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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?

#151

Post by zemo »

I think people want "no-code" solutions because they're intimidated by code. I think they're intimidated by code because they're intimidated by programming culture. If a large number of people outside of programming are intimidated by programming culture then it is by definition intimidating.

If programming was instead seen to be a welcoming, warm, and supportive culture, I don't think no-code would have very much persuasive power. The effectiveness of no-code as a brand should cause more people in programming to pause and consider the fact that the value proposition is not having to deal with programmers. People literally sell products on the basis of not having to interact with our community. That should cause us great concern about the health of our community and should trigger introspection.

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

#152

Post by avereveard »

They're not wrong, but they don't solve anything hard either, so they'll find that there's little value to extract from no code tooling.

They live in a difficult bracket to find offering customers in: medium+ projects have most of their complexity in making the business domain model and understanding it's intricacies, well before you attempt to make a computer understand them; no code tooling only cover the latter. Small- projects live comfortably in Excel sheets, as scary as that sound for the reading cohort, it appears evident that a lot of the no code market is already captured by that, and they're not offering anything to challenge the dominant player in the space.

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

#153

Post by scrubs »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #121

Maybe ask some of these people: 1 hour before you Ask HN: Do you like the term 'nocode'? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29187754 2 days ago Ask HN: No Code GUI Tools? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29160858 3 months ago Ask HN: Is there any future for low-code/no-code development? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28150056 4 months ago Ask HN: Anyone built a business with no-code tools? https://news.yc…

Ouch! Ok, somebody came ready to rock-n-roll on questions. Originally I read, for example, "4 months ago" instead as "4 months before asking HN [see link here]" as in don't ask answered questions!

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

#155

Post by kemiller »

My observation from running a consulting business is that there's a gap in the market that I have not seen meaningfully solved. On the one hand are these no-code tools where you can do something reasonable in a very limited domain. Wix, Squarespace, etc. Every decade the limited domain expands a bit, and you can get something serviceable for your hobby or small business fairly cheaply, in the order of $10s or $100s, maybe a couple thousand.

On the other hand, is full scale development, either in-house or outsourced. This is only doable for projects that are ~$50k and up, even if you go with cheap offshore developers.

So there's this gap from ~$5000 to $50,000 where if that's all you can afford, you just can't justify the project. In theory that's where the "low code" tools should fit, but so far, I have never seen it work out like that.

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

#157

Post by mdpye »

ethbr0 wrote: post #107
jerf wrote: 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, bu…

I suspect you are talking at cross purposes. You are suggesting no-code first on a micro timescale. For prototyping. That seems like a solid suggestion and use of resources.

But from the GP, I read a statement on the macro scale. No-code can't codify turn-key pluggable building blocks until the problem spaces of those blocks have been thoroughly explored by code solutions, and a small number of "winning" configurations identified.

Sure, those blocks can be plugged together to prototype "novel" line of business "problems", but I think there's a disconnect in the kind of problem spaces you are talking about.

The "solved" problems that the no-code widgets represent still need to be solved by code first. And expectations continue to move.

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

#158

Post by wonderwonder »

I have been a software engineer for a long time, C++ for the first half, and web development for the second. Recently I took a job as a contract developer for a large no code company. I had no idea what to expect and thought I was going to be limited to creating toy UI apps. I have been blown away at what I can accomplish in this platform. Virtually anything that can be done by a software engineer via languages like PHP (with some very definite exceptions / limits of course), Javascript, etc. can be done via the no code platform. Integrating with virtually any API takes seconds and they dont have to be pre built, I can essentially take any open api endpoint and get and send data to in in a minute (after I understand the API parameters, etc.) SSO integration, Parsing JSONS, complex data filtering, database queries, creating forms, saving data, creating work flow processes, relatively complex server side calculations, you name it, it can be done. It allows for the use of excel and lodash functions as well against data although that is pushing the "No Code" concept, Essentially anything I have done in my prior web development work, I can do on this platform. Some things take a little figuring out and there are some lengthy chaining of components but it works. No code is not a toy anymore, it is a legit technology and while it definitely takes some engineer level thinking sometimes, it very much works.

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

#159

Post by vaughan »

I think coding and no-coding should eventually converge.

Software development has become far too complex without the right sensible abstractions keeping things under control.

Every developer would probably want an Airtable control to drop into their app, that they can use to build up their schema and then add custom functionality. But there isn’t one. I think mostly because there were too many technologies coming along at such a rapid pace that integrating became difficult because everyone is using a different tech stack and changing tech stacks all the time. And there are new libraries to do everything. E.g. No one uses Redux anymore. Graphql came along. Everyone is back on SQL. And what’s next?

The pace of tech needs to settle down and then we can build some solid reusable libraries that do the same thing as no code tools.

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

#160

Post by rizz0 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #107
jerf wrote: 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, bu…

>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.

Not sure why, but in my experience the difference has been closer to 1x user time + 1x developer time 4x developer time.

I believe empowering a customer to think along — be pushed to their limits, even — within the boundaries of a system's technical/business domain _from the very start_ is likely to dramatically improve a system's design.

From a technical perspective it may not be architected well, but in terms of user business fit it probably will be.

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