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

venturebeat.com

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

#171

Post by andix »

okareaman wrote: post #145
andix wrote: post #142

Good low-code tools would be great. But you are still going to need software developers to operate them. The biggest job of software development is not just coding stuff, it is identifying the problem to solve and engineering a solution. Define a data model, think about which data is needed where, what can be done and so on. And then: properly test it! Develop tests, that confirm your stuff is actually working and sa…

I didn't read the article as saying low code was going to replace programmers. Or maybe I just assumed it, because there is going to be an ever increasing need for programmers. Low code is a good way to off-load some of the tasks and spread the work out.

I understood it in the way, that in the future non technical end users will create their own software. And I doubt that.

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

#172

Post by ID1452319 »

If I had a quid for every time during my 20+years of IT experience I've heard that code-generation, low-code, no-code was about to breakthrough, I'd have a private jet on 24-hour standby.

This bit made to laugh:

"“For instance, machine learning features for helping coding are available. One example is Microsoft’s Intellicode,” Kandaswamy told VentureBeat. “While such tools are in their infancy,"

Intellicode has been around for over a decade in Visual Studio!

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

#173

Post by foxpurple »

mywittyname wrote: post #112
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #86

I don’t even know of good standards-compliant WYSIWYGs for HTML besides maybe(?) Webflow these days, and that's proprietary. I don’t know how you’d do low-code anything today in any meaningful sense. Of all the people who care about automation, if there were good, viable low-code options, developers themselves would want to use them!

I've used a couple of those website builders you see advertised on YouTube occasionally, and they are pretty good. You can't do complicated custom web applications with them, but that's not what they are designed for. They are designed for building nice, if generic, websites quickly. Those tools are probably what killed the market for professional WYSIWYG editors.

For sure, square space and Wordpress themes cover almost every case things like dream weaver cover. And then you get mobile support for free which I can’t even imagine how the wysiwyg editors handle.

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

#174

Post by jacquesm »

jka wrote: post #159
jacquesm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've looked at a whole bunch of low code tools in the last two years and my opinion has shifted from high grade bullshit sold by the clueless to the even more clueless ('Now: coding for managers') to where I believe that the current crop of low code/no code platforms has something real to offer and has staying power for some use cases. Specifically: lots of forms based processing backed by relational DBs with occasio…

As someone still in the skeptic camp: what's a good example of a small, effective application that one of those products could help someone to build?

One example I've seen up close that was quite impressive was workflow automation in an insurance company. Frequent changes to business models, legislation and customer requirements made flexibility the main driver of their development and the people with the most knowledge were able to directly modify the application.

It wasn't even small, it was quite complex, replaced a very large number of spreadsheets and worked - and works - to satisfaction of all participants. Getting that same system built using regular tooling and processes would have cost that company a large multiple and would not have been nearly as flexible.

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

#175

Post by foxpurple »

midasz wrote: post #137

Honestly? I hope so. Problems that can be solved by 'low-code tools' are boring. There will always be more difficult problems to solve that fall outside of the basic use cases (e.g. CRUD / forms) and I'd rather be working on those. 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-c…

For crud and form apps there are tools that will generate forms from just a schema. Problem is auto generated forms aren’t the most friendly and they can’t have advanced logic behind them. It’s essentially just more structured spreadsheets.

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

#176

Post by thom »

MathYouF wrote: post #99
thom wrote: post #37

There seems to be a wave of no code hype, much of it coming from the VC community, and I’m baffled as to what has happened to convince people it’s going to work this time. Is there some breakthrough tool I’m not aware of? Or is it just like this article, a bunch of pitch decks saying “if we can take just 80% of the tech market we’ll be zillionaires”?

I believe GPT-3 being able to convert descriptions of functions or designs into semi-functional code is what has some excited. It's certainly the strongest argument and reason to hope it could be different this time that I know of. I'm skeptical but come from a generative AI background so I wouldn't underestimate it will be able to do things previously unaccomplished by making templates in the past.

I had not put these two things together, thank you.

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

#177

Post by jacquesm »

ozim wrote: post #144
jacquesm wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there are countless examples of this. But even so: there is a vast number of applications out there that are more complex than 'excel' and much simpler than 'bespoke software', and that niche is widening as these platforms become more capable.

I don't see it that way. In the moment that you want to have multiple users working on the same Excel/Dataset and changing formulas/calculations/rules it is basically bespoke software. Well good luck changing stuff by each employee on their own. Because there will be appointed one employee who will be making changes for that and as such "Excel" grows he will end up not working on whatever he was expert for but on mai…

> I don't see it that way

> In the end I am biased because I am a dev

I agree :)

Unbounded flexibility for one party spells 'nightmare' for another... as with every other tool: use where applicable and don't try to stretch it too much to solve something it wasn't intended for and you'll be fine. Your job is not at risk from low/no code tools. It will simply open up a different class of problems to an intermediate level of automation.

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

#180

Post by dagw »

jka wrote: post #159
jacquesm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've looked at a whole bunch of low code tools in the last two years and my opinion has shifted from high grade bullshit sold by the clueless to the even more clueless ('Now: coding for managers') to where I believe that the current crop of low code/no code platforms has something real to offer and has staying power for some use cases. Specifically: lots of forms based processing backed by relational DBs with occasio…

As someone still in the skeptic camp: what's a good example of a small, effective application that one of those products could help someone to build?

Do ETL[1] and data analysis applications count? There are several pretty good visual ETL and data analysis tools around that let non-coders write pretty advanced and useful processes. Personally, I consider FME (www.safe.com) one of the greatest pieces of productivity enhancing software I've ever used.

That being said, as someone who works with those sorts tools, the quality of the solutions programmers can come up with using those tools tend to far outshines the quality of the solution non-programmers make. There is something about the computational and algorithmic way of thinking that programming teaches that most people who haven't learned how to program have a hard time wrapping their heads around.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extract,_transform,_load

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