I read it as a "functions" ("scripts") host similar to AWS Lambda or Azure Functions with a better overall UI especially for notebook/REPL-driven development.
I've been automating a lot of tasks in multiple languages including Python with Azure Functions last few years, and I find this tool interesting to some of my use cases (though not immediately applicable because of existing cloud commitments, as such things go). I have at times thought that it would be great if I had a "Notebook view" of the Python Functions in Azure (preferably with strong git integration) to make some Data Scientist workflows easier. I've also had times where it might be nice when a cache needs to be "kicked" or a cleanup process run if I had a simple automated GUI for certain Function invocations or queue message drops that I could point a Business Analyst to.
In the first use case, I'm aware that Azure offers Notebook workspaces and there is some flow between building a test Notebook environment and then eventually migrating some of the code into a Functions app; but it is definitely not a streamlined all-in-one product and instead requires piecing together a bunch of semi-related ones and hopping back and forth between multiple different Azure resources. It also doesn't help that there seem to be fork between "general Notebook environments" and "ML Notebook environments" that seems more artificial than natural and complicates standing anything up in the first place. (Which is to say currently we aren't really using any of Azure's Notebook tools because they are too complicated and divorced from the use cases we need them. Every now and then I circle back around to explore them and the complexity just makes me angry.) This tool seems to already have some better ideas to approach that workflow and I'm curious to watch it, at the very least if it encourages Microsoft to up their game in competition with it.
As for the other use case, I know Azure Functions has almost all of the reflection metadata it needs to offer better tools here even in Python and Typescript already, but its Code/Test tool is definitely underpowered compared to the metadata it already has. It would be interesting to see if this new project provides competitive fire there.
It makes sense to me (but maybe because I'm building something similar).
You write code and they host it for you and provide a GUI around your code. It's like a crazier (in a good way) version of Kibana or Grafana or Metabase. In Kibana/Grafana/Metabase they provide a hosting platform for queries -- any queries within your internal eng team. This provides a hosting platform for scripts.
Whether or not that is exactly what they are trying to do, it's what I'm trying to do. What I wish I'd had at many prior companies.
I can't find them now while trying to search but it also reminds me of some tools I've seen that generate a GUI from a description of a tool's command line flags.
Yes for sure, I need to improve the docs! I have had issues explaining it in simple terms because it is a system that is quite obvious once you get it but confusing from a first look. I have aimed to make it consistent everywhere to reduce complexity.
Better and simpler docs will be my sole focus for the following weeks + JS/TS support.
But the step-by-step is missing the concepts of variables and resources. If you have any feedback i'd be glad to hear it. I will opensource the website EOD too.
They host "scripts" and "apps" that you can execute against "resources" (i.e. databases etc...). So basically a lightweight, online environment for running code without any deployment?
I suppose an example might be marketing has a DB of prospective customers and this would allow devs to quickly write scripts to clean it, apps to allow people to add to it and automated tasks to trigger events (eg. an email) based on certain metrics etc...
I guess it means being able to rapidly build fairly throwaway systems for internal use.
To me it looked like a low-code tool to automate "processes" like Zapier/ifttt and so on. Basically a glue between apps with a little python thrown in for transformations.
