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Write Windows Phone Apps, No Code Required
jfruh writes "One of the biggest challenges Microsoft has faced with its Windows Phone platform is that it's far behind in the apps race against iOS and Android. One way to close the gap is to lower the barrier to entry for new app devs, and Microsoft has done so with Windows Phone App Studio, a hosted service that lets you build applications without actually writing any code. The description of how App Studio works may leave you wondering how useful or exciting the apps created will be, but a surge of developer interest during the current beta program has surprised even Microsoft with its scope."
Writing "apps" like this is like making websites in MS Word
check the top free apps - none could be made without code
it looks like MS wants quantity instead of quality - no wonder the only informative thing TFA has is the number of users and projects.
You can make a pretty usable website using only WYSIWYG editors, so why not an app? The two really aren't that different considering they're both aimed at the casual/amateur market.
Haven't used the App Studio - remember that Myst was written in HyperCard and there's plenty of other examples in that vein.
While in an entirely different class, LabVIEW is a graphical programming language which is quite powerful (true language / direct compiler). Simple/easy to code/read doesn't mean lousy or weak software. Besides, quality is usually pretty unrelated to code (other than some cases of performance).
No, these things last forever. It's going to be a cottage industry that never dies, like FrontPage websites and Access databases.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
it's just adding a layer between the dev and the actual code.
The problem is that nobody knows what that "actual code" is supposed to be. Do you mean the computational process? Because there will always be a layer between the programmer and the computational process, even if you program in machine code. Every time someone finds a new abstraction to programming, people will come out and start shouting "that's not programming, that's cheating!", but there is no free lunch. That reminds me of the wonderful “Now that we have Cobol, can we get rid of all those beatnik programmers?” quote, courtesy of US military, 1960s or so. No, you can't, it's still programming, even if you manage to do more work in less time, it's still qualitatively very much the same activity.
Ezekiel 23:20
Why was it a "horrible" experience? Did filemaker pro somehow fill your crankcase with 90 weight grease and wreck your engine? Did the DOS program spray poop-scented air freshener beneath your seat?
Or did you just see someone using an old DOS program that's doing exactly what the business owner needs without costing him a ton of money? Doesn't sound too horrible to me.
John