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

So third paragraph contradicts things written in the second.

Low-code tools promise to address "problem of the language" so it is easy to translate business knowledge into the tool. Keep in mind low code tool should ideally be used by domain expert, so another promise is that you don't need business analysts and developers so problems with communication or misunderstanding is removed.

Going back to second paragraph:

Good part that was noted, there were loads of spaghetti apps in Access and File maker, let alone all those Excel sheets that are still everywhere. There was no one to maintain them and low code tools don't provide enough means for maintaining complex systems.

Running and maintaining computer systems is 80% of cost for software, maybe translating it into code is hard, but debugging, fixing, adjusting, keeping operational knowledge is much more expensive.

Silly Excel file that architect Jane was using for 5 years and then she quits, you hire John while you can do knowledge transfer - it is still hit or miss just as noted in second paragraph John will be more comfortable doing his own excel from scratch than learning what Jane did.

Even with developers it is the way that everyone wants to do "greenfield" and understanding what other people wrote before in some unfamiliar system is hard work. Low code even makes it harder to understand existing stuff with their GUIs.

Whole DevOps tooling/movement grew just because of that fact, none of the "low-code" tools is addressing it.

And now I look on freelancer.com and there's still people wanting to hire "bubble developers".

I have been talking to my tech illiterate friends what they think about "easy" no-code solutions like WordPress or squarespace.

The answer is always the same. It's all far too complicated and confusing.

If I presented someone like that with bubble.io and said "here is this node graph tool to connect..." I'd have lost them at node graph and they would never, ever learn, let alone like that thing.

Apple famously drive engineers crazy with their UI philosophy of hiding everything at the cost of control or customisation. But I have a feeling it works.

I feel that for many people, tech is this confusing thing that will never not be confusing because they've learned to expect that. At least my friends in their late 20s to 30s have fought with technology all their lives to the point where I don't know if anything can remedy that preset expectation.

So long as these people exist, we as engineers and developers can keep looking at these no-code tools and marvel at how simple things have been made, but I think we have to change our expectations and realise that even the simplest still has to become simpler.

The battle of trying to teach that generation technical concepts is a very hard one, when there are companies falling over each other trying to simplify everything to the point of almost, well, zero-effort? Maybe that's the next step: low-code, then no-code (but some effort involved) and then no-code, no-effort (aka you just sit there passively while a computer reads your brain and works out everything you want)

I say all of this while I'm building a no-code website builder that's looking more and more like it'll be targeting kids, the elderly and luddites, so I've had to do some thinking around this problem space recently.

Though I do think there will still be work for programmers, there will always be some point where the business wants something that isn't supported by the tool - just wonder if those low-code tools allow for customization (e.g. plugins).