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Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

#101
post #42

This is an imperfect analogy, but consider for a moment the role Microsoft Excel plays. Excel allows non-coders to do many useful things, and provides a relatively gentle on-ramp to actual code via formulas. If you take that on-ramp and keep going, towards VBA and add-ins and other pieces of Microsoft technology, you might wind up becoming a full-time software developer, leaving Excel behind and using “real” tools. N…

Case-in-point, there are more than a few non-software engineering firms where the entire business is a series of mind-boggling amalgamations of Excel and VBA with a healthy dose of Matlab on the side. I'm talking full applications written in VBA with Excel as the interface. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same in non-quant finance.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

#102
It's just buzzword bingo. Complexity doesn't go away, it just moves around. Thinking about user interaction, product lifecycle, collaboration, knowledge pools etc. doesn't tie in to 'code' as a one-to-one, and if you swap out code for something else those still exist.

The problem isn't code, the problem is the ability to analyse the problem, formulate requirements and design a solution. How you express that is an implementation detail at best. This is also where the problem with the marketing of those tools lies: it pretends that when you don't write code, you also don't have to do those other things.

Ultimately this is just the same balance you get everywhere else. You have operating systems, tools, interfaces, frameworks, languages etc. that all do various things. Depending on what things you need to do and how novel they are you might be able to use and re-use existing systems, and you'll be adding to the same generic pool of applications that already exist. This is where automation-of-automation shines, depending on the level of genericness.

Regarding problem solving, again, not code-related, you can solve problems in a conversation, on paper, using calculations etc. Yet any anti-code product is marketed as being able to avoid those, but that is not how problem solving works.

Now, if we bring this all together a bit I find a question popping up: is this whole thing actually solving problems that exist? It's very easy to see a 'problem' if you're working in a bad workflow. But the 'problem' that is seen then often isn't the actual problem, but just a symptom. So now we are not solving a problem but 'solving' a symptom. This happens whenever someone is set to 'fix' something but doesn't actually know how to find the problem and then find the solution.

Long-winded Example:

Joe and Bob work at different companies. They need to exchange a bunch of rows of information and they do this by exporting a database table from some web app to a CSV file and emailing that.

Joe (Source) uses some Database GUI with an 'export' button, grabs the file, puts it in an email as an attachment and sends it to Bob.

Bob (Destination) receives the email, downloads the attachment, goes to his Database GUI, uses an 'import' button, points it to the file he just downloaded and now his task is complete.

Joe and Bob won't want to constantly drag and drop CSV files, so they come up with a plan to use LowCodeNoCode Creator Studio XP Edition to automatically export the CSV, email it to a predefined email address, process the email, download the CSV, and import the CSV. From their perspective, they solved the problem! Without writing code!

From a problem's perspective: the symptom is now hidden and the problem is made worse because nobody knows how this process works, why it exists, who did what, and how to manually intervene. On top of that, the real problem still isn't solved. Even the argument that "there is no code so anyone can find out how it works" doesn't hold up because while you don't need to learn some syntax you swap that problem out with learning some tool.

The real problem is Master-Slave table replication, and if we analyse it one level deeper: messing about with a database table that is owned by an application. If you want to interact with data that is owned by an application you don't go messing about with the underlying persistence store, you use the application and if needed write an API extension that does the job. Heck, that API probably already exists in any modern application! But then you'd actually have to know how systems work, how to resolve requirements and how to come up with documentation and scoping and the foresight of future endeavours.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

#103
What do I think about no-code?

"Data" Driven Development (DDD), if you need a buzzword/acronym, is where I think about code and data in the same bucket (ie. Lisp). I can check a box to enabled something, type some text in a field to provide the i8n label and database field. Easy. Underneath somewhere, there's obviously still code, more complex code, to make all of this work.

Or, what do I think of the so-called "movement?"

As a single independent developer, I am in a bubble. I can't predict the future. I'd like to see powerful rapid development tools out there, but more and more I see a lot of locked up proprietary walled fortresses disguised as movements.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

#104
I think there's a reason this is such a recurrent theme that keeps coming up in different forms across the decades. Often people who are not developers have sensible ideas for apps/websites but do not have access to engineers who can implement them. This is especially true in enterprises.

For example the content team in a company like Doordash won't have access to engineers to help automate content creation.

But people in that team WILL have ideas around how they can automate their processes using a low-code/no-code tool.

Shameless plug - I am myself making one of these tools to help more folks DIY tools, flows & apps without making it themselves. We're here at https://getmason.io

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

#105

It's just buzzword bingo. Complexity doesn't go away, it just moves around. Thinking about user interaction, product lifecycle, collaboration, knowledge pools etc. doesn't tie in to 'code' as a one-to-one, and if you swap out code for something else those still exist. The problem isn't code, the problem is the ability to analyse the problem, formulate requirements and design a solution. How you express that is an imp…

Exactly. The code isn't the hard part. The hard part is abstract thinking and logic.

I created an email escalation notification system that was manipulated with graphics in a flow diagram. My users couldn't handle the precise logic for doing the escalation chain and always asked for help. Turns out, _that's_ what I'm good at. Logic and abstract reasoning.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

#106
Some areas of software are well-suited to solutions which require no coding. Photoshop is a great example. PowerPoint and Word are another. WordPress is another. Some of these are enhanced with code (WordPress, Excel).

Over time all software areas will have no-code options.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

#107
post #10

It's interesting, but always calibrate their claims against the fact this is about the tenth time this movement has come around. This movement literally goes back to COBOL. That is not a typo. It's not only likely older than you are, but probably much older than you are. I recognize COBOL may not seem like "no-code", but that's just because "no-code" is a stupid label. "No-code" doesn't mean "no code" just like "serv…

Things we agree on: ignore everything no-code proponents say about their tools or capabilities

Things we disagree on: code before no code

My experience has been that actual code is always superior* to no-code, because no-code is always more complex. E.g. the no-code developer environment + code (in whatever designer form) + interpreter / runtime / libraries + any integrations + actual generated code.

Consequently, business critical functions should be in actual code, if it's an option.

So where and why to use no-code?

As a prototyping tool, no-code before code, because it inverts the pyramid (few developers, many users) by making users into prototyping developers, and it makes the best use of scarce resources (code developer time).

No-code written by users allows you to waste user time figuring out all the things that are typically missing in a business spec, without wasting developer time. Then, when they've figured out exactly what they want (because it works!), developers can come back and do exactly that.

This usually involves throwing away the no-code model when coding, because it's probably not going to be architected well, but does provide a concrete, tested, proven spec.

So essentially, the company gets version 2 of the code, at the cost of 1x user time + 1x developer time. Instead of version 2 of the code, in 2x developer time, which is too expensive and never happens.

* From a TCO, maintenance and reliability standpoint

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

#108
At welovenocode.com (the biggest no-code marketplace) we discovered that during shortage of software developers, big companies (S&P 500) started to hire no-code devs instead. The ratio of code to no-code people hired was 1000:1 and now it has increased to 100:1 (by 10 times)

I think that within a couple of years, no-code will take over >30% of the software development market

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

#109
post #42

This is an imperfect analogy, but consider for a moment the role Microsoft Excel plays. Excel allows non-coders to do many useful things, and provides a relatively gentle on-ramp to actual code via formulas. If you take that on-ramp and keep going, towards VBA and add-ins and other pieces of Microsoft technology, you might wind up becoming a full-time software developer, leaving Excel behind and using “real” tools. N…

I suppose the difficult part is figuring when you've crossed the fine line from "good enough for now" to "this is becoming a monstrosity, we need to hire developers and create our own software now"

The second difficult part is when the team that built the "good enough for now" realizes that the line was crossed, that they do not have the skills to be part of the "hire developers and create our own software now" solution and then start subtly, or even openly, sabotaging every effort to move away from the Excel/VBA solution.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

#110
post #42

This is an imperfect analogy, but consider for a moment the role Microsoft Excel plays. Excel allows non-coders to do many useful things, and provides a relatively gentle on-ramp to actual code via formulas. If you take that on-ramp and keep going, towards VBA and add-ins and other pieces of Microsoft technology, you might wind up becoming a full-time software developer, leaving Excel behind and using “real” tools. N…

Excel is a great example of how “low code” or “no code” are recent buzzwords for a long continuing evolution. There have long been attempts to make software development more accessible. Some attempts stuck (Crystal Reports 1984, Excel 1987, WordPress 2003, IFTTT 2010) while others did not (HyperCard 1987, FrontPage 1995). The same will be true for the current crop of platforms.

Seems like you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain.
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