[HN Gopher] Scrappy - Make little apps for you and your friends
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Scrappy - Make little apps for you and your friends
Author : 8organicbits
Score : 405 points
Date : 2025-06-18 05:16 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pontus.granstrom.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (pontus.granstrom.me)
| croniev wrote:
| I like the idea! Now you're just left with the dilemma of what
| happens when you reach many people with it - will Scrappy be made
| for thousands of users, polished and flashy?
| richarlidad wrote:
| I love this.
| riffraff wrote:
| I am 100% behind the idea of "scriptable components" vs block-
| based programming for beginners.
|
| I'm on mobile now but I'll try this on desktop ASAP.
|
| But I think one thing missing on the analysis is: people want
| ease of share and zero cost.
|
| It's surprisingly simple to build a minimal app in some
| environments but then you get to distribution (app store are a
| huge gatekeeper) and/or hosting and e.g. my wife or kids won't be
| bothered to pay 5$/momth for it (and neither will many
| professional devs).
| DougN7 wrote:
| You could self host with your OS's web server and a dynamic DNS
| service pointing to your home computer.
| franga2000 wrote:
| Except the OS has no web server, so you have to find and
| install one, make sure it auto starts, set up port forwarding
| (which you might not be able to if you're behind CGNAT or
| your ISP just doesn't let you)... Then you need to explain to
| your partner that your computer is running 24/7 to host your
| shared shopping list or whatever, which will definitely cost
| more in electricity than a 5$/mo VPS, which was already
| presumed to be unacceptable
| vincnetas wrote:
| "... my wife or kids " you already lost them at "... self
| host"
| abcd_f wrote:
| GP was suggesting that you would self-host for your wife
| and kids, not that they would self-host themselves.
| stevoski wrote:
| Sadly, free hosting or distribution for fun ideas like this one
| leads to bad actors abusing the service.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I would if Apple didn't put such tight restrictions against hobby
| app creation
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| I often create small apps like these for my friends, but 100%
| of them are written in PHP and plain HTML with some JavaScript.
| They need to be built quickly, deployed quickly, updated
| quickly, run on every device, and be runnable by sending a link
| on WhatsApp.
|
| So it doesn't matter what Apple does because I'm never going to
| put something like that into any App Store.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Well the reason why you are having to use a web browser
| rather than sharing the app written using native APIs is
| because Apple forces you to use the App Store, so you yes did
| matter what Apple does. They prevent you from using the
| native toolkit and your use of the browser is partly a
| workaround for that
|
| EDIT also Apple are in full control of what functionality
| they expose in their web APIs so even then it matters hugely
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| _> Well the reason why you are having to use a web browser_
|
| I don't have to use a web browser; I want to use a web
| browser. I'm not in the US, so almost nobody I know uses an
| iPhone, and I could easily send them APKs, but why go
| through the trouble?
| bowsamic wrote:
| I mean that's fine but then you can't use a huge number
| of system APIs so it is actually a problem if you want to
| write software that uses your phones features. It is not
| okay just because iPhones or androids have a web browser.
| It's insane to me that you're even trying to argue that
| it's not a problem that Apple do not let you write native
| software for iOS for free
|
| Also iPhone is not just a US thing. I'm in Germany and
| iPhone is very popular here too
| jimbob45 wrote:
| iPhone Shortcuts can get you surprisingly far. I agree that
| building hobbyist apps has too high of an entry barrier in the
| Apple ecosystem but Shortcuts handles CRUD stuff with ease.
| WillAdams wrote:
| I had great hopes for Applescript Studio, and was very hopeful
| it would grow into a widely-used HyperCard alternative.
|
| https://macosxautomation.com/applescript/develop/index.html
|
| seems to show the current state, which is a heavy lift for most
| people.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Yeah a YouTube video on HyperCard made me realise that Apple
| just doesn't care anymore and honestly neither do people, but
| I honestly think it is brainwashing. If you let people make
| their own apps then how do you serve them ads and take the
| 30% revenue cut?
| WillAdams wrote:
| That's an excellent point, that enabling app development by
| users reduces the monetization potential --- but maybe it's
| something which would work for opensource?
|
| I'd be very glad to see a platform for the Raspberry Pi
| (and similar devices) which would simultaneously be simple
| and easy for folks to access and use _and_ create the kind
| of sophisticated user interfaces folks are now accustomed
| to/expect to use for even basic tasks.
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| CardStock[0] isn't mentioned in this article, but seems broadly
| similar in goals and approach to Scrappy. Unlike Scrappy (so far
| as I can tell) CardStock is open-source and can be run
| locally.[1]
|
| Decker[2] (which is also open-source) has answers to several of
| the things outlined on Scrappy's roadmap, including facilities
| for representing and manipulating tabular data with its query
| language and grid widgets and the ability for users to abstract
| collections of parts into reusable "Contraptions".
|
| [0] https://cardstock.run
|
| [1] https://github.com/benjie-git/CardStock
|
| [2] http://beyondloom.com/decker/index.html
| WillAdams wrote:
| I've been looking for such a tool for a while now:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44216943
|
| and my thanks to you for mentioning it --- that it has a
| desktop app is _huge_.
| selcuka wrote:
| I think "vibe coding" will not replace developers in the short
| term, but it will be the strongest competition for such simple
| systems. I asked a few LLMs to make apps like these (plain HTML
| with embedded JS), and they got it right after a few edits. They
| are also visually more appealing [1].
|
| [1]
| https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/bb451732-9559-401a-8000-b...
| melagonster wrote:
| You are right. They are the natural opponents of vibe coding.
| vibe coding is from a funny X post; this is the OG purpose.
| yreg wrote:
| I am vibe coding a hobby project to find out what's the state
| of things.
|
| I've found that every few hours I get stuck on an issue that
| the LLM can't solve and a user with no programming experience
| would have little hope to crack it either.
|
| I suppose this issue might depend on technology and scope of
| the project.
| physicsguy wrote:
| It's got a bug, if you enter a non-integer like 3 + 2 = 5.1
| then it marks that as correct
| aitchnyu wrote:
| Whats your simple system stack, preferably self hostable? I may
| choose Vue, need auth, a multiplayer offline DB, static
| hosting, file hosting and preferably filter rows by users (dont
| allow me to see others data if I fiddle with the api).
| heyyfurqan wrote:
| love the Comic Sans in here
| _joel wrote:
| except it's broken
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Vibe coding seems to be synonymous with "sort of works, bunch
| of bugs"
| trinix912 wrote:
| If you can get over the critical errors. That's the
| showstopper for most non-programmers. Perhaps not as much
| for the so-called "power users" who can hack together some
| Excel VBA, but even then there's a lot of setup to get
| simple projects rolling. Down to the little things like
| knowing that a .js file is a JavaScript file (and what that
| means). It's obvious to us, but definitely not to the
| average person, unless they're willing to invest
| significant time into it - which most aren't.
| djmips wrote:
| I would change the ? to a blank or underscore
| jayd16 wrote:
| I guess this fits into the Google Forms, SharePoint space?
| atemerev wrote:
| So, just like Delphi?
|
| (I wonder if somebody ported Delphi / Lazarus to WASM)
| elric wrote:
| I was going to call this "a less-feature rich Delphi without
| Borland's corporate greed", but then I noticed that Delphi is
| apparently still alive (somehow?). Delphi was one of my
| earliest programming experiences in the 90s. Blast from the
| past.
| atemerev wrote:
| Yes, it is still alive, it still works great, and if you want
| something open source, there's Lazarus which is nearly as
| good.
| ochrist wrote:
| Seems like it: https://wiki.freepascal.org/WebAssembly/Compiler
| carabiner wrote:
| I don't have friends so this has no use for me
| em-bee wrote:
| you could build things for yourself and share them here
| s_ting765 wrote:
| Cool but no link for the source code negates entire point of
| sharing apps.
| abcd_f wrote:
| It absolutely doesn't.
| nilirl wrote:
| It's nice but I've yet to see a more usable end-user programming
| environment than the spreadsheet.
| thunspa wrote:
| Or learning to actually code. I can't see why I would ever
| learn to use these kinds of tools.
|
| As a developer, I can just make it myself. Now with LLMs, if
| it's very simple and bounded, I can just vibe most of it with
| very little to lose.
|
| As a lay person, I don't see what the TAM for this is. Who will
| spend the time to learn how to drag and drop an application?
| schwartzworld wrote:
| No tests, no version control, no library support. Pass for me.
| nilirl wrote:
| You're making the argument that end-user programming must
| have the same priorities as professional software
| development.
| WillAdams wrote:
| For an implementation which pushes that to the extreme see:
|
| https://pyspread.gitlab.io/
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| One of the best things that I did was spending a week making a
| simple app that can put all my Apple Watch walks on a single big
| map, then sharing it with my friends after it got published on
| AppStore. It's been a year since I worked on it, but I still get
| messages from my friends (and some random people who found it!)
| how they've walked through an entire city or something. Really
| rewarding experience, despite having zero financial gains from
| it.
|
| OP is right, making simple apps for your friends for fun!
| bryantt wrote:
| This sounds great, could you link the app please?
| dewey wrote:
| Not the OPs app but there's an app doing something similar
| that I enjoyed for many years, you can also import from GPS
| trackers and others: https://fogofworld.app
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Does that work like a game map where the fog disappears
| where you have been? That would be cool, although the
| reviews aren't great.
| dewey wrote:
| Yea that's the idea. Worked well for the years where I
| tried it.
| matsemann wrote:
| I use https://wandrer.earth/ , connected to Strava
| drchaos wrote:
| Not OP, but https://dawarich.app/ seems to do the same (open
| source and self-hostable, also has an iOS App).
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Here you go --
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mapcut/id6478268682. It's
| really not supposed to be super nice, but good enough to have
| some active users. It's free, so have fun! Sorry for putting
| it behind auth gates, I was experimenting with some other
| features that required webservers running.
| brador wrote:
| Just think about the thousands of useless obstacles and moats
| you've had to navigate and overcome to make that. How many
| millions have given up at any one of them.
|
| After all that you still control nothing and are vendor locked.
|
| Imagine if you could just AI prompt that up and simply transfer
| to your open source watches.
|
| What a world that would be.
| collingreen wrote:
| Help build the world you want to see! It will take folks
| passionately trying to make this open, free, unmonetized
| vision a reality in competition with the walled gardens
| you're decrying. I wish you luck if you give it a go!
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Fair point, but as I grew up, I realized those things really
| don't matter to me. My thought process was -- oh, I walk
| around a lot, I'm curious how much of the city I've covered
| -> oh, there's no free app for that -> oh, I've never made an
| iOS app and this looks simple -> let's spend a week making it
| and share it with friends.
|
| As a side note, as I grew up, I realized I genuinely don't
| care about the walled garden flame wars, and things alike.
| Life is pretty simple, I'd rather walked around a new
| neighbourhood and grab a pint.
| EZ-E wrote:
| Very nice. For me, LLM fills that niche when I need to build
| something very small. Just built a dumb tiny flashcard webapp
| (literally a standalone index.html) because I was tired of apps
| either being either overly complex for my simple use case, or
| asking me to register/pay/see ads.
| jackgavigan wrote:
| I love the concept. I think the trick to being successful with a
| project like this is cracking the user experience in a way that
| makes it powerful enough to be truly useful, while keeping it
| simple enough that a child can build (scr)apps (c.f. Super Mario
| Maker).
|
| Making it possible to lookup and store data in a spreadsheet
| (maybe using something like the Google Sheets API) could unlock a
| huge amount of use cases.
|
| I'll be watching this project with interest!
| lastdong wrote:
| Google Studio IO apps seems like a step in the same direction.
| Now if only we could host it on github and take advantage of
| static github pages.
|
| In the future, optimised open models will enable more people to
| develop tools locally, and with an open source AIDE (does this
| term exist yet? Artificial Intelligence Development Environment)
| publish / share it in different ways.
| account-5 wrote:
| > You drag objects out on the canvas -- a button, a textfield, a
| few labels. Select an object, and you can modify its attribute in
| an inspector panel. Certain objects, like buttons, has attributes
| like "when clicked" that contain javascript code.
|
| Swap JavaScript with VBA and this is the MS Access workflow.
|
| I'd only start using this if it became ooensource though, can
| find anything to suggest it is.
| Peteragain wrote:
| I feel we are coming at this as programmers, and the opportunity
| is the community aspect. What about starting with the family run
| app stores? Masterson style. No security (you're all friends
| right) and no way to contribute without an invite. Just a
| thought.
| demaga wrote:
| I agree with the title, but not with the article. I expected to
| see something like how you can make your friends and family lives
| easier using your skills as a software developer.
|
| From time to time I come up with micro-projects that solve very
| particular issues my friends are facing. Ones that are not easily
| solved with existing apps on the market. When I see my friends
| use them, it brings me joy!
|
| But! For this I had to use traditional software development tools
| I was already familiar with - IDE, source control, etc. Scrappy
| or similar tools would not help me at all. The tool is targeting
| someone like my non-developer friends, but I doubt they could
| come up with a design for a solution, implement it in scrappy and
| then maintain it when something changes in the outside world.
|
| On a separate node, I had great success with spreadsheets as both
| Frontend and sometimes Backend in various personal projects. And
| I'm not the only one, my friend made an addon for Google Sheets
| that pulls data from my specific bank's API - I use it to track
| my expenses. That's the kind of stuff I wanted to see in the
| article.
| franciscop wrote:
| Same thing here, one of my first open source projects was to
| read a public Google sheet to pull the data, both from the
| frontend and backend. While Google killed the api that made it
| possible so I deprecated it, it still holds a precious place in
| my memories as one of the most collaborative projects I've ever
| made
| ceving wrote:
| Where does the data go?
| jwblackwell wrote:
| This is just crying out for AI to help you get started.
| amelius wrote:
| I use AI for getting started in everything nowadays.
| filcuk wrote:
| Just trying this out and it appears in Firefox, the drag & drop
| handle on new elements doesn't cover the whole rectangle, just
| the label.
| swyx wrote:
| > All Scrappy apps are multiplayer, like a Google Doc is. You can
| even edit them while they are being used by someone else!
|
| ok where is the scrappy backend? what data do you see? where do i
| make an account? i wish that this was more transparent/discussed
| since obviously this software is not entirely local?
|
| > LLMs are getting better and better, and while they are far from
| able to make a full-fledged app without a lot of help from a
| software engineer, they can make small apps pretty reliably.
|
| mildly disagree. llm generated apps tend to look better + i dont
| have to learn or stick to your preset primitives. even
| nontechnical people run into this pretty quickly
|
| otherwise, nice labor of love. good going OP.
| jrcplus wrote:
| Scrappy co-creator here. It was a surprise to us that this blew
| up on HN. We've hurriedly added an FAQ to the write-up.
|
| In regards to this question about the "Scrappy backend":
| Scrappy is local-first, so data is stored locally in your
| browser, and optionally replicated to a lightweight sync
| server, to help coordinate syncing between peers. In other
| words, Scrappy is almost entirely front-end. The only third-
| party dependencies are Yjs <https://yjs.dev/> and CodeMirror
| <https://codemirror.net/>. We don't use any other libraries or
| frameworks like React. There's no analytics.
|
| And there's no traditional backend. The only cloud dependency
| is the sync server, which is a plain vanilla y-websocket-server
| <https://github.com/yjs/y-websocket-server/>.
| Surac wrote:
| Ok do this apps run on IOS?
| starvar wrote:
| 1. Start up the app 2. Try dragging a block 3. Doesn't work
|
| _nice_
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| You can make an awful lot of useful little tools with an LLM,
| vanilla JavaScript, GitHub Pages, and the user's own localStorage
| as a semi-persistence layer. Two 9s and cross-platform to boot.
|
| Recently I made a diet checklist [1] that I've been following
| more or less to the letter 5 days out of the week. I have a
| little Android button that just opens right up to the web page. I
| click, click, click, then move on with my day. If I feel I need
| to change something I can copy a plain text screenshot of what's
| on there currently and chat with Gemini about it.
|
| I'm really liking this new wave of technology.
|
| [1]: https://hiandrewquinn.github.io/diet-checklist/
| zigman1 wrote:
| +1 over this. As someone without a deep technical background,
| LLMs enabled me to improve my life unimaginably, being able to
| quickly sketch and develop small features that remove every day
| annoyance.
| fuzztester wrote:
| examples?
| zigman1 wrote:
| My very first thing was automation of placing my journal
| entry to appropriate Google Drive folder. I write my brain
| dump/journal everyday in Google Docs, and if I just click
| "New document, it places it in the root GDrive folder, and
| I had to move it manually which I am to lazy to do it.
|
| LLM helped me write a python script that searches the root
| folder, finds the right document (name is always the date
| of the day), and searches for the right folder in assigned
| Google Drive repository (and creates a yearly or monthly
| folder if a new month starts).
|
| It also helped me create a yaml script for Github actions
| to trigger this once every day.
|
| I felt like a magician. Since then I created second brain
| databases, internal index of valuable youtube videos, where
| I call the api to get transcripts and send it to llm, other
| note taking automations etc etc
| fuzztester wrote:
| sounds like some cool automations, thanks.
|
| by api you mean youtube api?
| mikedelfino wrote:
| I came here to say exactly this. You can even set up build
| steps using GitHub Actions if you prefer something beyond
| vanilla JS, or publish the project for free on Cloudflare, even
| from private repositories. In addition to localStorage,
| IndexedDB is also very useful. It's easy to export the app's
| data as JSON for better persistence, and you could store it on
| Google Drive or a similar service.
| indyjo wrote:
| So you drag UI elements onto an empty sheet, fight with the grid
| snap (because it doesn't match the size of your UI elements) and
| are then supposed to enter raw JavaScript, without any code
| completion, visual programming, API help or AI support? And
| that's it?
| blips wrote:
| "We believe computers should work for people, and dream of a
| future where computing, like cooking or word processing, is
| available to everyone."
|
| generic...
|
| "with live updating -- all for free. LLMs ar..." also see a fair
| few of these long dashes (18x) which is either a tell tail of
| you've used ChatGPT to generate the text or you've started
| writing like the AI.
|
| I havn't thought about it that hard yet but i don't really like
| consuming AI generated content at all as soon as i see signs of
| it part of my brain turns off. And no slight to the creator, I
| have as much interest in writing this kind of copy as any
| developer would i'd imagine.
| ben_w wrote:
| > "with live updating -- all for free. LLMs ar..." also see a
| fair few of these long dashes (18x) which is either a tell tail
| of you've used ChatGPT to generate the text or you've started
| writing like the AI.
|
| It's also my IRL writing style for the last 10-15 years :P
|
| That said:
|
| > I havn't thought about it that hard yet but i don't really
| like consuming AI generated content at all as soon as i see
| signs of it part of my brain turns off.
|
| Likewise.
|
| At least, when someone else did the prompting -- I do like what
| LLMs can output, but when LLM answers are sufficient I prefer
| to cut out the middle-man and ask the LLM directly myself.
| Hendrikto wrote:
| If you read up on hyphens VS en-dashes VS em-dashes, using em-
| dashes is actually the correct usage -- as a separator -- in
| the case you cited.
|
| I disagree with your conclusion of this being a telltale sign
| of being AI generated.
| juped wrote:
| To type an em dash, an important punctuation mark, press
| compose and then hyphen thrice. -- -like this. Shift-option-
| hyphen on Macs, I think.
| jrcplus wrote:
| Scrappy co-creator here. As an old-school Mac user (from the
| days of desktop publishing) I do know the difference between
| hyphen and en-dash and em-dash :)
|
| We used AI sparsely for wordsmithing and definitely not for
| generating the text. Believe me, putting it together was a lot
| of work (Pontus did the heavy lifting).
| DustinEgg wrote:
| A very good idea.
| threemux wrote:
| See also: https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/
| feeley wrote:
| An alternative to Scrappy is the free CodeBoot web app
| (https://codeboot.org), which allows you to create web apps in
| Python that are fully encapsulated in a URL. No installation is
| required--neither for the developer nor the user. Below is an
| example of a math practice app with simple user interaction
| through dialogs. To create a web app URL, right-click the "play"
| button and choose the type of link you want to generate.
|
| https://app.codeboot.org/5.3.1/?init=.fbWF0aF9wcmFjdGljZS5we...
|
| For more complex UIs, CodeBoot provides an FFI for accessing the
| DOM directly from Python code. For example here is a dice
| throwing app with a button to roll the dice again. The text in
| the button has translations to multiple languages and will adjust
| to the browser's default.
|
| https://app.codeboot.org/5.3.1/?init=.fZGljZS5weQ==~XQAAgADq...
| sReinwald wrote:
| The core vision here is something I can absolutely get on board
| with, but the execution fundamentally seems to misunderstand why
| "home-cooked software" doesn't exist.
|
| The target audience problem is immediately apparent: they're
| building a product for people who can write JavaScript event
| handlers but somehow can't 'npx create-react-app'. This
| demographic is approximately twenty-seven people.
|
| More critically, they've confused the problem space, in my
| opinion. The barrier to personal software isn't the lack of drag-
| and-drop of JavaScript environments. It's that software, unlike a
| meal or a home-made sweater, comes with an implicit support
| contract that lasts forever. When I cook dinner for friends, I'm
| not on the hook when they're hungry again next Tuesday. When my
| grandma knits a home-made sweater, she's not expected to keep
| supporting it in case I want to add a hood.
|
| When the attendance counter has a race condition and the venue
| goes over capacity, guess who's getting the angry call when the
| fire marshal shows up for an inspection?
|
| The "redistributing the means of software production" rhetoric
| rings particularly hollow from what appears to be a proprietary
| SaaS in the making. You don't democratize software by creating
| another walled garden. And their claim about "owning your data"
| while simultaneously offering real-time sync is either
| technically naive or deliberately misleading. How is the attendee
| counter example's counter state shared between users, if the data
| lives in local storage? I don't see how you can have both without
| server infrastructure that they control.
|
| The actual nearest thing to their vision already exists and has
| millions of users: Spreadsheets. Non-technical people build
| complex, business-critical "applications" in spreadsheets every
| day. No JS required, local-first, and everyone already knows how
| to use it. But "we made a worse Excel" doesn't sound as
| revolutionary, I suppose.
|
| The real unsolved problem isn't making it easier to create small
| apps - I build small tools for myself all the time. It's making
| them sustainable without creating permanent maintenance burdens.
| And that is not something you can solve with a new framework or
| SaaS - it's at it's core, a social issue.
| parpfish wrote:
| i'd argue that the biggest hurdle to home cooked software is
| finding a way to distribute/deploy it among your friends. im a
| backend guy and can easily make a useful li'l executable to run
| on my work machine. but how do i share that with people that
| will only use their smartphone for computing?
|
| i either have to: - make something browser-based, register a
| domain, and then pay somebody to host it. that's a lot of hoops
| (and unnecessary cost) just to access a little script that's
| just fine running locally. - make some sort of official
| developer account[0] for an app store and then jump through
| hoops to get my app approved. this would let me make a little
| app that runs locally, but it's even MORE hoops to jump through
| _and_ it puts you on the hook for support because it 's a wide
| public release instead of just sharing with a couple friends.
|
| [0] tbh, I don't know how this works. I just hear mobile devs
| complaining about submitting apps for review and know it can be
| slow and frustrating.
| trinix912 wrote:
| The easiest I can think of is making a spreadsheet. Share an
| Excel file over OneDrive or even a Google Sheet. The built-in
| features/formulas are enough for most of these use cases; if
| you want to go further, there's VBA (and the nightmare that
| comes with it - but it's less of a nightmare than paying and
| setting up a domain and dealing with the security of that).
|
| I know several people who do that - non-programmers - with
| formulas and VBA in Excel sheets.
| joshlemer wrote:
| > they're building a product for people who can write
| JavaScript event handlers but somehow can't 'npx create-react-
| app'
|
| There's an enormous gap in complexity, required skill, etc
| between creating these Scrappy applications and building the
| whole app in React, and then getting it deployed, complete with
| real time syncing, authorization (as they've implemented with
| their "frames" and everything. It's at least an order of
| magnitude greater in effort.
|
| > software, unlike a meal or a home-made sweater, comes with an
| implicit support contract that lasts forever
|
| I don't think it always has to. It tends to be that way because
| so far, the lift to create a functioning cross-device multi
| user application has been high enough that the economics of it
| requires centralized teams of specialists to build an
| application for many hundreds of people.
|
| If you lower the stakes really low to the point where the app
| is as serious as a spreadsheet, then compare it to
| spreadsheets. Almost everyone has dozens of really casual
| spreadsheets, many households have shared google sheets for
| particular, short-lived or casual or constantly changing use-
| cases. When you slap together a spreadsheet with your partner,
| you aren't making a promise about long term support and
| compatibility with the spreadsheet.
|
| Or an other similar thing would just be paper and pen and tape,
| up on a whiteboard. All kinds of little "hand made"
| "applications" like this exist in households and in offices.
| Kanban boards are an example of this but there's and endless
| different kinds of "board-based physical apps" like chore
| charts and weekly meal plans. When someone writes on their
| fridge a list of chores and starts tallying who does what, that
| is not an eternal promise to maintain the piece of paper with
| chores and tally marks protocol/system.
|
| The comments about being a SAAS, walled garden, and about the
| specific implementation here wrt where data's stored etc, this
| is just a prototype. A POC.
| funnym0nk3y wrote:
| Although I like the idea in principal, I don't see the real use
| case here.
|
| Most of the examples can easily be replaced by pen and paper
| which is faster than building a app. More complex use cases
| require more complex solutions which I'm not sure this provides.
|
| One use case could have been an application to study functions in
| time and frequency space. But does it provide an fft?
| al_borland wrote:
| I like the spirit of it, but the execution isn't what I'm looking
| for. With this being a hosted solution, it makes me dependent on
| another SaaS tool for little personal projects. If it's a little
| counter needed for an afternoon, that's not such a big deal.
| However, if I'm looking for a scrappy little app I may use for
| years, this is a problem. Plus, no matter how low the learning
| curve gets, it will still exist, so I want something that I can
| use for the long term for things like this. This makes my mind go
| to approachable and easy languages that allow the user to easily
| throw a GUI on it. I don't think code needs to be completely
| abstracted away, just made easy and tailored to what people will
| do. Look at how many people on MySpace were able to learn some
| CSS. Maybe they copy and paste someone else's stuff at first, but
| that's the foot in the door before they eventually look at how to
| tweak it.
|
| I typically end up using basic HTML/CSS/JS for stuff like this
| today. If I really need backend code, I'll use basic PHP (no
| frameworks or anything). But this ties me to a browser, which I'm
| not always a fan of. Some of these fairly scrappy little projects
| at work (done in the browser like this, and with AutoHotKey) have
| been going for 10+ years now, with very little maintenance. The
| AHK script I haven't touched in probably 8 years, since I moved
| to macOS at work, yet people still use it countless times per
| day. If AHK decides to stop operating, it's no big deal, the code
| that exists will still run. The same can't be said for these SaaS
| solution to this problem. People looking for scrappy solutions
| aren't looking to remake their solution every time a founder
| decides to move on to something else more interesting or
| profitable.
| bandoti wrote:
| It seems the way to go would be to open source the SaaS code to
| ensure that longevity. The folks at Penpot have a good thing
| going with that--most people will use the SaaS offering but
| it's available for self-hosting.
|
| One of the difficulties of course is notarizing/signing the
| apps and so-forth. Perhaps some Web3 solutions could help as
| well.
|
| OR, another option would be like what PICO-8 does (or flash I
| guess)--release the runtime and distribute the "carts" or apps.
| :)
|
| Still, it's pretty complex creating a trusted distribution
| network outside of SaaS. Definitely could work though it's been
| done before!
|
| [1]: https://penpot.app/
|
| [2]: https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
| al_borland wrote:
| I was also thinking back to when I used TiddlyWiki almost 20
| years ago. If this tool is effectively just HTML, CSS, and
| Javascript... could they bake it all into a single HTML file.
| Download a template, design your app offline, and save your
| work to a file that can run on its own, offline, in a browser
| window. Maybe the about of JS they need to bake in, or
| images, would make that impractical.
|
| Of course, as it stands, the examples were so simplistic that
| they could easily be vibe coded. I just tried it with the
| attendance counter and ChatGPT gave me that's only 50 lines.
| I'm sure I could make that much shorter doing it manually.
| Granted, a project like this has to start somewhere, but as
| it stands it's adding a lot of infrastructure without adding
| enough value to make it worth it, when AI is pretty good at
| these really basic things, like "give me a text box with a
| button to increment it".
| II2II wrote:
| Vibe coding may get the job done, but it isn't going to be
| as fun for someone who _wants_ to write a little app for a
| friend. Also, chances are that the generated code is going
| to be less friendly for a novice to edit should the want
| /need to make changes.
| slightwinder wrote:
| This looks like something that should be done like a
| TiddlyWiki. A TiddlyWiki is a whole Webapplication in a single
| HTML-File. Traditionally, when you change something, you just
| save the HTML-File and it self-replicates with the new data.
| There are now also TiddlyWikis which can save to backends and
| probably some other ways.
|
| Building a whole platform around self-replicating HTML-files
| with optional backend-access seems to be the more reliable
| solution for small personalized stuff. At least it has a strong
| resilience.
| panphora wrote:
| I'm building a self-modifying HTML runtime inspired by
| TiddlyWiki [0]. It lets you build "HTML apps" in a single
| file with plain CSS/JS. These apps are shareable and
| hostable, but you can also download and use them locally as
| offline apps [1].
|
| The cool thing is each HTML file is able to modify/overwrite
| itself, so users can use the app's own UI to modify it (e.g.
| a dashboard where users can add new fields by clicking a
| button to clone a DOM node, everything's persisted).
|
| The key insight: collapsing the UI/state/logic layers into a
| single self-contained HTML file eliminates entire categories
| of complexity - no build steps, no deployment, no state
| synchronization. Everything you need is just right there.
|
| [0] https://hyperclay.com/
|
| [1] https://hyperclay.com/hyperclay-local
| owebmaster wrote:
| Hyperclay is quite interesting, well done! But to use it we
| need to install an app? I think the UX of tiddlywiki that
| just work is better
| panphora wrote:
| No app installation needed, Hyperclay files are just HTML
| files, so they work like TiddlyWiki in that regard. You
| can download them and use them locally with any text
| editor, or even implement TiddlyWiki's saving mechanism
| if you prefer that workflow.
|
| The key difference is when you want to share your
| creation on the web. With TiddlyWiki, you typically share
| a read-only version, requiring visitors to download and
| save their own copy. With Hyperclay, you can host that
| same HTML file on any server and live-edit it directly in
| your browser (if you're the owner). When people clone it,
| their clone is shareable and available on the web.
|
| So you get the best of both worlds: the simplicity of a
| single HTML file that "just works" offline, plus the
| ability to publish it as a living document that you can
| edit directly in the browser.
|
| Think of it as TiddlyWiki's philosophy extended to the
| shared web. Same single-file simplicity, but now your
| changes can be seen by others.
| owebmaster wrote:
| > Think of it as TiddlyWiki's philosophy extended to the
| shared web.
|
| Sorry but I'm having issues seeing this as a feature.
| TiddlyWikis can be shared as easily as sending an
| attachment. Running a server, tho, is not simple at all
| for the common user.
| WillAdams wrote:
| This looks _very_ cool --- does it align with:
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/192405005-hypermedia-
| sys...
|
| (and if not, are you aware of a book which touches
| on/explains your technique?)
|
| Do you think a visual tool for this could be created?
| (something like Lazarus or Interface Builder or QT
| Designer...)
| panphora wrote:
| Yes, there's definitely philosophical alignment with the
| hypermedia approach: keeping things simple and leveraging
| HTML's native capabilities. In fact, I use hypermedia-
| oriented techniques on all the dashboard pages in the
| Hyperclay web app.
|
| But in Hyperclay apps, the DOM is the source of truth --
| there's nothing else. So there's no need for more than a
| single AJAX call (to save the page). HTMX is built to
| support a more traditional multi-page stack, whereas
| Hyperclay is built around single-file HTML apps.
|
| The idea is that every HTML file _is_ its own visual tool
| for modifying its own UI /data. For instance, you could
| build a page layout editor that lets users drag-and-drop
| components, and the editor itself would be part of the
| saved HTML file. An infinite variety of visual tools can
| (and will) be built on top of this structure.
|
| As for essays about this vision, I'd recommend "Local-
| first software" [0] and "Malleable software" [1]
|
| [0] https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/local-first/
|
| [1] https://www.inkandswitch.com/malleable-software/
| ramses0 wrote:
| I'm a little experienced with TiddlyWiki, from memory:
| `rclone serve webdav` in the directory with TiddlyWiki
| will let you "write in place".
|
| My use case was a home maintenance wiki/manual, the
| incredible benefits of something like TiddlyWiki in this
| use case is the ultimate survivability of it.
|
| Open `HomeManual.html` in any browser and you can read it
| (and modify it!) and literally File -> Save As...
| `HomeManual-2025-07-18.html`. For more convenience:
| `rclone serve webdav` and the "(*) Save..." button works
| to save in place.
|
| Ultimate survivability. Self-contained, it works on
| mobile, pairs great with SyncThing, devolves into read
| only, has a "normie-understandable" option for
| modifications.
|
| Really, what I'd prefer is a bit less complexity of the
| wiki itself, and some slightly better integration between
| `exportAllPages("*.md")` and "AllTogether.html". I'd love
| to be able to pop open vim 90% of the time and somehow
| "merge things" as expected (conflict-aware, diff-ish
| integration).
|
| Take a look at the use cases I've described and it'd be
| amazing to have a framework "Quine.html" (that can self-
| reproduce) that was less complicated than all the cruft
| that's built up in TiddlyWiki.
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| Decker works like TiddlyWiki. I agree that a fully
| decentralized self-replicating approach is the ideal way to
| distribute this type of application/tool; even very
| restrictive environments would permit using and sharing
| single-file apps that run in a web browser.
| rchaud wrote:
| Apps need a local server to work (especially if it writes to
| a local database), or be shipped in some kind of executable
| file format for the OS. As someone who can't code native apps
| but is decent enough in PHP, I've discovered that the way to
| solve my own problem is to run a bash script that loads an
| Apache server, then loads the index.php file of my app, all
| of which is stored locally on my hard drive. Works on mobile
| too, although I have to manually launch an Apache server
| first through termux.
|
| Modern computing badly needs the ability to support building
| our own local apps without a remote web server dependency.
| This is how computing worked in the pre-internet age.
| HyperCard could connect to a database as could Filemaker Pro.
| Windows had something similar where GUI-based apps could
| read/write to an Access DB. These tools have been deprecated
| and only live on in some subscription-based SaaS.
| belmarca wrote:
| You should check out https://codeboot.org .
|
| It's a fully client-side Python IDE with single-stepping, a
| virtual (non-hierarchical) filesystem, an FFI to call JS code
| and a few other things (see the docs). Sharing apps in CodeBoot
| is trivial: right-click the "play" button and copy a shareable
| URL. I have helped people solve data wrangling problems using
| CodeBoot and they now have their little app bookmarked. It
| works really well.
|
| I could go on for a while. AMA if you're interested. We're
| actively working on it and some great new features are on the
| way!
| jorvi wrote:
| Can I just say I adore the absolute utility of the UX and UI?
|
| No welcome screen, just dropped straight into the main
| interface which itself has no excess buttons or styling
| wasted on it.
|
| To me this is beautiful.
| belmarca wrote:
| Really glad you appreciate! We use it to teach introductory
| programing courses and the simplistic UI is purpose-built
| for that use-case.
|
| It really is a joy to program with, but we're struggling a
| bit to communicate everything it can do. We are working
| hard on that front and should have a landing page and
| better explanatory material soon. We're _very_ interested
| in feedback. If anybody wants to learn more, just contact
| me through the email in my profile.
|
| Cheers!
| jorvi wrote:
| Instead of a landing page, may I suggest a '?' button, or
| at least putting the landing page on
| https://codeboot.org/something and redirecting from
| referrers but not direct loads?
|
| Browsers are getting more and more aggressive about
| deleting cookies / making cookies ephemeral, and nothing
| is more annoying that dealing with one or multiple pop-
| ups on each page visit.
|
| For an example of how bad it can get, load LMarena in a
| private window. Cookie pop-up, agree >
| type something, press enter > ToS pop-up, agree > press
| enter again > processing > answer > type somethi- verify
| Cloudflare, agree > type something
|
| Other than that I don't have much comments yet except
| that it seems a nice product!
| nico wrote:
| > I typically end up using basic HTML/CSS/JS for stuff like
| this today
|
| Depending on your tolerance for basic ai coding, you might
| enjoy openjam.ai
|
| You can build silly stuff like this (better seen on desktop):
|
| * https://openjam.ai/lonely_ant_702/bajbin4neo
|
| * https://openjam.ai/stupid_coral_852/qg8yembjg5
|
| * https://openjam.ai/stupid_coral_852/y2hj69iqvo
| edmundsauto wrote:
| I use Cursor and vibe code this stuff, it works great! I just
| built a flight tracker (I live in a flight path) that uses a
| SDR to receive ADS-B info from overhead flights and enrich it
| with flight info from the local airport, then display in a
| train station style flippy board. My wife loves knowing where
| the flights are going and so I display on our magic mirror
|
| I know almost nothing about the underlying technologies, can
| barely code JS for the front end. But after about 10 hours of
| coding, I've got a very neat little app - it's something that
| would have taken me 2 months then become abandonware after I
| got frustrated.
|
| This was such a positive experience with vibe coding that it
| restored my love for code. Resulting quality seems pretty
| decent - maybe 1200 sLOC with good logging, performance, and
| what I would say is decent pro-am code quality. (IE above the
| median quality for typical commercial code, I'd bet)
| jrcplus wrote:
| Scrappy co-creator here. I fully agree that software longevity
| is important. We designed Scrappy with a local-first
| architecture, so we have no traditional backend. Our only cloud
| dependency is a lightweight sync server. (We hurriedly added an
| FAQ with some more technical details after we discovered that
| this blew up on HN.) I believe this is an important point of
| distinction, both technically and financially, from most low-
| code/no-code tools which are SaaS'es.
|
| One idea we had early on is the ability to save scrapps as
| single-page self-contained HTML files. We experimented with
| this but the functionality isn't currently exposed.
| _joel wrote:
| Hypercard vibes
| mettamage wrote:
| Oh haha, I simply program little apps for my friends to solve
| their problems. I thought this would be about that
| zupa-hu wrote:
| I think it's a great demo, it is interesting how harsh the
| feedback is that you are getting. You are probably just too late
| to the party.
|
| I also work in this space and the road ahead gets exponentially
| harder, unfortunately.
| failrate wrote:
| Godot 3 and 4 are very good for bashing out apps for both desktop
| and Android phone.
| throwawayoldie wrote:
| I've been thinking about using Godot in this way recently,
| would you care to say more about what your experience has been
| like?
| simonw wrote:
| It looks like getting the apps built with this to work well on
| mobile is in the roadmap, but not mobile editing itself:
|
| "A hand-sized touchscreen is too small for editing Scrapps
| comfortably"
|
| I would encourage them not to underestimate the tenacity of
| mobile phone users!
|
| For a _lot_ of people these days their mobile phone is their only
| digital computing device. People write code on mobile phones.
| People write entire novels.
|
| I think this tool's impact could be greatly increased by taking
| the time to figure out a mobile editing interface, even one that
| feels less comfortable than the desktop experience.
| kakamiokatsu wrote:
| This reminds me a lot of Visual Basic! Same simple principles and
| quite similar UI.
| QuantumWanderer wrote:
| I'd love if this turns into a social platform for apps. Facebook
| has text, Instagram has images, TikTok has video... Scrappy has
| apps. Apps. Not code.
|
| View your friend's apps, use your friend's apps, remix your
| friend's apps to suit your needs.
|
| But it needs to be all-in on speech. End-to-end abstracts away
| the concept of code. Speech-to-App.
| mrafii wrote:
| Swap JavaScript with VBA and this is the MS Access workflow.
| Michael128 wrote:
| good
| etchalon wrote:
| We're just gonna keep re-inventing HyperCard.
| panphora wrote:
| Yes, until we get it right.
| WillAdams wrote:
| It would be nice if we could be successful at doing so, and
| extend it into the modern world (I asked after it a while back,
| and this was one of the tools which was suggested). Elsethread,
| https://cardstock.run/ was mentioned which looks quite
| promising as well. Curious if any others (which I've not found
| despite searching) will turn up.
| knowitnone wrote:
| I used to use MSHTA with success even though not cross platform -
| that would be the killer feature
| p2hari wrote:
| Nice, I am in the process of building one with a similar concept
| but in a single HTML/JS file. Sharing with friends and multi-
| user. Might release it in a week or two as I am getting closer to
| put final finishing touches. Not sure if I have to go open source
| or closed and Freemium. Might ask HN later :)
| ge96 wrote:
| Just an anecdote
|
| I remember learning this thing called Touch Develop by MS
|
| Then I realized that was a closed environment/learned to program
| with programming languages instead, dumped a few months into TD
| ilaksh wrote:
| Reminds me of VB6, which was amazing.
| lxe wrote:
| This is what UI programming should be like. I don't know why
| we've deviated from developing tools like these in favor of
| brain-breaking labor work of writing React applications.
| jrcplus wrote:
| Yes!
| iddan wrote:
| Built something like this 8 years ago for hospital in Israel
| doctors to have simple formula calculator - it was super helpful
| but I never got to productise it, Love this!
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