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?
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.
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.
Actually I hope Apple take an enlightened approach to this, and see it as a valid migration/coexistence/hybrid strategy, rather than get heavy. Its the ultimate complement to them.
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)
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 :)
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.
Well, considering they could probably charge $100-200 for such an IDE, and that there are now a very large (100K and growing) set of Cocoa developers (thanks to the iPhone, mostly) who can be immediately productive in such an environment, delivering apps on Web, Mac, and Windows, ...
'How many desktop-rich web applications have "made it."'
maybe that depends on your definition of 'made it'. Personally I think any self-sustaining business is a sign of success - and using this definition there are many thousands of successful software developers out there making a comfortable living building rich web apps that you'll never hear of simply because they don't fit into the social media zeitgeist
"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?
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.
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 :)
Sort of. Cappuccino and Atlas run in normal web browsers, no browser plugins, using JavaScript to build up and manipulate the DOM. But there is almost no HTML (or CSS) involved, and Atlas does not generate much code at all.
The interface files that Atlas creates are essentially freeze-dried archives of the interface objects. IMHO this is a better solution than code generators.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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/
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.
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.
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! ;)
I believe the $20 fee is only for access to the beta program. My understanding is that you will have to buy Atlas when the final version comes out, and they haven't disclosed the price of it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah but the guy in the video explicitly made the comparison between VHS and DVD, and it's an incredibly poor metaphor because it's not true.
I get Gmail having more utility than say Outlook for certain things. But I can access my exchange server (I use google apps for business, but used to use exchange) in all the same places I could access Gmail which renders the point slightly moot.
I have no issue with people disagreeing, but at least argue the disagreement if you feel strongly enough to vote me down.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am one of those people, so no need to refer to me in the third person :)
Standards bodies are hopelessly slow. If I wanted to wait a decade to get a new feature, I'd propose it to a standards body. I actually want to write programs.
Part of the power of Objective-J is taking control of the language away from standards bodies. Objective-J can evolve at any pace we like, and anyone can fork it and make their own changes.
JavaScript does have a long history, but it's an awful one. It's a history of being a second class language that was slow and that was not used to produce anything significant. Only recently has that changed. And there is now a growing culture of implementing languages on top of JavaScript. Python, Ruby, Smalltak, and others have all been written on top of JS. GWT compiles from Java to JS. There are similar compilers for Lisp, PHP, C# and others. It seems narrow minded to assume that only the flavor of JS that has existed for over a decade should be allowed to exist. That's why we build abstractions.
We are not rewriting history nor are we moving far away from what JavaScript is. Most of the code you write is pure JavaScript anyway. You can do as much in pure JS as you like. We are making the programming environment easier to use, should you choose to take advantage of that.
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.
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 :)
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?