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

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

#201

Post by lazypenguin » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:04 PM UTC

Folcon wrote: post #199

lolive wrote: post #150

2016: - Some day, we won't even need coders any more. We'll be able to just write the specification and the program will write itself. - Oh wow, you're right! We'll be able to write a comprehensive and precise spec and bam, we won't need programmers any more. - Exactly - And do you know the industry term for a project specification that is comprehensive and precise enough to generate a program? - Uh... no... - Code,…

This may not be a popular opinion, but I can't help but think that though the claims are a bit grandiose the fundamental thesis statement is true? IE: Each generation sees a "simpler" toolset being made available which opens up programming to a wider audience. If assembly was still the only way to program we would have fewer programmers, same with C, or dynamic languages. Javascript and the web opened up programming…

I agree, the more code spreads and becomes accessible the more programmers are needed. I believe no-code/low-code will grow but it won’t eliminate programmers, it will just create a new strata. I think the new challenge will be to distinguish between all the different types of programmers in a meaningful way. How do you classify the business analyst who codes using visual languages vs. the data scientist scripting python vs. the javascript web developer vs. c++ systems developer vs. embedded developer, etc.”Programmer” - “software engineer” are starting to become too non-specific.

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

#202

Post by tyingq » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:08 PM UTC

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?

In a lot of cases, end users are just providing a replacement for things they did manually, and badly, with emails, spreadsheets, and attachments.

The most common pattern I see implemented is a request, tracking, and approval flow. For things like time off, or borrowing equipment, or volunteering for some duty, etc.

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

#203

Post by odyssey7 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:15 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #109

cardosof wrote: post #91

It's been around 8 years since this happened: I started learning R and a Gartner consultant told me I was wasting my time because, "as Gartner puts it", the future of data science is citizen data scientists with very little coding skills because the tools and frameworks will do all the heavy lifting. I ignored him because I liked the language anyway. I guess every now and then someone will try to sell a tool to "buil…

If someone can build a low/no-code product, then the barrier to entry is so astonishingly low and there will be a ton of competition for that product. Another consideration is that these low/no-code products almost always cost money. So not only will the market be flooded with clones, rent-seeking from the provider will eat into margins. Much like the cloud is someone else's computer; SaaS is someone else's programme…

The “someone else’s programmer” metaphor isn’t totally accurate, because of a key difference between cloud vendors and no/low-code vendors.

To support more customers, a cloud vendor needs to have linearly more computers. A no/low-code vendor, on the other hand, does not need to have linearly more programmers.

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

#204

Post by tyingq » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:16 PM UTC

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”?

"No code" opens up more purchases direct from the business groups at a company, rather than through a bureaucratic IT department. I am not surprised that it's being pushed hard.

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

#205

Post by mark_l_watson » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 12:51 PM UTC

About thirty years ago, I went out of my way to stop my company from acquiring another company whose only product was a low-code Motif (as in X Window) code generator. My boss’s boss was very much for the acquisition, and it almost ruined our friendship when I had a long talk with his boss and put a stop to it.

I now have to admit that I more or less agree with this article. I see so much wasted effort in not enabling subject matter experts with tools that would allow them to build systems that might be good enough to just use and maintain as-as, or prove value propositions that trigger expensive conventional development efforts.

I just bought the domain low-code-AI.com that will probably be home to prototypes I have for data prep and deep learning, and simplifying working with internal knowledge graphs (the two things that I have mostly worked in in the last ten years).

I like the comment in the article that application development is becoming a team sport, and not just done by a separate IT department. Much of the real value in corporations is in subject matter experts who believe in the company and nerd-out over the minutiae of running the company. I tend to view software developers as high paid fungible workers, somewhat easier to replace than SMEs.

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

#206

Post by krageon » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #170

collyw wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an assumption that code syntax is the difficult part about building applications.

For many people this is true.

Perhaps this is a cultural thing, but I'm comfortable saying I've taught at least 250 people to code and absolutely 0 of them were capable of programming right when they had learned just the syntax. For most of those students the difficult part was structured thinking without deviation and carefully stepping through their own code mentally to figure out if they were going to write something that made semantic sense.

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

#207

Post by duped » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

Folcon wrote: post #199

lolive wrote: post #150

2016: - Some day, we won't even need coders any more. We'll be able to just write the specification and the program will write itself. - Oh wow, you're right! We'll be able to write a comprehensive and precise spec and bam, we won't need programmers any more. - Exactly - And do you know the industry term for a project specification that is comprehensive and precise enough to generate a program? - Uh... no... - Code,…

This may not be a popular opinion, but I can't help but think that though the claims are a bit grandiose the fundamental thesis statement is true? IE: Each generation sees a "simpler" toolset being made available which opens up programming to a wider audience. If assembly was still the only way to program we would have fewer programmers, same with C, or dynamic languages. Javascript and the web opened up programming…

Compilers may get better but business logic rarely gets simpler and specs rarely more refined

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

#208

Post by scsilver » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

duped wrote: post #207

Folcon wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may not be a popular opinion, but I can't help but think that though the claims are a bit grandiose the fundamental thesis statement is true? IE: Each generation sees a "simpler" toolset being made available which opens up programming to a wider audience. If assembly was still the only way to program we would have fewer programmers, same with C, or dynamic languages. Javascript and the web opened up programming…

Compilers may get better but business logic rarely gets simpler and specs rarely more refined

Sure, but if you dont have to translate requirements and a end user can build their own solution, you save alot of overhead.

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

#209

Post by midrus » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

Folcon wrote: post #199

lolive wrote: post #150

2016: - Some day, we won't even need coders any more. We'll be able to just write the specification and the program will write itself. - Oh wow, you're right! We'll be able to write a comprehensive and precise spec and bam, we won't need programmers any more. - Exactly - And do you know the industry term for a project specification that is comprehensive and precise enough to generate a program? - Uh... no... - Code,…

This may not be a popular opinion, but I can't help but think that though the claims are a bit grandiose the fundamental thesis statement is true? IE: Each generation sees a "simpler" toolset being made available which opens up programming to a wider audience. If assembly was still the only way to program we would have fewer programmers, same with C, or dynamic languages. Javascript and the web opened up programming…

> IE: Each generation sees a "simpler" toolset being made available which opens up programming to a wider audience.

Nope.

---

A frontend developer.

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

#210

Post by lasereyes136 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

There are some really good low-code tools. For the most part programmers and IT professionals will use them. We have scene this before, look at the history of Visual Basic for direct comparisons.

Low-code is here to stay. Most business programming should be done outside of IT. Not because programmers will not do it but in order to have better alignment with the business. Programmers will still have jobs and be needed. The work will shift as it has for the last 50 years to higher level languages that use libraries and frameworks that allow fewer programmers to manage more business value.

If businesses could write good specs, they would do so now. For the most part they don't because it is really hard to write good specs.