I have found a software development system which is currently free to use and develop with.
This system is completely codeless and one can develop business oriented applications effortlessly using its GUI and a bit of MDA. The site is : http://www.codeless.com/
But unfortunately it is in Dutch language.
I would like to know if anyone has ever used this product ?
How efficient is this approach and product?
Can one develop codeless applications?
I have looked at the site but the story is extremely vague.
For majority of non-Dutch speakers, I have translated the following text:
Klaar voor de toekomst!
Stel dat u over 20 jaar nog steeds dezelfde software zou kunnen gebruiken als nu. Toekomstmuziek? Nou, welkom in uw toekomst dan. Want Codeless Technology ontwikkelt software zonder code die simpelweg niet veroudert.
Door ´reverse enginering´ kunnen wij u laten zien hoe uw software-pakket er in Codeless uit komt te zien. En door gebruik te maken van interfaces, kunnen we bepaalde delen van uw systeem vervangen zonder dat er een Big Bang implementatie noodzakelijk is.
Wij hebben een manier gevonden om onze software voor altijd mee te laten gaan. Omdat we het simpelweg zonde van uw tijd vinden om telkens opnieuw uw bedrijfsprocessen te moeten uitleggen aan een nieuwe ICT-leverancier.
Uw systeem is perfect aangesloten op uw bedrijfsprocessen. En dat terwijl u de nieuwste technologieën snel en voordelig in kunt zetten om zo concurrentievoordeel te behalen. Natuurlijk moet u updaten. Maar met de software die u nu door ons laat bouwen, bent u gegarandeerd klaar voor de toekomst!
That translates to:
Ready for the future!
Imagine you are using the same software in 20 years. Impossible? No, welcome to your future. Because Codeless Technology creates software without code that does not age.
By 'reverse enginering' we show you your software in Codeless. By using interfaces, we can replace certain pieces of your system without the need for a Big Bang implementation.
We have found a way to let our software last for ever because we think it is a waste of your time to explain your business processes to your ICT supplier again and again.
Your system is perfectly connected to your business processes. And still you are able to use the newest technologies quick and easy so you have an advantage on your competitors. Of course, you still have the need for updates. But with our software, you are guaranteed future ready.
It looks like they have developed a product that uses an existing system and creates a new one using the old system as guide. Without the need to write code. This looks great, but I have serious doubts.
My first question: if they are so excellent, why is their site not in English?
I've used the visual development tool of the C Control microcontroller. Although it was possible to use almost every feature of the underlying language (BASIC) it found it to be a waste of time. "Mouse coding" simple loops took way longer than just writing the plain BASIC code.
During my first steps into coding and development I tried other products, (mostly game creators) but they always either lack the features normally available in a coded language or are very slow to work with.
But during the last years I noticed an increase of people who are no longer willing to read (natural) text which they cannot understand the first time they read it. Just a single subordinate clause and they don't want to continue.
So I guess there is a market for these kind of codeless development tools, since you can easily get results and the learning curve is much lower. Most tools I used where pretty self-explanatory.
IMHO codeless development enviroments are best suited for
I have tested version 1 current version is 2. but as there is not documentation available in English I am a bit baffled as to how we can go ahead building our apps as per our requirements.
The samples provided looked impressive though.
I'm not familiar with this specific product, but I have some familiarity with the "theory" (such as it is) of codeless development.
The primitives of programming languages are there for a reason. So there is a tendency for "codeless" or "mouse-based" development systems to gradually accumulate features that correspond to the primitives of programming languages: something similar to function calls (for reuse of pieces of a design), references to parameters within functions, things that loop, conditional branching, things that aggregate several actions into a single action, things that do arithmetic or string operations, etc. By which point they end up with the same issues as all development systems, which all derive from the tendency of users to push the envelope in looking for ever more complex problems to solve. So then they need refactoring and other nice IDE-style features to help them manage the complexity - by which time the "codeless" distinction is more to do with marketing than actual user experience.
We even see this tendency in many attempts to "start again" with a new set of primitives in a text-source programming language. Haskell does not truly eliminate procedural, stateful coding. It has a way of mimicking such capabilities that tastes pretty authentic - because if it didn't, users would try to simulate it themselves and get it wrong.
I've done some reading on their site.
It seems to me that they build software for you, which they claim you can expand effortlessly. I don't see that they claim you can use their software te build your own software without using code. Their concept in their words:
Maatwerksoftware, die nooit veroudert, die u zelf kunt onderhouden én uitbreiden en die bovendien wordt gemaakt waar u bij staat.
That is:
Software built to your requirements, that never ages, that you can maintain yourself, and that on top of that is made while you're watching.
I conclude that they build it, not you.
Just my two cents, the idea behind codeless development is not only for beginners/people who don't want to learn coding, but also can be used to teach younger children programming, and utilize it as a storytelling medium.
I am,of course,referring to Alice.
It has it's market, but I don't forsee it taking over traditional programming (eg. typing on the keyboard) due to it's clunkiness.
The appropriate stance with these sort of products is extreme scepticism. I distinctly remember this...
Which was a product, released in 1981(!) which claimed to make programmers redundant by generating commercial applications codelessly.
That said, I am currently using a codeless development environment - Wirefusion - for generating 3D interactive java applets. It's extremely good, but it's targeted at a very well defined domain and even there has some issues.
This approach looks great, worth a consideration. Even though it's still at an experimental stage: http://subtextual.org/subtext2.html
Off topic... open it trough google's translate: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&u=http://www.codeless.com/&sl=nl&tl=en
There was Borland's ObectVision in the late '80s.
You can download a copy from an abandonware site.
Something like Scratch or Lego MindStorms is what comes to mind when thinking about codeless software. But this seems like helping someone to code instead of being 100% codeless. And I think that is the way it will have to work in order not to be so limiting. Over time, like all languages/APIs it will improve and more and more people will come out with their own buckets of coding blocks to make it more versatile. No matter what happens though I would always like a way to tweak all generated code, much like a WYSIWYG HTML editor. It will be difficult at first but will only get better with time. But no matter what, coding by hand will always reign supreme.
The results of "codeless" or "graphical" systems that I've seen always end up not reducing real complexity, with the drawbacks of no collaborative effort, cant diff/patch, can't do a version compare, difficult to put in source control, etc.
In short, just not a well thought-out.
I'll bet that they don't scale well to large data sets either.
Replying to the post of geocar..(cant reply anymore to my own post)
To say what the differences are with other I4GL is hard since i dont know all the tools out there, but let me put it this way. If one compares Codeless to MS CRM 4.0 and Microsoft M, what would you think are the differences with I4GL tools?
The proof is in the pudding; I don’t understand why this Bernard deleted who we are. If Charles Simonyi the Billionaire ex-Microsoft guru who has been trying to do the same for 15 years would comment here, would he be deleted? David Roth, Chief Visionary, Simparel, Inc. David.Roth at Simparel dot com.
My boss has a good way to generate apps without his having to write code. He has an automatic programmer (me) write it for him. He uses domain-specific language, and gets a working app. Anything that does the same job would have to be about as smart (or dumb) as that.
When requirements are communicated, a language of symbols is used, whether it is keyboard clicks, mouse clicks, or any other form of input.
If a language maps well onto user concepts and allows very little room for misinterpretation or inconsistencies, then it is a good domain-specific-language.
It is good to try to find better domain-specific-languages.
It is bad to try to sell one if you don't have one.