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The “No Code” Delusion

alexhudson.com

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Re: The “No Code” Delusion

#51

Post by pklee »

swalsh wrote: post #26

I've spent a long time trying to build "No Code" solutions. Probably 3 different products, 3 different companies. But once, I tried something different. I pushed back, instead I proposed we build a domain specific language using Ruby. I already had some trust with my boss... and he was pretty convinced it was going to fail, he had zero faith these smart (but non-technical) users could successfully use it. But he was…

That is really cool. How did you go about designing the language. Did you go for a full lexer and parser ? or it was more functional. Curious to understand how you built it.

Re: The “No Code” Delusion

#52

Post by logicIsTruth »

mmerlin wrote: post #4

"Low Code" is currently where it's at. Intelligent subject-matter experts who are non-programmers can build 80 to 90% of their business info capture and reporting requirements inside the walled garden of their chosen platform. Programmers are called in temporarily to complete the final 10 to 20% of the LowCode app, and integrate with external services. It's been happening since Excel, through to Wordpress and nowaday…

What do you mean Excel? The formulas? VBA is a full blown language.

WordPress is great for low code.

I did my html and in an hour had it working with WordPress.

Re: The “No Code” Delusion

#53

Post by q3k »

ckuehne wrote: post #47
q3k wrote: post #9

This delusion is especially visible in the DevOps space. For some reason we have decided as an industry that instead of writing some code in whatever 'real' language we will base operational work on YAML with ad-hoc templating and stringly-typed programming constructs. The main culprits are Ansible/Salt and all the string-templating based tools for Kubernetes (Helm/Kustomize/...). Especially with tools like Helm I be…

This sounds a lot like the "We do everything with XML now"-phase that the Java world has gone through.

Agreed, this is a very strong parallel.

Re: The “No Code” Delusion

#54

Post by cm2012 »

As a marketer, I always look for no code solutions first. API integrations? Use Zapier. Email form integration? Sumo or similar. Triggers? Google tag manager. Etc. The reason being that the dev team at any company never has time for new projects.

Re: The “No Code” Delusion

#55

Post by detaro »

swalsh wrote: post #26

I've spent a long time trying to build "No Code" solutions. Probably 3 different products, 3 different companies. But once, I tried something different. I pushed back, instead I proposed we build a domain specific language using Ruby. I already had some trust with my boss... and he was pretty convinced it was going to fail, he had zero faith these smart (but non-technical) users could successfully use it. But he was…

Did you do anything special presentation/interface-wise?

My impression is that a good part of it for many is not making them realize that they are "programming" until they've already accepted that they can do it, because otherwise they "know" that it is too difficult.

Re: The “No Code” Delusion

#56

Post by hyperpallium »

"The last one" avoided the need to code back in 81 https://wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_One_(software) and no one has coded since.

But abstractions and declarative languages have their place. Consider relational algebra and SQL, and all the little declarative languages within other languages, like regular expressions, printf/scanf format strings, even char escape sequences.

But these require a lot of thought and talent to up with, and to design (e.g. codd didn't design SQL). Whereas TFA is talking about whole languages, and designed ad hoc.

Re: The “No Code” Delusion

#57

Post by _pmf_ »

emilecantin wrote: post #13

I read somewhere a quote that stuck with me: "No tool is ever going to free us from the burden of clarifying our ideas." And that's how I view my job as a software developer: clarifying ideas. Any "No Code" tool is still going to either force you to clarify your ideas, or have a large amount of assumptions. "Idea People" and "Business" don't like that, so they'll probably end up delegating the use of "No Code" tools…

Stateflow enables better communication with domain experts at automotive OEMs than any other formal or non formal specification language I know. So I'd count this as "plus No Code".

Re: The “No Code” Delusion

#58

Post by nslindtner »

The quote that sticks with me is "New Blocks means new builders".

I'm pretty sure this new 'movement' will gain a lot of steam. Probally mostly because of the 'no developer'-dreams.

But the most value I find, is when working with very structured people - who understand data AND LOGIC - but doesn't know how to code. They do not have to write a spec, but can instead make a working prototype pretty quickly.

I actually think the biggest change from earlier on, is that the 'No-Code' doesn't seems to be a dead-end. As it has been earlier.

If you grow out of the No-Code tools, it possible to replace parts of the No-Code expirience using microservices and serverless.

Re: The “No Code” Delusion

#59

Post by physicles »

arethuza wrote: post #17
mikece wrote: post #12

I've been hearing about "no code" or "no programmer required" business solutions for over 20 years. Cynically, I encourage this thinking because my billable rate to untangle someone else's hot mess when urgent deadlines are looming goes up. Practically speaking, if the business problems being solved are complex you might be able to pull off a low-code solution but without knowledge and practice of the essential archi…

I'm actually quite fond of some "no/low code" tools but there is a threshold of complexity beyond which if you use them then terrible abominations will result that are far more complex then the equivalent code and actually require more technical expertise then 'code' - so you end up with components that only a skilled developer can maintain in a platform that developers will hate.

I’ve dealt with a few of these too, and the point at which you should just give up and switch to python/bash/anything always comes sooner than you think.

By the way, this is an anti-pattern known as a Turing tarpit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_tarpit

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