In a lot of ways, my ideal product would be a HyperCard / Excel combo that could output Java (or some other source code).

Something close to that was tried in Microsoft when I was there 1996-2000. It was extraordinarily hard to keep the visual forms designer and the output code in sync, especially when users tried to edit the code.

I don't think it needs to return trip for it to be useful. Most of the value is allowing programmers to get the business logic that expert users generate.

It’s really, really hard to explain that to users when they see what looks to be editable serialized code for forms.

I was thinking a file export, not something the user would deal with. They get their nice HyperTalk with Excel functions.