@DanCopKac wrote:
Is that a factual statement though, really? That Experience Builder is not intended to be feature complete? And so we should regard it as such?
I want to be careful. Because Experience builder solves some things, it introduces some new considerations, but you used the word 'intended', I didn't mean to imply that it was intended, but I have seen enough traffic in the community that suggests in the eyes of many of the users, It still lacks some things compared to the predecessor. I have seen people suggest it was released and switched to before it was 'complete', but complete is a nebulous term in software. (in other words, it often depends on who is talking, what they mean) New features can be added all the time, and though EXB is the a replacement for WAB provided by ESRI, as you described its not an apples to apples comparison in all facets.
I think its good enough for a lot of things, I would hesitate to suggest it doesn't have more that needs added to it, not just because GIS software in general has a lot of areas it covers, and because software is never a fixed target, its always moving.
I don't work for ESRI, so I can't tell you what but they have said. I'm a little new to the community of EXB, but when I read some of the community traffic since it was first introduced, and compare it to what's been going on in other nodeJS spaces (namely React and Next.JS) There are a lot of similarities, though I'd suggest EXB is a bit behind both.
I honestly don't know that lifespan, for a software used to build web interactions, the way EXB does, can really be compared to the life span of other off the shelf software (say Microsoft Office for example)
Unless react gets retired as a primary component, I see no reason EXB can't continue to grow for another 20 years, frankly. (Note that the .Net Framework has been around since early 2002, and is still going pretty strong 22 years later.
Now as to the ETL mention. UI often suffers because of what happens beneath it, as a Software engineer and developer for 20+ years, I can attest to that. In my little bit of time using EXB, and querying in layers, It doesn't take much for me to imagine situations where the browsers in which they run, can tip over. Some of that is preventable in the custom code world though.
In all my time developing software, whether its for desktop, the web, or running inside a platform like ArcGIS, one constant remains. People who rely on its use, but do not have the skills to build it, often expect things that have not been thought of to include yet. The amount of buzz word seeking and assumptions drawn by those who decide what software to license are not always as informed technically because in many organizations the leadership is not as technical as the people they oversee. (That isn't always the case, but even if they are, the people they report to often are.)
Not sure how this helps your question. It's frustrating when someone you do work for, doesn't seem to understand what it takes to do the work they ask for.
