https://plasmic.app experimented with bringing together design+code in this way, but we found it didn't take hold outside of small visual tweaks. We ended up taking a different approach to this specific problem - letting you build screens out of React components from your codebase (and have the screens rendered back into your app). This has worked out much better for us, as the surface area for coordination between the developer and non-developer is much narrower and less brittle as a workflow (and at the same time doesn't put an IDE in front of the non-developer).
How many engineers would prefer fumbling through Figma output instead of just writing it themselves?
I guess the answer to that depends on the quality of the Figma output, which is probably measured in maintainability?
Regarding some kind of a mash with Figma - even though we are looking at some possible ways of better synch between the tools in the future, the short answer is ‘not yet’. Even though design tools’ capabilities are getting highly advanced, they still have (and probably always have) unbridged gaps from real front-end development concerns, as you describe here. You can obviously keep Figma in your process while still working with Codux, but we’re here to help you build & maintain front-end code visually, in collaboration with designers, but on top of the real thing.
I really like this. I think some folks have correctly identified that it may be incorrectly used (my opinion) as a low-code editor. It very well could be however I see it living in a different space:
There has long been attempts at getting tools like Figma to produce assets that work with engineers. What I haven't seen until Codux is a tool that takes my work as an engineer and (mostly) correctly makes it editable and "design ready" for designers.
Thats the niche I see this living in, and is one I'd like to use it for, is to take the React components created for our design system and give designers the ability to run with it to create mock ups etc. This would cut alot of translation overhead and boilerplate significantly while keeping design and engineering on the same "page" because it reflects the changes correctly based on the source and available props, bringing things closer to usable.