Ask HN: Why did Visual Basic die?

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • SurveyJS - Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App
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  • WorkOS - The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS
  • htmx

    </> htmx - high power tools for HTML

  • A bit of an unrelated topic, but if you liked HyperCard you might be interested in https://hyperscript.org/ and their related project https://htmx.org/

  • yazz

    Self Service Apps Without the IT Department

  • I am actually trying to make an open source successor, but using Javascript instead of Basic, at https://github.com/yazz/yazz and a demo at yazz.com

  • SurveyJS

    Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App. With SurveyJS form UI libraries, you can build and style forms in a fully-integrated drag & drop form builder, render them in your JS app, and store form submission data in any backend, inc. PHP, ASP.NET Core, and Node.js.

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  • TablaM

    The practical relational programing language for data-oriented applications

  • > what is a good alternative to Access (or Fox, I add)

    Nothing.

    Access is(was) in fact a worse alternative to Fox:

    - Much worse DB engine, and that is saying a lot (FoxPro db can and get corrupted. A typical functionality that was added to any fox codebase was a utility to fix it)

    - MUCH MUCH worse programming language (VB) that is neither good as-is, much less as a data-programing language.

    Fox/dbase is the only data-oriented language that was relatively popular and fit for the use-case.

    This is by a mile the main point: Is a desert looking for languages that are made for business app/data oriented programing (and much harder looking for something not weird).

    The main options: Fox/dBase/Informix(? not remember), kdb+, Cobol, SQL(when extended as store procedure lang with loops and that)

    --

    This point is big. Having a good form builder (that is already rare) is not enough to be a real contender for this space. You need a language where making queries is truly nice.

    In short, you need a language that is `LINQ/Relational` as first-class end-to-end.

    - If this lang needs an ORM: FAIL.

    - If this lang needs to compose strings to make a query: FAIL.

    - If exist "impedance mismatch" between data manipulation/queries and the rest of the lang: FAIL.

    - It should also support super-advanced types like date, decimal, currency and ideally dimensional units. Ideally algebraic types as today.

    - It should have a version of Rust `serve, Into/From` for easy conversion between data + formats.

    - It should look "normal" like python/swift with `LINQ` queries.

    This is the lang I trying to build: https://tablam.org

  • appsmith

    Platform to build admin panels, internal tools, and dashboards. Integrates with 25+ databases and any API.

  • nocodb

    🔥 🔥 🔥 Open Source Airtable Alternative

  • supabase

    The open source Firebase alternative.

  • [5] https://supabase.com/

  • twinbasic

  • Also:

    c) https://github.com/twinbasic/twinbasic

    Once it gets out of beta.

  • InfluxDB

    Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

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NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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