Introducing Atlas: A Visual Development Tool for Creating Web Apps

http://carsonified.com/blog/web-apps/introducing-atlas-a-visual-development-tool-for-creating-web-apps/

by sant0sk1 • 17 years ago

115 63 17 years ago

mrduncan2• 17 years ago

280North might be my favorite YC company. Here is another intro video on Atlas - http://280atlas.com/.

I unfortunately don't have a chance to watch the video right now but I'm going to go ahead and say congrats to the 280North guys anyway because their stuff always amazes.

mrduncan2• 17 years ago

Looks like they've updated the Atlas website since I posted that last link - the video is here now: http://280atlas.com/what.php

rogerthat• 17 years ago

I don't have a chance to watch the video right now but I'm curious to know when Atlas is launching, if anyone knows the date.

Also, I see from the comments on carsonified that they're going to charge $20 for the IDE. If anyone watches the video, I'd be interested to have that verified.

santry• 17 years ago

Launches on Nov. 15 for $20 (according to the video).

nirmal• 17 years ago

They are launching a beta on Nov. 15th which will be $20.

patio11• 17 years ago

they're going to charge $20 for the IDE

Do not ask people who do not pay money for software how much money to charge for software.

e1ven2• 17 years ago

It's interesting placement to be sure- I would expect they are competing against other rapid development tools, so would price it in the several-hundred dollar range. (WebObjects, Adobe CS, etc).

If they're trying to undercut their competitors, I think it may be an error.. Charging $20, rather than $400 will make people think it's cut-rate, and not up to the challenge. No one who's making a professional/moneymaking website will be stopped by a $400 charge.

This makes me suspect that perhaps they're after the Wix/weebly market. Drag and Drop a website, rather than a professional-level tool. These tools are consumer facing, and don't generally resemble the Atlas versions I've seen much.

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about Atlas, and look forward to buying a copy, but I'd rather do so knowing that that company is making enough to hire competetant engineers to keep expanding it! ;)

boucher10• 17 years ago

We have not released a price tag or date for Atlas 1.0. We have announced a developer beta program, which will give interested parties early access, for a nominal fee of $20.

falsestprophet• 17 years ago

You should consider a Dutch auction for a fixed number of slots. That may be interesting enough to attract more media attention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction

jpcx01• 17 years ago

Are all the FOWA 2009 London talks online yet, or just this one?

boucher10• 17 years ago

They'll be posted here as they come online: http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2009/london/content

auston2• 17 years ago

I've seen similar technology before, from a company called Tibco, about 4 years ago. I believe it was called GI Builder.

Edit: Not as impressive, but I believe it's the same concept - http://media.tibco.com/gi/2_create_gui.swf

boucher10• 17 years ago

Certainly the idea is not new. But we do believe this specific implementation (which has a lot to do with the design of the underlying framework) is miles ahead of other offerings.

auston2• 17 years ago

Yeah definitely, you guys are head & shoulders above the competition - but you are not available, where can I get it / work with it? In Feb it will have been a year since you've announced demo'd it.

edit: I see you guys just changed the 280atlas site.

whyleyc• 17 years ago

I was at the talk - the demo was excellent.

I spoke to Francisco afterwards and he said that the resulting code would be able to run across both Mac & Win32 platforms, which I thought was nice.

silkodyssey• 17 years ago

I was wondering whether it supported just the mac platform so thanks for the answer!

aidanf2• 17 years ago

I assumed from watching the video that the code it generates is objective-j or cappuccino code, and that it would run in the browser. Is this correct?

aidanf2• 17 years ago

From the questions part of the video it appears that all the code that it generates is javascript and html.

boucher10• 17 years ago

The idea is that you'll be able to target the browser, and native desktop platforms. It will all be javascript based.

Readmore• 17 years ago

These guys are awesome! I'll definitely check out the 'pay-in' beta ;)

boucher10• 17 years ago

The beta program is partly about getting early feedback, it's partly about keeping our future customers happy while we finish the product, and it's partly an experiment in how open we can be and how much people will want to be part of the process.

alttab4• 17 years ago

I myself was absolutely amazed at this demo. It makes me feel like I'm not innovating at all!

At the same time, this isn't exactly new. GWT did something similar with Java (although it wasn't necessarily as polished) and as others have stated there are similar things.

I guess the question is - do people really use this, how often, and do THEY make money?

jonmc12• 17 years ago

They extended apple's dev environment and then built an online iWork suite. They are likely going the 37 signals route until Apple offers them a check they can not refuse.

alttab4• 17 years ago

That's a great point. And this is something I've been thinking about recently.

It is as if some start-up business models are merely based on creating technology that either another company will want to buy outright because it runs parallel to their goals and portfolio - or because larger competition doesn't want to have to pay dearly for not buying them out while they could.

Acquisitions don't result in lasting innovation in my eyes - it increases proprietary code bases. Early exits are like leaving a cash poker game after your first big hand, the fun was just beginning.

I hope to see more and more "start-ups" use less and less VC funding (we do realize that it is the VCs who have the winning scenario here, RIGHT?), say "F U" to acquisitions, and stay around long enough to make a sustainable difference.

eli_s3• 17 years ago

I imagine there's plenty of money to be made by developers who are creating more traditional business apps which run on an intranet - it's what i do :)

alttab4• 17 years ago

And you make a good point. Some will bite.

My pondering was merely a function of - is it enough to build a business?

For instance, if Google wanted to become your one-stop-shop for online desktop-grade web applications (aren't they kind of already? GWT?), developing a tool like this in house would be a fantastic idea as it would increase the productivity of the developers.

But that's Google. The exception not the rule.

How many desktop-rich web applications have "made it." Facebook, Google Applications, the newly exiting Mint come to mind. How many of you hackers here have created incredible technology with 3 hits a month and no paying customers?

I guess the point I'm trying to press here is how many tech companies can exist to feed the need of other tech companies (which presumably make money from other sources)?

Start ups like 37 Signals were smart as hell because they saw the demand for simple services (communication, version control, project management) from a large pool of willing customers ready to cut their costs (other tech start ups).

But where do THOSE start ups get their money? VCs? Acquisitions? (That money only counts if the founders reinvest it in the industry) This begs the question - are the large successes like Facebook/Google/Twitter/Mint/etc feeding a working-class of willing tech "entrepreneurs" for money that simply doesn't exist?

I encourage debate as this seems like a gaping hole in some Valley-Hacker mentalities.

ynniv• 17 years ago

Well executed? Absolutely. Innovative? Well... not exactly.

Seek to 23:10 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A

(Man, look at that hair!)

I don't mean to downplay 280north's work - I'm very impressed with what they're doing. It just bothers me when people see a derivative work and think it to be original. (Ahem, Chris Hughes)

mahmud• 17 years ago

That video is an indictment of Win32 more than anything else. WOW!

ique• 17 years ago

I really wonder how game-changing this will be. Of course most sites on the web aren't meant to be application but rather information presentation.

But it does seem like a huge step toward liberating developers from writing front-end code. The biggest possible downside I see to it that it could also liberate us from writing truly beautiful apps and we'll have a million apps that look like the standard interface.

It would be awesome to see some demos of apps not looking like 280 Slides.

boucher10• 17 years ago

I agree that most web sites are not applications, and this tool is not for them.

Atlas is going to make it pretty easy to customize the standard controls, so I wouldn't be all that concerned about cookie cutter interfaces.

It's also worth pointing out that most people don't have the ability or resources to create beautiful interfaces. Those people will get something that looks good by default.

axod• 17 years ago

Watching the RSS reader example, seems like a single button "Expand to container size, and set anchored all round and grow shrink horizontal/vertical" would be useful :)

83457• 17 years ago

"With Atlas what we are going to give you by default is a server that runs Cappuccino. So we have javascript running in the server. We have the same stack end to end. So you know you write your front-end code in javascript. You write your back-end code in javascript. Everything just works."

I've always viewed Cappuccino and Atlas as front-end only tools so this part of the presentation (Q&A) was surprising. Does anyone know where I can find more information about the server side of things?

boucher10• 17 years ago

http://narwhaljs.org

madebylaw• 17 years ago

One of the big barriers for me to consider the web replacing the desktop is device support for the browser. Does anyone know of a way for web applications to talk to devices like digital cameras, video game paraphernalia, music instruments? Will atlas solve this problem?

ams6110• 17 years ago

No, it's still javascript running in a browser.

tlrobinson2• 17 years ago

Atlas/Cappuccino doesn't solve this problem, because it's constrained by what the browser provides us. However it's possible to integrate custom plugins to do these sort of things, if absolutely necessary.

Picurio (YC W09) has a browser plugin to allow uploading of photos directly from your digital camera. The GUI frontend is built with Cappuccino and integrates with this plugin. http://picurio.com/

yu• 17 years ago

HTML JavaScript, front/ back-end, desktop/ web app... well defined technology for commercial applications.

Internet / web application platform is not likely to go away.

Lightly developed on NeXT Obj-C, spring controls ~20 years ago. Glad seeing good NS ideas being adapted and extended.

voidfiles3• 17 years ago

I too was impressed by the video, and the demo. The team seems like they are building some great tools.

But that is where my fascination with 280 ends, they are taking a great language, Javascript, and turning it into something its not. Take a look at Objective-J its not javascript. It doesn't really even look like javascript.

As a JS developer, I am not certain I will be willing to give up JS, just so I can use these visual programming tools.

I am going to spend the 20 bucks though, I really want to see how much of the Objective-J I can strip out just use JS.

natemartin2• 17 years ago

Objective-J looks as much like Javascript as Objective-C looks like C.

To an objective-C programmer, it looks like home :)

And in both cases, you can drop down to the native language whenever you want. In objective-C you can write straight C code, and in Objective-J you can write straight javascript if you want.

boucher10• 17 years ago

Stop thinking about it as "turning JavaScript into something" and start thinking about it as adding new features to the language that were previously missing.

Code importing is clearly a feature we can all get behind. Classes are clearly something that almost every JavaScript library uses. We make those things language features instead of library features.

The unique feature we add, and the reason we really have to introduce a custom syntax at all, is dynamic message passing. Message passing enables all kinds of cool new features, because method implementations aren't bound until the message is received.

If you really wanted you could do this yourself:

     objj_msgSend(anObject, "message:", aParam);

But clearly this is much cleaner:

     [anObject message:aParam];

Objective-J is not compiled really, it's translated. All of it's features are part of the Objective-J runtime, which is written purely in JavaScript. So you can use it without using the syntax if you like. It's simply a lot more work to do so.

voidfiles3• 17 years ago

I think its great that these guys are trying something. They have an argument, and instead of theorizing they are going for it. I just think that its to far away from what JS is, JS has a long history behind it, and these 3 guys are trying to change that entire history with one broad stroke, I think that is nearly impossible to achieve.

Besides if they feel they have something JS developers want why not take it through the standards bodies.

gsmaverick• 17 years ago

Will 280Atlas also be available as a web application?

jlees• 17 years ago

I was at the FOWA talk and I believe, though I may misremember, that it was originally intended as one; how delightfully recursive. However, customers didn't want the insecurity of hosting their design and code online, so Atlas became Atlas.app.

cpr3• 17 years ago

Right, 280Atlas.com became 280Atlas.app.

From what Francisco said, it sounds like they may still plan a web-based version.

eli_s3• 17 years ago

This looks pretty amazing - but I wonder how 'staged' the demo is.

Often the problem with these types of high level abstractions is that there is so much magic going on behind the scenes that customising how things work becomes difficult and you end up getting locked into the 'Atlas' way of doing things.

I can't wait to get a chance to start playing with this though :)

cpr3• 17 years ago

The only thing staged about the demo is the richness of the widgets they already have available.

Other than that, it's just like Objective-C + Interface Builder (or better; more dynamic, more portable, no compile/link/go slowdown).

So you can expect generally the same amount of work to build stuff as you would expend building with Cocoa on the Mac/iPhone.

elblanco• 17 years ago

Cool, we are in the design stages for a web app right now and this generated significant discussion this week.

yawniek• 17 years ago

amazing demo.

and its great to see that people are working on removing the hurdles that it takes to create web/html application.

but i wonder how this whole web app stuff breaks up once we move away from WIMP to more task oriented applications with NUIs.

gord2• 17 years ago

What just happened?

beautiful, beautiful piece of art and engineering.

Id seen some of the RaphaelJS demos, so I knew this was coming.. but honestly was expecting this stuff to become a product in about 2 to 3 years time... and this guys integrated the whole shebang.

I just want to see the same thing happen with data - people will realize that most data is a graph and not a table, when and only when we can demo something that's fluid, has the same qualities of immediacy and usability and solves a real problem [for which the spreadsheet is the current workaround]...

Each component of this might have been done before, but the combination is a new new thing we all knew was just around the corner.

jawngee3• 17 years ago

It might be amazing, but I had to turn it off when he said the web was better than the desktop, which is patently not true. The desktop still gives a vastly superior user experience, while the web is still trying to ape it.

jawngee3• 17 years ago

I'm not certain why I'm being knocked down other than calling out a Y-Combinator guy for being wrong.

He equates desktops to VHS and the web as DVD, the only problem is there is a clear superiority of DVD over VHS (greater resolution, more features, compact form factor) where there is no clear superiority of the web over desktop in terms of usability and features.

If someone can name me one app that is better than the desktop equivalent, please do so.

Flickr is no where near as useful for image cataloging and management than many desktop equivalents. It wins in sharing for sure, but not actual functionality.

Outlook (and I'm sure the xobni guys would agree) trumps it's online version by a mile. Gmail still lags here as well.

Video editing ... Jumpcut? Yeah right.

Audio editing ... show me one that supports high end audio effects or plug-ins.

Image editing ... Aviary < Photoshop. Aviary < most freeware image editing tools.

Google docs - ever press the tab key when editing a doc? Dragged and dropped an image into the document?

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

If you are going to bring a metaphor and present it as the truth, there had better be some truth to it.

Atlas is cool, but derivative of all that came before it: Delphi, Interface Builder, Visual Studio, Dreamweaver, Visual Basic, RealBasic, etc. Sure it runs in the browser, sure you can target the desktop. I dunno, color me unimpressed.

But, listen, if you're going to downvote me at least come correct.

voidfiles3• 17 years ago

I think you are getting knocked down because you don't want to recognize that some people may disagree with you.

You said that outlook is better then gmail. While you might be able to make an argument when you compare it side by side one one machine. You would be mistaken in making that comparison. Gmail kicks ass for me not just because I feel it can replace outlook, but I can have my gmail, on my iphone, I can access it from any computer that has a web browser, I can access it from the linux command line using lynx, or links. Can outlook do that.

You need to realize that when they say desktop apps aren't as good as web apps, I think what they are saying is that desktop apps aren't mayby the best way for most people to use apps.

Introducing Atlas: A Visual Development Tool for Creating Web Apps

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