Is there a place these days for interfaces like this? I’m thinking about self contained applications like HyperCard stacks, but also FileMaker databases or even Access databases where we had interfaces linked to a database all as a self contained application. These tools with scripting languages powered a ton of small business applications. I know a lab I worked with was still using FileMaker databases up until a few years ago. These were user developed applications, done by people who may have been a bit technical, but who didn’t to know a full programming language.
If you’re a small shop and have a need for a little database, what do you use? Is there a default now? Notion?
I've seen people (non IT) do similar things (i.e. develop small applications) with Excel.
I created my bibliographic database with HyperCard. And I still miss it. HyperCard's attractiveness was the easy UI creation. FileMaker wasn't bad, but a bit more limited UI wise. And sqlite, while a phantastic DB misses the easy UI.
SaaS seems to have largely replaced them. And, needless to say, now LLM.
Why past tense, Filemaker and Access are still being sold.
A solution would probably be Airtable.
It’s more that I haven’t really seen many examples of Access or FileMaker applications in the wild for a while. Most of these were CRUD apps that were able to be moved to the web. But that doesn’t mean that typical users are any more capable of navigating hosting setups for modern CRUD web apps.
The FileMaker example I saw was really for a legacy shop that was primarily used for existing applications. Nothing new was being added.
But I’m sure there are more examples in the wild than I would have seen. I was curious what the larger HN community has seen or has experience with.
I mean, for me, I’d probably put something in a SQLite database and build a simple web GUI on top of it. But I know that’s an option. What does a typical office worker do these days? Put everything in Excel? (That’s probably the answer)
Well thats the crux. While the display may seem simple (a grid, a few controls), a Web UI CRUD app, while routine today, is NOT simple.
While it's been 20+ years since I dealt with either, you can create table, get a navigable (and perhaps other features), and a CRUD detail screen in just a few minutes of drag and drop.
And it's right there, on your machine, no cognitive load about, well, anything, and ready to go. Another 10 minutes and you have a printable report spewing out on your laser printer.
It's quite a first step to go beyond the wizard based stuff into BASIC and such, but the fundamentals are there. And the fundamentals are useful out of the box.
You can set up a usable Access DB and MS Word Mail Merge in probably 1/2 hour of reading some tutorials.
Finally, out of the box, the screens look "ok". Your collection of fields conveniently fill the window nicely. You don't have a 21" x 12" white, barren canvas with Name, Address, C/S/Z and two buttons crammed up in the upper left corner. "Gee why is the font so small?" So now you don't have to fall down the rabbit hole to try and make your simple form even baseline "presentable".
It is curious that MS (afaik) does not have a way to drag and drop an Access application and have it "deploy" to the web, and (afaik), Access isn't part of Office 365 either.
SQLite seems to me like it fits the bill.
SQLite doesn’t have a built-in user interface. The value of something like FileMaker isn’t the underlying storage mechanism, it’s the WYSIWYG user interface building that lets you quickly build custom apps around it
an llm coding agent?