what is needed and why you're asking what you're asking they might be able to formulate a coherent answer.
Larry Augustin (Score:4, Interesting)
Any old times caught this part?
He is the founder of SourceForge, and VA Research [wikipedia.org]. They offered PCs with Linux pre-installed.
Then they acquired Andover.net which owned Slashdot at the time ...
Trusting Amazon way, way too much? (Score:2)
Sounds like a really stupid idea aimed at lazy companies and people who can't be bothered to be competent enough to do these things for themselves. At least hire someone on a contract basis to write your 'apps'.
Projection (Score:5, Insightful)
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True, but the people who are cut out to write code is too small a number compared to the amount of code the world wants/needs
This is blatantly untrue. Were it true, entry level devs would make 10m+ per year. The fact is there are plenty of devs willing to work, the people driving business decisions just disregard the value of literally saving them tens to thousands of people laboring away to do a given task and really hate having to pay devs anything near executive salaries.
I pressed the 'D' key on my keyboard and got DOOM (Score:2)
Amazing!
Just by pressing a single key, this no-crap AI platform autocompleted it into a full fledged DOOM for my smartphone including the backend server.
Next time I'll press another key.
Noooooo (Score:3)
First COVID now this. This is the last thing we need. Worst thing to happen since AOL users and the general public started getting on the internet.
No (Score:4, Insightful)
"No code" "apps" only works until you need to implement any kind of non-trivial business logic.
At that point, you need some sort of, er, symbolic language to precisely specify your business logic. We could call it "code" ...
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
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Beginners'*
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"No code" "apps" only works until you need to implement any kind of non-trivial business logic.
Sure. Maybe at some point you will have to write (or have someone else write) some code. But you may be able to get quite a bit done without writing any at all. For example, without a single line of code I was able to get Drupal to provide me with a relatively clean view on the USDA nutritive value of foods database. It honestly only took a few clicks, and there it was. (I just wanted a local mirror that showed me ALL the data.) What's wrong with that?
Microsoft Access (Score:2)
Just looking at the introduction I swear it's just Microsoft Access in the cloud. Microsoft Access was a disaster and I'm confident this won't be much different.
Honeycode? PowerBI Lite more like! (Score:2)
...
Better than Excel (Score:1)
No-code (Score:2)
And if you don't keep paying your monthly fees, it's no-access.
And if Amazon decides to shut down their Honeycomb service, it's no-more.
MS Power Apps?? (Score:1)