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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?

#241

Post by Hjfrf »

ROARosen wrote: post #20
mb22 wrote: post #12

I am an engineer with 20+ years of hands on keyboard, I've got projects that are now part of Apache, 1000's of stars on github. I've been CTO at a number of startups that have got significant funding. My point is to establish some credibility. I probably still suck. Having said that, I have been working with Microsoft PowerAutomate for the past 1.5 years and while it has saved a lot of time and been overall a good ex…

> I wish I could just "drop into code" to get something done. Since you're using PowerPlatform you can prob easily do that with Microsoft's Power FX, built - I believe - especially for this. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/power-fx/ove...

I'm confused about the intended audience.

Power FX has a level of abstraction squeezed between MS's other options (excel formulae,power query M/DAX, Powershell, C#).

It gives the impression of a pet project rather than something users actually asked for.

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

#242

Post by jrochkind1 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #164
ethbr0 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 used to think this as well, that No Code was not a real development to production level option. I have very much been proven wrong. I transition recently from 15+ years as a developer to contracting for a no code platform. Virtually everything a regular web dev can do in code can be done in no code. Sometimes its easier to do in code and sometimes it is much easier to do in no code so mileage may vary but no code i…

> no code is very much a mature technology now

How is "no code" a technology? Aren't there a variety of "no code" technologies?

I'd be interested to hear which ones you are seeing that can produce applications similar to ordinary software development! Like... it's probably not WordPress or SharePoint.

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

#243

Post by tejtm »

andrewstuart wrote: post #130
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…

COBOL is code - it's not nocode.

Have you met assembly?

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

#244

Post by niark »

In my experience, these tools have another - counter intuitive and often overlooked - strength. Their limitations.

You want to handle this very specific edge case? With code, there is certainly a way to do this. It may take days, it may add unreasonable complexity. Nevertheless, someone (yourself?) will ask that this kinda insignificant edge case is properly handled. And won’t take no for an answer.

With a (too) limited « no code » tool, maybe there really is no way to handle the edge case (or it would require code in a context that forbids it). Management (or yourself!) has no way to make someone fix this, and can just give up. Soon enough, there is no problem. Finally, you can live with the unhandled edge case! Ok, you’ll just brief users. Ok they’ll learn by themselves that they shouldn’t do this.

So sometimes, « no code » tools can’t solve a problem. Then the problem simply disappear. It helps with finding a 80-20, something good enough. Everyone can be focused on more important stuff.

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

#245

Post by booleandilemma »

I think this particular paradigm shift happens every 15 to 20 years :)

Even in the event of a perfect “no code” era, i.e. a future where we speak to the computer and tell it what we want it to do, we’d still have programmers. They just would be doing the job very differently. Maybe we wouldn’t even call them programmers at that point. But the job would be there.

Complexity will never go away and you’ll always need someone to manage it. That’s life, that’s reality.

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

#246

Post by jrochkind1 »

jrm4 wrote: post #147
jl6 wrote: 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…

It's a perfect analogy. Don't sell yourself short. Look, the following things are true. 1) This industry absolutely has the capability create more tools like Excel that are both extremely empowering and orders of magnitude easier than what we think of as coding. 2) Unfortunately, there's a strong, likely frequently subconscious, incentive to definitely not do this, since it carries a strong danger of IT making itself…

I would think the incentive to make a bazillion dollars if you did this sucessfully would outweigh your purported frequently subconscious disincentive.

Plus there are other people in this comments thread saying they are working for companies that are (they claim) doing so. Not to mention all the past attempts to do so over the past 40 years. Is the idea that those companies are intentionally not doing it as well as they could, because of their allegience to not making the field of IT obsolete?

The idea that we collectively could easily be making software construction toolkits for non-programmers that would make "IT obsolete", it's an easy problem, but we just choose not to... is a conspiracy theory.

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

#247

Post by dudeman13 »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #113
nodejs_rulez_1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am an engineer with 20+ years of hands on keyboard, I've got projects that are now part of Apache, 1000's of stars on github. I've been CTO at a number of startups that have got significant funding. My point is to establish some credibility. I probably still suck. More about being in a right place at a right time, but granted. > Having said that, I have been working with Microsoft PowerAutomate for the past 1.5 y…

Why are you trying to diminish his accomplishments? Does that make you feel better, to try to bring someone down? You come off as bitter and unaccomplished and this site could use less of people like you.

Humble-bragging either works real well or backfires real hard.

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

#250

Post by jlarocco »

I think it's great to see the commoditization of solved problems.

On the other hand, I'm not surprised to see developers hating on the idea because our industry has spent decades telling everybody these are difficult problems and they need to hire experts to help solve them.

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