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Expanding access to Opal, our no-code AI mini-app builder (blog.google)
nextworddev 1 hours ago [-]
This was a garbage product compared to n8n
holografix 3 hours ago [-]
What about jules.google.com ? Are these competing products?
danpalmer 1 hours ago [-]
This is a no-code app building framework, Jules is a coding agent that will write whatever you ask it to, so, no. You could use them to achieve the same result, but they are for very different purposes and target audiences.
gundmc 5 hours ago [-]
Seems like cool framework, but I'm bothered by the example image around having AI research and generate a blog post. This is exactly the sort of thing I don't want.
Onavo 4 hours ago [-]
What happened to Microsoft's low code AI builder?

https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/13/microsoft-acquires-lobe-a-...

ngruhn 4 hours ago [-]
Name one successful no-code solution. Not snark. I'm serious. Give me examples. In my experience, these no-code tools either die being too simple or live long enough to be patched into fully fledged visual programming languages. At which point the promised simplicity is gone. Idk, maybe with AI it's different.
mjr00 4 hours ago [-]
Really depends on the scope of the solution; a lot of web development has gone no-code through the use of frameworks and platforms like Wix, Unbounce, Squarespace, Shopify, Gumroad, etc. Like it's crazy to think, but 15 years ago if you were a person with a single widget you wanted to sell over the internet (even a digital widget with no shipping logistics!) it was a big hassle that involved a lot of programming and hooking up various APIs. Now you can get a full e-commerce site with analytics and payments integrated fairly easily with basically no technical knowledge.

The counter-argument is that these tools are too narrowly scoped, but I think that's exactly what made them successful; their "no-code" tools provided a solution for a common problem.

Ultimately I agree with what you're getting at. There's never been a successful no-code, or even low-code, replacement for general purpose programming, and there never will be.

ngruhn 4 hours ago [-]
Fair enough. Those website builders have their place. I'm rather thinking of something like NodeRed where you specify control flow. But with boxes and arrows instead of code. Which is also what this Google product seems to do.
shmoogy 3 hours ago [-]
Node Red, N8N, and Zapier I think are the biggest ones. I think the cool idea of AI implemented no code is, in theory, you can add a new node - tell the AI what to do, and it can build custom logic to do whatever it is that you want with the input.

Thats probably verging on too high of a complexity for end users, but if you can obfuscate the black box and have it work well enough, it can definitely be big.

LudwigNagasena 2 hours ago [-]
Visual graph languages are in some ways even superior to code because it’s really hard to express a state machine in an easily readable fashion with code.
jasonjmcghee 29 minutes ago [-]
Substance Designer / Painter, Blender Nodes, TouchDesigner, DaVinci Resolve Fusion, etc.

That whole space is full of node-based tools that people build careers on.

holografix 3 hours ago [-]
Unreal Engine’s Blueprints
blast 4 hours ago [-]
Replit
barbazoo 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
dang 4 hours ago [-]
Most of us probably agree, but can you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN? We want curious conversation here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

DataDaemon 5 hours ago [-]
living in the EU feels like living in the Stone Age
simonjgreen 4 hours ago [-]
Or like there is an expectation companies will treat your information with respect and act with integrity. It is unfortunate that that causes companies to have to think for longer about how they will act before they do.
nicce 4 hours ago [-]
OpenAI tried without real regulation and we see how that turned out.
dmitrygr 4 hours ago [-]
> It is unfortunate that that causes companies to have to think for longer

It is basic market dynamics that the harder you make it to enter a market, the more reluctant entrants will be. Whether the regulation that makes market entry more difficult is "good" or "bad" is simply irrelevant.

dmitrygr 4 hours ago [-]
Nobody in the stone age voted to live in the stone age, ignoring all warnings that their vote would produce a stone age.
sjbr 5 hours ago [-]
At least you are getting chat control.
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