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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?

#31

Post by nodejs_rulez_1 »

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 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 years and while it has saved a lot of time and been overall a good experience, there are times when the no code/low code gets in the way and I wish I could just "drop into code" to get something done. Examples are things like data validation. This technology is not going to replace coding, the paradigm shift is really happening for people in the marketing and sales operations parts of the business. For these folks, this tech is life changing. In a lot of ways, this tech felt like when you try a new framework in your language of choice; at first it's super easy and you get hyped, and then you hit a requirement where the nocode/lowcode environment really gets in the way.

I think higher-level languages with a dual code-graphic representation and a possibility to drop into lower level are an interesting option, but even that is not new - Unreal/Unity3D etc.

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

#32

Post by hermitcrab »

Visual no-code/low-code tools have been around for decades. They can work really well when they are aimed at a manageable sized domain (e.g. data wrangling). They tend to fail badly when the try to be a replacement for a general purpose programming language.

I think a lot of the problem is the endless hype and over-promising by marketing and sales people.

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

#33

Post by dagw »

vavooom wrote: post #14

Platforms like Alteryx ( https://www.alteryx.com/ ) used for large data cleaning strike me as a strange stop gap between a clunky system like Excel (which has its natural 1 million row limit) and Python/R/SQL that are full OOP and are likely considered too hard to learn for many business professionals. And yet watching people using the platform looks tortuous! Why not invest in an often free application that you can…

I'm a decent programmer and I use an expensive, no-code application called FME for data cleaning/analysis/exploration/transformation etc. almost all the time. While I'm certainly capable doing basically everything I do in FME using Python, I am far more productive using FME. With FME I can knock together something in 10-15 minutes that would take me hours to do in Python.

That being said, one feature of FME that I do use a lot is that at any point you can drop in a PythonCaller which lets you execute arbitrary python code on your data. Invaluable for the last 5-10% which cannot easily be done using the "no code" approach

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

#34

Post by Alex_Bell »

nicebill8 wrote: post #25

As a programmer, I've got a love for code but I have to accept that this is going to be the future for 90% of consumer-facing apps. The most common abstractions for the most common use-cases are already built and they're going to stay that way in my opinion. Once the "hard thinking" work is done building these abstractions, it's just a matter of connecting the dots to bring a product to market in . While there's been…

""" I think in a few years (decades?), "developer" and "programmer" will mean something very different that they do today.""" Hello. Your opinion is very interesting. And can you tell your version of this in more detail.

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

#35

Post by nisegami »

I propose the following statements:

1. Reducing complexity by reducing capability/power is easy. 2. Moving complexity from one form to another is easy.

The biggest issue is that these limitations are not well understood by the end users of these products. Inevitably, they want something that the product didn't account for and have to grapple either with the complexity inherent in doing it or come to terms with not being able to do it.

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

#36

Post by coding123 »

I've been waiting for a (popular) low-code movement to hit the backend. Right now we still seem to start every project with - auth,connections,server, etc..

Something like https://github.com/oshalygin/gqlgen-pg-todo-example but easier and more tied into everything already.

Effectively instead of hand coding up the stack, there would be this server that you install and you get auth (implying a user model), GQL, and all you have to do is make the database and define a special file that tells the DB what is viewable or restricted and how that connects to the user.

The package would be 100% open source but would have like modules you could enable to connect it to auth0 (or others) or use a pre-created schema.

That's the stuff that should have been turned to low code by now and I still don't see much progress.

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

#37

Post by markus_zhang »

I don't like the idea, not because it doesn't work. It might, but in the mean time I lose ownership to my own code and tools. My code and tools might be shit, but at least they are well documented and I know how shit works. I prefer to play with my own shit than someone else's, if possible.

You may ask why then I don't write my own OS/IDE/Database/etc., well I'd love to but sadly I don't have the skills. I only do things within the boundary of my skills.

Sorry, ownership is No.1 issue for me.

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

#38

Post by meheleventyone »

It's weird from the perspective of game development because it's so obvious. A lot of time is spent on development tools because making a modern game is a very complex undertaking that is highly data-driven. A large amount of game tools are #nocode not because it's a movement but because it's useful. A classic example is level design tools that are much more about spatial design with some coupling between entities in a game. Non-programmers can get really far and build some surprising diverse things with simple primitives.

As an example our Art Director built this without any programmer assistance or writing a line of code. Just taking a basic multiplayer FPS game then grabbing components we had already made and jamming them together to get parts working: https://twitter.com/voxeleus/status/1437754413813207047/vide...

You can further see this in many creative games or games with modding tools where players put together complex behavior without using a line of code. Right up to things like Minecraft Redstone which is really an esoteric, spatial programming language. But crucially doesn't feel much like programming at all.

I think there's a lot to be taken from the game space for people trying to build no-code tools. Particularly in that you're not trying to remove a programmer but empower non-programmers in ways that suit them.

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

#39

Post by Stranger43 »

The first successful no-code platform(VisiCalc) came out in 1979 so calling it a new movement or innovation is just people being ignorant about the past.

In essence this is an old Idea that have been on the cusp of making the professional application developer obsolete since COBOL was invented back in 1959.

There is a cyclic nature to this and at i don't see any real difference in this generation of tools then something like SAP ABAP in that it will not also develop into a new sub-specialization that Leeds to an increase in the need for full time programmers.

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

#40

Post by ineedasername »

Seems okay to me, it's just one more layer of abstraction higher up the chain.

The organizational problem is controlling ad hoc app proliferation by non development units and thereby creating unsupported shadow systems. So, when used by dev teams I see no problem, but usage by operational units should be highly policed.

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