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Why isn't there a code generator for web application development yet?

7 points by edward1 ↗ HN
It seems to me at least for the front end, it could be done. This seems like it would be revolutionary for large companies that could significantly decrease their engineering teams. Why hasn't this happened yet?

12 comments

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verdverm
What would you want this generator to look like? What's the input / output / limits?

Note, they do exist in some form depending on what you want.

edward1
Input design file like sketch, with annotations or an interactive url like framer, then export production ready (for the most part) the html, css, and javascript. What is the closest you know of?
verdverm
I have something that is still private, based on my own take (https://github.com/hofstadter-io/hof (hof gen))

I think there are some plugins for sketch / figma that will output React?

The hard part for design tool to prod code is understanding the data model and knowing how to call an API. I think you want to go a different way, from data model to all the other things, then touch up / add custom code.

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rman666
I just saw this yesterday but it’s pretty confusing... codejoh.com ... but in general I’d think people either want to code themselves or use low-code or no-code solutions.
edward1
I just looked at it, couldn't exactly figure it out. It seems like if the code quality was good, large engineering organizations would use a code generator to decrease headcount.
tomaszs
As a web frontend developer I can say I see little need for such generators. Because the idea is to do DRY. That is, code should not be repeated. Generators copy code contradicting the principle and making code a mess.

On the other hand there might be some scenarios where such generators would be nice to have

dragonwriter
> Why isn't there a code generator for web application development yet?

There are many code generators for web application development.

> This seems like it would be revolutionary for large companies that could significantly decrease their engineering teams.

Insofar as it works to increase the value of each hour of engineering time, this should increase the quantity of engineering time it make sense to purchase with any given targeted return, presuming there isn't some other constraint limiting useful engineering work.

codingdave
I'd suggest that they do exist. There are plenty of no/low-code tools out there, and more growing all the time.

Also, engineering teams at large corps are typically not just sitting around vomiting out front-end code. Sure, that work does take some time... but the bulk of the job is making sure we're building the right tools for the business, that they keep running and providing value, and get updates as the business evolves. The number of hours spent to build an initial UI is not actually the bulk of the effort over the lifetime of an app.

makeee
This is what my product does: https://divjoy.com

Gives you a full stack React app with UI, auth, db, payments, etc. Can be customized in the tool prior to export.

Would love to hear if this is what you’re looking for or if you had something different in mind.

futurehero
The Legend of 1900. "The world's a piano with millions of keys. I can't play music on that." There are so many alternative choices one can make when creating a web application, that creating a code generator then must ask themselves, do I give my potential users the burden of choice? Or do I make decisions and hide them from them? Do I build my own implementations of these choices so I'm not sending business out the the door? I'm looking for one as well. I'm also looking to build one. Everything is up in the air at the moment, but let me know if you would like to talk about this some more.