
Flowhub is now in Public Beta - svetly
http://flowhub.io/
======
mikeryan
I can not, for the life of me, tell what this is from the website. The video
seems like a parody from the HBO's Silicon Valley show. I even clicked through
to the app [http://app.flowhub.io/](http://app.flowhub.io/) which wants me to
log in and then clicked on the "Docs" Button and finally got to this:

 _Flowhub is a web-based IDE for flow-based programming. It is built on
NoFlo.js for both client and server. It can connect to any language or
environment that can talk the FBP Network Protocol._

Which is kind of nonsense unless I'm already clear what "flow-based
programming" was. Which I wasn't until I google'd that. Maybe its me. It seems
if you're going to promote a new tool with for a obscureish programming
paradigm you might want to explain the paradigm as well.

~~~
gtaylor
> I can not, for the life of me, tell what this is from the website.

This makes me feel a little better. I couldn't tell what this is, either.

I scrolled all the way down and eventually found a FAQ link that helps:
[http://flowhub.io/documentation/flowhub-
faq/](http://flowhub.io/documentation/flowhub-faq/)

May be worth putting that somewhere more prominent.

~~~
Goopplesoft
Similar. I watched the video, read all the copy too, which I usually wouldn't
do. Sucks these things are hard to fix on announcement day...

------
bergie
Blog post giving a bit more info: [http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/flowhub-
beta/](http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/flowhub-beta/)

And some demos:

Photo booth:
[http://app.flowhub.io/#example/7804187](http://app.flowhub.io/#example/7804187)

Animated clock:
[http://app.flowhub.io/#example/7135158](http://app.flowhub.io/#example/7135158)

Canvas pattern generator:
[http://app.flowhub.io/#example/1319c76fe006fb34c9c9](http://app.flowhub.io/#example/1319c76fe006fb34c9c9)

------
ThePhysicist
Granted that dataflow programming (DFP) is probably a bad idea for general-
purpose software development, I still think there are some great use cases for
it.

For example, I think it could be a great fit for business intelligence and
data analysis, since DFP really is a pretty natural way to think about data
transformation and aggregation, and most people that would not be able to
understand a map/reduce function or a complex Python notebook would probably
be able to understand a flowchart-like diagram showing the transformations
applied to the incoming data.

Business process automation could be another great use case for this
technology, since it's also natural to think of a business process as a
flowchart.

The advantage of these specialized use cases is that you don't have to
reinvent programming from scratch to make them work.

~~~
feralmoan
Enterprise ETL, process automation and service integration is a massive
market, it'd be cool to see them buddy up with someone like Mulesoft. I tend
to think these kinds of services aren't really suited to general consumers but
there's definitely a place for it in the enterprise space.

~~~
dragonwriter
Sure, there's space for graphical flow-based programming to wire enterprise
components together—but there also a slew of established enterprise products
occupying that space.

------
manolete
Woah, I have no relationship whatsoever with this guys, but I am quite
disappointed with the kind of responses in this thread.

In my opinion there should be no destructive critics in any "Show HN" thread.

If you find some mistakes or whatever, you could make a constructive critic,
ie: Hey guys, IMHO you should add more info in the landing page, because I am
not understanding what your project does.

On the other hand, as someone posted in this thread you could tell them:
"You're not the only one who had no clue. [...] And I'm not wasting another
second of my time on flowhub.."

Is that the kind of answer that a fellow hacker deserves?? I don't think so.

Remember that people do not post projects at HN only to reach a big audience,
but also to get a great feedback from smart people. So before giving impolite
answers, we should remember that we are all in the same boat, and the next
"Show HN" thread could be your project. Think about the kind of answers you
would like to get.

PS:I know that most of the people at HN is great people, but I think this
needed to be said today.

~~~
Terretta
If you Show HN, and someone takes enough time to give it, that's valuable to
you no matter the tone.

"Didn't get it, not wasting any more time" is an incredibly valuable comment
to receive because it helps you understand the most common occurrence for your
home page, someone landing and immediately moving on. You'd normally never get
feedback from that traffic and not know why they bounced. Now the builders
know what to fix to increase engagement.

------
Theodores
I am elderly enough to remember IRIS Explorer on SGI Workstations way back in
the 1990's, when having a 2Gb hard drive was just about unimaginable.

Here is a quickly Googled screenshot:

[http://wwwasdoc.web.cern.ch/wwwasdoc/lhcpp/irisexplorer.gif](http://wwwasdoc.web.cern.ch/wwwasdoc/lhcpp/irisexplorer.gif)

IRIS Explorer was awesome, but hardware was not really up to the job in those
days. There was also a rich market in GIS and other applications that did what
you needed so there was no way you were going to roll your own with IRIS
Explorer.

However, the scope and ambition to do _stuff_ with it was incredible. It was
far beyond the flat (as in non-3D) internet we have ended up with.

IRIS Explorer was 'flow programming'. You did not have to use it to overlay a
vegetation map over a terrain map to render it in 3D and step through the
seasons, with widgets to control al aspects of the show, you could use it to
render something lame if you wanted to.

Despite the awesome-ness of IRIS Explorer it failed in the marketplace. This
was not because of hardware or that there weren't milliions of code modules to
casually wire up. For me, trying to do things with it, the problem was because
of the 'black boxes'. Sure they had pretty controls on them and you could pump
your data in and out of them with a few mouse clicks. However, at some stage
you had to go inside those black boxes and work out what was going on. A box
could have '2 + 2 = 4' inside it but there was all kinds of toolkit code to
take the inputs and set the outputs. A couple of lines of code would do, but
those black boxes had a lot of cruft with them. All very off-putting. So, if
'flow programming' with flowhub is to get anywhere, there needs to be an easy
gradient between the 'as per the video' way it works and the reality, i.e.
inside the black boxes.

~~~
mov
IRIS Explorer seems really interesting! I agree with you about that "loose of
control feeling". I think it is a common effect that happens every time we go
to a higher level or alternative paradigm. We have to create ways to easy go
trough those levels and back again.

With Flowhub you can always go inside the 'black boxes' creating your own
components as reported in the "Component Editor" section of
[http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/flowhub-beta](http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/flowhub-
beta). It is also possible to create and remix subgraphs that is another way
to abstract a complex group of components.

~~~
Theodores
I believe the British 'NAG Group' bought IRIS Explorer and that it is still
being used in academia. You should approach them, explain what you are doing
and try to get a demo.

Reason being that wheels get reinvented, and, in IRIS Explorer, there were
lots of ideas that were far ahead of its time. Some of those ideas have been
lost and some bright spark just needs to pick them up again...

------
danso
I think well-structured and designed landing pages are too infrequent, so I
like the OP on that alone...and being an optimist, I'm always a little excited
when I hear of a new paradigm, or an iteration of it...because that means that
there is a (slightly) new way of thinking about and doing things...maybe even
better than my own. Either way, I like that the opportunity exists (even if I
never get around to thoroughly investigate it).

And I know a lot of this is promo-copy, but this kind of stuck out to me:

> _Focus on the right areas without fear of constant conflicts, code reviews
> and lengthy onboarding processes._

Again, I'm not experienced in the flow-paradigm...but I just have to guess
that the need for code reviews is not because traditional code is not visual
enough. In fact, I'd argue quite the opposite... a visual diagram offers some
great big-picture benefits, but at the loss of granularity...if anything, I'd
think a flow-based paradigm would require as much code review as before, but
perhaps with a different mindset.

I also think the background image for "Drag, Drop, Connect, Build" is...not
inspiring to me. I mean, it's useful in some respects for overview of
dependencies, maybe...but dragging-dropping and interpretation of visual
symbols is not always more efficient than pure textual concepts. In fact, I'd
argue that it can be even less efficient. How easy is it to examine the
underlying abstractions behind connecting one pipe from one icon to another?

~~~
bergie
_How easy is it to examine the underlying abstractions behind connecting one
pipe from one icon to another?_

Depends on the runtime you're talking to. For example MicroFlo on an Arduino
behaves quite differently from NoFlo on Node.js

In NoFlo each connection is basically connecting an event emitter to an event
listener. So, what happens is a JavaScript addEventListener operation.

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
how do ya'll handle errors? Is this primarily built on Node?

~~~
bergie
Errors are generally sent as a data packet to an error port (convention), or
thrown if there isn't a connection to that.

NoFlo is running in three environments: Node.js, browser, and GNOME's
JavaScript env

------
gmisra
For reference: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow-
based_programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow-based_programming)

------
Morgawr
If the website's performance is a promise of the performance of the
application, I don't really feel tempted to try it.

I'm using the latest Firefox Aurora release and I am getting very sluggish
scrolling and slow loading on the main page. I wish this trend of gigantic
slide-able pictures and animated transitions would stop. Yes, it feels like
I'm browsing through a tablet/phone app, but I'm on a desktop, I'd love to
have a desktop experience.

Sorry for the rant, the application itself seems nice though.

EDIT: also please don't force people to register and login to try the app, if
I can't just get on the page and try it without giving away some private data,
I don't really feel tempted to try it at all.

~~~
bergie
Nah, that is related to GSS stylesheets on the site making use of the matrix3d
part of CSS. Unfortunately lots of (expecially Linux) 3D drivers are not
exactly up to the task.

 _Edit:_ as for required login, that isn't needed to play with just the
examples.

Photo booth:
[http://app.flowhub.io/#example/7804187](http://app.flowhub.io/#example/7804187)

Animated clock:
[http://app.flowhub.io/#example/7135158](http://app.flowhub.io/#example/7135158)

Canvas pattern generator:
[http://app.flowhub.io/#example/1319c76fe006fb34c9c9](http://app.flowhub.io/#example/1319c76fe006fb34c9c9)

~~~
Morgawr
I can play 3D videogames with lots of advanced shaders and even develop my
own, perform very demanding computations on my 8-core machine and watch HD
movies and stream from the web, yet I can't easily view a simple home page
from the internet?

Is this the state of technology in 2014?

~~~
thefreeman
If you are indeed on Linux, you may have to enable hardware acceleration at
chrome://gpu . Last time I checked it was not enabled by default on Linux.

edit: Ack, sorry, just re-read parent and you are using Firefox. I do not know
whether they have similar issues with 3D acceleration on linux.

Also I am not saying the website couldn't perform better, you have a valid
point there.

------
samuell
Hey HN guys ... you should read up on the Kickstarter page before dismissing
this, it really contains a ton of information summarized:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noflo/noflo-
development...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noflo/noflo-development-
environment) (The videos are especially great!)

Bergie has a lot of content on his blog as well
([http://bergie.iki.fi](http://bergie.iki.fi)).

------
pazimzadeh
At first glance it shares a lot of similarities with Quartz Composer, which on
Wikipedia is described as a node-based visual programming language.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_Composer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_Composer)

~~~
humanrebar
Also LabVIEW, albeit with much better design

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabVIEW](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabVIEW)

------
mfisher87
Flow-based programming is already common in enterprise finance. It's a large
part of my job. Enterprise fbp solutions are extremely expensive and sometimes
secretive (ex. Ab Initio), so it's interesting to see this become more
mainstream.

------
ericingram
I need a better introduction to understand how flow programming works, and how
I might use it. Instead I see a (seemingly) complex graph which I understand
represents a program, but it's not clear how this really works in relation to
text programming. I could spend hours and hours digging to figure it out, but
that could be a waste of time, so I won't do it.

I get text based programming. Find a way to quickly connect that experience
with flow programming, and conversion rate on this site will improve.

~~~
bergie
This is still beta, so we're mostly trying to reach people who already are
doing flow-based or other dataflow programming.

But agreed that we could probably explain things better! Does the description
of the concept at [http://noflojs.org/](http://noflojs.org/) work for you?

------
politician
"This program requests read and write access to all of your public repos".

Can this be scoped better? I'm willing to give access to one public repo.

~~~
bergie
Not to my understanding. You either get access to all public repos, or all
public/private repos.

If somebody knows a way to make more limited permission requests, please let
me know! I'd be more than happy to make that more granular.

[https://developer.github.com/v3/oauth/#scopes](https://developer.github.com/v3/oauth/#scopes)

~~~
Mithaldu
At least advise people to create github accounts for their flowhub activity
which they add as collaborators to their projects.

~~~
bergie
Interesting idea, even if it means having to jump through a bit more hoops
than would be ideal.

I could maybe add that to [http://flowhub.io/documentation/flowhub-
faq/](http://flowhub.io/documentation/flowhub-faq/)

Edit: here we go [http://flowhub.io/documentation/flowhub-faq/#why-does-
flowhu...](http://flowhub.io/documentation/flowhub-faq/#why-does-flowhub-need-
access-to-all-public-repos)

------
camus2
Looks great! I like the quartz composer like interface. Good luck with the
projecT.

------
Mithaldu
In Opera 12 i get only a black page on which i can scroll down a bit to more
black.

------
ulisesrmzroche
Ah, come on, you sold out already? It's not even been an hour on HN, let me in
dudes I wanna know what this is.

e: Tried example. I don't get it. It's like coding with a mindmap or
something?

~~~
bergie
The initial batch of discounted pre-orders is sold out. We'll do another batch
later this month.

------
kolev
I'm a backer, but I'm outraged with the paid plans. I'm not sure how people
design their pricing models, but often they are completely disconnected from
reality!

~~~
bergie
Well, there is also the free plan for open source and public projects. And the
UI is open source for those who really don't want to pay for the service.

[http://flowhub.io/documentation/flowhub-
faq/#paymentslicense...](http://flowhub.io/documentation/flowhub-
faq/#paymentslicenses)

------
modarts
Is this like a LabView for building web applications?

------
lechevalierd3on
I've installed the Chrome App, login and that's is all I can do. Creating a
project fails...

~~~
bergie
The issue to track is [https://github.com/noflo/noflo-
ui/issues/221](https://github.com/noflo/noflo-ui/issues/221)

------
georgedrummond
The examples are like a spaghetti code visualisation

------
feralmoan
Brilliant work guys

------
dkarapetyan
Children. Please relax. Not everything needs to be TL;DR. Feel free to do some
research on your own as well.

------
ahurmazda
Is this a joke? I am serious...

~~~
sophia44
I found this to be helpful:

[http://bergie.iki.fi/](http://bergie.iki.fi/)

~~~
samuell
And this (IMO): [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noflo/noflo-
development...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noflo/noflo-development-
environment)

