I've recently started using Retool - not affiliated - and it's got me thinking about the evolution of rapid internal application development.
The success of Retool is (according to the founders) derived from a simple insight - 90% of internal tools are composed of the same building blocks (tables, lists, dropdowns etc). Making it easy to build these elements and wire them to a data source makes developers super productive.
The drag-and-drop UI layer opens the product up to a semi-technical user but I at least don't derive value from that feature. To me (and other developers?) it is an annoyance to have to work in a web interface away from my preferred toolchain (IDE, terminal etc).
Thus my proposal is for an open source React framework for creating CRUD applications with a simple UI layer. Features would include;
- React components for displaying + interacting with data (Tables, Text Inputs, Charts etc).
- A state-management system (essentially a port of Redux) which automatically ties the state of every UI component (text input values, selected table rows etc) above to part of the state-tree.
- An API for querying data from data sources (DBs, SaaS applications). Queries are called inline in frontend code but executed by the same server process that serves the page.
- End-user authentication handled by the framework.
Wondering what the HN community make of this proposal. Is it worth thinking about further? Thoughts positive or negative really appreciated!
I have however a similar need for a Retool alternative minus the UI (configured via files).