Live data from Hacker News

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

venturebeat.com

61–70 of 230 posts

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

#61
post #55
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the developers these days tend to be integrators. The no-code tooling can help actually take that procedure to a higher abstraction where understanding of the system would still be needed but understanding of the low level details of coding can be completely eliminated. Think languages like JS or PHP. World have been built using these and many of the developers in these languages don’t have understanding on…

You don’t need to know “how computers actually work” to write code in high-level languages. Those are too abstracted away from the hardware and OS. PHP and JS are not considered low-quality languages. They are low-hanging fruit for amateurs to write low-quality software. Yes, people who don’t really know what they’re doing can make money with PHP and JS, just like people who don’t know about food, cooking, nutrition…

JS and PHP are often a joke due to their inconsistencies.

Anyway, these are also low-code languages. They are not low hanging fruits because of the syntax or the features but because of the API and boilerplate geared towards specific domain. These almost get out of the way of the people who are not fascinated by the technology itself but by the product they are building.

It’s so easy to use JS and PHP to solve a problem.

For PHP, you simply wrote your code and put in a folder in a LAMP machine and it works.

JS is even easier, you open the developer tools in your favorite browser and there you have it. Instantly start working on your idea.

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

#62
post #42

I'm the co-founder of Budibase, an open source low code platform, and 70% of our signups 30,000) are from IT. Low code abstracts a lot of the coding effort, but it's still inherently complex to build applications. The code is only one part of the puzzle. For us, it's more about speeding up the dev process for IT profs and removing the repetitive, grunt work. For ref: https://github.com/Budibase/budibase

I thought that’s what IDEs are for.

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

#63
post #39

I had a university professor with the same near term horizon stating this in 2006. If it wasn't a mandatory class I would have dropped it right then

Funny. I was told at a serious tech trends seminar in 1981 that programmers would go mostly extinct by 1984 because of automatic code generation tools. Glad I didn’t quit back then.

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

#64
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…

Visual Basic wasn't a great language as a language, but the VB application was awesome for developing GUIs for code you'd written in a better language (it was dirt-simple to call C or C++ functions from VB components).

The VB UI builder still hasn't been equaled for straightforward ease-of-use, IMO.

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

#65
post #63
post #39

I had a university professor with the same near term horizon stating this in 2006. If it wasn't a mandatory class I would have dropped it right then

Funny. I was told at a serious tech trends seminar in 1981 that programmers would go mostly extinct by 1984 because of automatic code generation tools. Glad I didn’t quit back then.

I think this is just a meme sold to CEOs for a long time. Maybe we can go further back.

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

#66
post #61
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need to know “how computers actually work” to write code in high-level languages. Those are too abstracted away from the hardware and OS. PHP and JS are not considered low-quality languages. They are low-hanging fruit for amateurs to write low-quality software. Yes, people who don’t really know what they’re doing can make money with PHP and JS, just like people who don’t know about food, cooking, nutrition…

JS and PHP are often a joke due to their inconsistencies. Anyway, these are also low-code languages. They are not low hanging fruits because of the syntax or the features but because of the API and boilerplate geared towards specific domain. These almost get out of the way of the people who are not fascinated by the technology itself but by the product they are building. It’s so easy to use JS and PHP to solve a prob…

I’m not unfamiliar with PHP and JS. Those account for about 90% of my work, and have for over a decade.

Every language has its inconsistencies. No question PHP and JS have their faults. That’s what happens when a language gets popular (i.e. actually used rather than just argued about in programmer forums) and the deployed code base grows faster than the developers can “fix” the language. Back-compatibility then imposes real constraints. This happened with C, C++, and SQL too, and every language people actually use to write code with any value. The only joke is smug programmers not getting that we can’t go back in time and fix problems obvious in hindsight unless we’re writing class assignments or hobby projects in Haskell.

I make a good living maintaining and rewriting the first drafts of PHP and JS code written by people who let a bit too much get out of their way. Usually they run into problems of scale, security, maintainability.

If you think deploying a real app that has business value amounts to dropping some PHP files in a folder you should keep my email for when that doesn’t work out. I hope the ransomware hackers don’t find your code first.

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

#67
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.””

Pure marketing spin. Is Gartner just a conduit for Silicon Valley VC money and influence?

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

#68
post #65
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. I was told at a serious tech trends seminar in 1981 that programmers would go mostly extinct by 1984 because of automatic code generation tools. Glad I didn’t quit back then.

I think this is just a meme sold to CEOs for a long time. Maybe we can go further back.

COBOL. The design goal of COBOL was literally to make professional programmers unnecessary.

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

#69
post #66
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JS and PHP are often a joke due to their inconsistencies. Anyway, these are also low-code languages. They are not low hanging fruits because of the syntax or the features but because of the API and boilerplate geared towards specific domain. These almost get out of the way of the people who are not fascinated by the technology itself but by the product they are building. It’s so easy to use JS and PHP to solve a prob…

I’m not unfamiliar with PHP and JS. Those account for about 90% of my work, and have for over a decade. Every language has its inconsistencies. No question PHP and JS have their faults. That’s what happens when a language gets popular (i.e. actually used rather than just argued about in programmer forums) and the deployed code base grows faster than the developers can “fix” the language. Back-compatibility then impos…

I don’t see why you are offended. I love JS but here it is 20min of programming jokes in the expense of JS: https://youtu.be/et8xNAc2ic8

As it comes to PHP, I don’t say that you can do everything by a single PHP file in a web server folder(actually, you can but not comfortably). I’m trying to illustrate it’s low-code nature.

There are no other languages that are that easy to start solving your problem with. Okay, maybe Python.

The newer no-code or low-code tools have the same spirit. They are abstraction layers targeting a domain.

These days there’s plenty you can do by programming visually without any knowledge of programming languages. Not everything needs to scale for throughput.

Post reply on HN