We kind of had that for a time with FileMaker and MS Access. People could build pretty amazing stuff with those apps, even without being a programmer.
I think the reason those apps never became mainstream is that they didn't have a good solution for sharing data. There were some ways you could use them to access database servers, but setting them up was so difficult that they were for all intents and purposes limited to local, single user programs.
HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL had a learning curve, but you could easily make multi-user programs with them. That's why the web won.
Yes! I used FileMaker a lot, and built my first journaling system with it. Like a cross between hypercard and a wiki. It really changed my life and this lead to programming.
I think the reason those apps never became mainstream is that they didn't have a good solution for sharing data. There were some ways you could use them to access database servers, but setting them up was so difficult that they were for all intents and purposes limited to local, single user programs.
HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL had a learning curve, but you could easily make multi-user programs with them. That's why the web won.