Direct to SwiftUI
Direct to SwiftUI is an adaption of an old WebObjects technology called Direct to Web. This time for Apple’s new framework: SwiftUI. Instant CRUD apps, configurable using a declarative rule system, yet fully integrated with SwiftUI.
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Without applying any rules, you’ll essentially get a simple database browser and editor, for all SwiftUI targets. When using Direct to SwiftUI, this is what you start with, a complete CRUD frontend. You then use rules to tweak the frontend, and potentially replace whole generic D2S Views. Or mix & match.
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D2S uses a rule engine called SwiftUI Rules which we introduced in another blog entry. You might want to read that now, or later.
Definitely cool. Should remember, however, that Direct2Web applications were not just quick/instantaneous to build, but also utterly incomprehensible and impossible to maintain.
Previously:
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All I can think about every time I read something about WebObjects is how NeXT went from selling licenses for $50K a pop to big time businesses (Wikipedia lists BBC News, Dell Computer, Disney, DreamWorks SKG, Fannie Mae, GE Capital, Merrill Lynch, and Motorola as one time customers), to slashing the licensing costs to $699, only to lose interest in the product as revenue dropped, excepting as a way to run a busted online store (remember how often the store to purchase Macs, iPods, and accessories used to go down?) and the iTunes store.
Seems like there is a parallel for how other Apple products have suffered as their costs went down. OS releases for instance, but other software too. Shake was a big ticket item, almost $10K at one point and Apple kept slashing prices until it was just a few hundred, then they discontinued development.
Does Apple need more money? Probably not, but it is an interesting trend.
All I can think about every time I read something about WebObjects is how NeXT went from selling licenses for $50K a pop to big time businesses (Wikipedia lists BBC News, Dell Computer, Disney, DreamWorks SKG, Fannie Mae, GE Capital, Merrill Lynch, and Motorola as one time customers), to slashing the licensing costs to $699, only to lose interest in the product as revenue dropped, excepting as a way to run a busted online store (remember how often the store to purchase Macs, iPods, and accessories used to go down?) and the iTunes store.
Seems like there is a parallel for how other Apple products have suffered as their costs went down. OS releases for instance, but other software too. Shake was a big ticket item, almost $10K at one point and Apple kept slashing prices until it was just a few hundred, then they discontinued development.
Keep in mind WebObjects was a pioneer. By the time they slashed the price, there was plenty of competition. Today, there’s even more. And you generally don’t pay for it. ASP.NET, Ruby on Rails, whathaveyou.
There’s a what-if question, of course, of what would have happened if Apple had invested in WebObjects the way NeXT used to. But if you look at companies like Borland and Symantec’s exit from developer tools, you can see that there aren’t that many cases of making money with developer tools any more. Even Microsoft, who still sell four-figure annual subscriptions for Visual Studio and related tools, are increasingly moving to free tooling.
Paid tools exist, but not to the same extent they did in the 90s.
That said, I do wish they had never made iWork free. It’s hard to know the causality, but it does feel their heart was more in it when you had to buy those apps.
@Sören
Yeah, true, WebObjects was up against a lot of free as in beer (sometimes even free as in libre) tools.
iWork is a fine example. If Apple is going to come into a market, suck much of the oxygen out of the room, and then let the products wither, I would prefer they just stay out of the market.
