They are Getting Very Close…
The group at 280 North are getting very close to what I've been looking for in a web development framework with Atlas. The idea is essentially Interface Builder for the web. You can drag and drop components onto a window, wire things up, and it all works. Of course, it's still nib-ware, so to speak, if you want to create new objects it's going to require code, and the code required for a serious web site might still be a considerable bit of coding, but for the user interface, it's about perfect.
It's what I've wanted since Apple ditched WebObjects, and if we're lucky, Apple will give these guys a bucket of money and have them work on this as the next WebObjects front-end system. I would still love to have the back-end be Java or ObjC and be able to be written with Xcode, as that's my favorite environment, but I'd understand if it needed to be something else.
But what a deal that would be. State management in Java or ObjC and Atlas as the GUI builder. That would be an impressive bit of work. Can't wait to see where it leads.