Comment by angst_ridden

What I miss is the ability to throw together a simple stand-alone (denormalized) relational database application in minutes. When Uncle Roy wanted something to track his LPs and search them by artist, musician, whatever, it was literally just an hour from concept to sending him a stack he could use. Same when Mom wanted a recipe database she could search by ingredient. Could I build them a web app today? Of course! And the database would be properly 3rd normal form and all that. But it would take a many hours, it would not be stand-alone (I’d need to host it somewhere for them), and they couldn’t change it to meet their needs. There are a lot of “toy” standalone database applications that people would like to have, but the barrier to creating them means they don’t get built. I miss the ability to throw together something with very little effort. (Of course, modern expectations are higher too. A standalone desktop app user will also want a phone version with database sync. Now we’re talking about a much more substantial technical problem.)