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80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

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Re: 80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

#21
post #11

Somebody’s still going to have to maintain no-code apps. If they do as much as current apps, they’ll be just as complicated as current tech. Seems like that maintenance role will be left to people with system design and debugging skills—i.e. software engineers.

Software engineers don't have a monopoly on system design and debugging skills, not by a long shot.

Re: 80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

#22
Timing is dubious but I can picture a situation in which some version of 80% (by capitalized cost e.g.) of enterprise CRM, ticketing software, ERP, etc. is configured through something you could legitimately call "low code". I think it's already the case in many places.

I also predict that it will become more and more of a bloated mess, because of lower skill people working on it "anyone can set it up easily, no coding required!" and increasing complex reinvention of the wheel that will have to come up in working around whatever limitations make it "low code" in the first place. Again, enterprise software is well down this road.

Eventually, there will be a backlash and disruption of the enterprise market from something we haven't thought of yet that is way better than what we have to put up with today.

Re: 80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

#23
When I first started building applications back in the 90’s, I did it using the only thing I could get my hands on at the time, Access 95. Many of these low-code tools just feel like a web version of that. Form builders, drag and drop, define data types, hook up queries to forms and fields to text boxes and grids. I guess I just got old enough to see the approach come full circle.

Re: 80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

#24
post #8

“ “The barrier to become a technology producer is falling due to low-code and no-code development tools,” Gartner VP Rajesh Kandaswamy told VentureBeat. When asked what kinds of tech products and services these findings apply to, he said “all of them.””

Reminds me of the exchange between Katie Couric and Sarah Palin along the same lines:

COURIC: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

PALIN: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —

COURIC: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.

PALIN: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.

COURIC: Can you name any of them?

PALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.

Re: 80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

#25
post #7

So I started my career a little bit later, but one thing I enjoy is reading about old development horror stories, it seems like all of the worst ones start with either/or 'Access Database' and 'Visual Basic'. I guess my question is it seemed like the last generation of "No more developer tools" failed, because the problem in programming isn't knowing how to code, after all it seems like pretty much anyone can figure…

It's been a long time, but as I recall there were two problems you'd run into with Access:

1. The database you're using was put together as if it were an excel spreadsheet. There was data duplicated between tables but not linked in any meaningful or consistent way, and fields that were supposed to have a fixed set of choices were terribly unnormalized. Think of a column for colors where you have grey, gray, grya, or Gray that are all intended to be the same color, but were entered by differently and wouldn't show up as the same in the reports that were generated. 2. There were real limits of the capabilities of the technology. Performance would drop for a while, but eventually you'd hit hard size limits and have to split your file into multiple "databases".

The first problem is definitely the kind of problem that you you're describing, where you have people working with a technology they aren't trained in.

Workers with these systems had long check lists they would run through to massage the report data into the form they needed, and these check lists would grow as they found more and more edge cases. I used to think it was crazy, but now I realize the alternative when these systems were built was probably post-it notes on a wall. Sure, eventually they had to have someone rebuild their system (move it to a real RDBMS), but meanwhile the business provided it's value.

Re: 80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

#26
post #6

This really depends on how you define tech... Is a static website made with SquareSpace tech? Is an excel file tech? I'd argue yes, and if so, then I'd bet that number is much higher than 80%.

So many horse and buggy makers in these comments that can’t see what you see. They think that because some SaaS app they build required so much custom login that low code won’t make a big difference in their world view.

What low code really represents is making automation more accessible for more common tasks without knowing how to develop software. Zapier but for more complex tasks.

20 years ago you had apps like Dreamweaver or Frontpage that enabled this for many people to do static sites like a square space now does dynamic ones.

Sadly though, if history is any teacher, at some point these incremental improvements will create larger low code companies and further consolidate more of the web into a few bigger providers.

Re: 80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

#27

No No No There is such a thing as software literacy just as there is a thing called literacy. We spend the first 15-20 years of life teaching literacy so that a young person will be productive in life. What makes us think it's going to be different with software? The idea of low-code is like the idea of writing a novel by cut and pasting loads of blank comic book panels carefully crafted by Marvel Studios. This job u…

Well said.

Re: 80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

#28
One thing to keep in mind about this article: Gartner's only MQ that focuses on app development is based around these "low-code" multi-experience development platforms which comprise exclusively commercial vendors rather than any open source technologies.

They simply do not have a perspective on professional engineering trends for app development, so this prediction about low-code is pretty predictable.

Re: 80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

#29
Excel Macros, and MS Access, and the various website template builders, are the best we have done so far with 'low code tooling' for the average joe.

Anything more complex, it is going to require a good degree of programing knowledge/experience.

I think the next version for low code tool, will look more like Visual Basic, for web/development, that will allow average programmers to get more things done.

But you will still need people with basic programing knowledge, regardless.

Re: 80% of tech could be built outside IT by 2024, thanks to low-code tools

#30

No No No There is such a thing as software literacy just as there is a thing called literacy. We spend the first 15-20 years of life teaching literacy so that a young person will be productive in life. What makes us think it's going to be different with software? The idea of low-code is like the idea of writing a novel by cut and pasting loads of blank comic book panels carefully crafted by Marvel Studios. This job u…

> But not dumbing down - skilling up

But, you cannot have Wall Street consolidated market winners if you do that! How dare you!

I saw this first hand growing up. The school system had a couple of programming courses a few years before I got into the high school, and then it got all new computers and magically reduced computer education to only a set of Microsoft Office courses offered.

Who needs programming? The school knew we would all only need Word and Excel at any "office job" we could possibly ever get ...

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