Ask HN: What are your thoughts on no-code tools like Microsoft's Power Automate?

#1

Post by sancarn » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 6:26 PM UTC

I am consistently frustrated with how limited these visual programming languages are. They are 100% ok, until your problem gets a tiny bit complicated. Then all hell breaks loose. You frequently have to resort to dirty/messy hacks, which ultimately makes maintainability a nightmare...

I have seen very few that have done it right... I think the team behind `enso.org` is the only ones I've seen which actually appear to have done well. Any others? What are your thoughts on these generally?

Re: Ask HN: What are your thoughts on no-code tools like Microsoft's Power Automate?

#2

Post by not_your_vase » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

Some of them make a lot of money - both for the vendors, and for the self-declared professional consultants who has spent half a day with them (looking at you, Actimize -.-)

Otherwise yeah, usually they are very limited toy languages, making even the simplest tasks painful also. At least I have yet to see one that is actually useful in the sense of a generic (or even a single-purpose-built) language.

Re: Ask HN: What are your thoughts on no-code tools like Microsoft's Power Automate?

#3

Post by dead_rubbish » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 7:15 PM UTC

I used to develop small databases and solutions in Office, many years ago, using VB. Wasn't painless but was fairly intuitive and logical once I got the basics. Recently tried doing something similar with the tools you mention. Unintuitive, very limited, requiring so many ridiculous workarounds to achieve something loads of end users would need. Really frustrating experience.

Re: Ask HN: What are your thoughts on no-code tools like Microsoft's Power Automate?

#4

Post by sancarn » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 8:14 PM UTC

not_your_vase wrote: post #2

Some of them make a lot of money - both for the vendors, and for the self-declared professional consultants who has spent half a day with them (looking at you, Actimize -.-) Otherwise yeah, usually they are very limited toy languages, making even the simplest tasks painful also. At least I have yet to see one that is actually useful in the sense of a generic (or even a single-purpose-built) language.

> At least I have yet to see one that is actually useful in the sense of a generic (or even a single-purpose-built) language

Yeah as said, https://github.com/enso-org/enso seems to be a general purpose functional programming language with visual editor, but otherwise I haven't really seen any no-code solutions worth their salt. I'm not particularly a fan of enso either, but it's the best I've seen.