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No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

reuters.com

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Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#131

Post by rorykoehler »

lucasverra wrote: post #69
deeviant wrote: post #10

I think the biggest problem with this approach is at some point, they necessarily reach a level of complexity that it takes the same amount of time to learn how to use their "no-code" tools than it does to just learn how to code.

Simply not true. I’ve been programming with bubble from “technical aware founder PM/founder” and bubble is liberating. In the past i’ve built a webapp that : - Renders desktop - Renders mobile - store in database - after a conditional form - create a complex journey of to do list with defaults based on answers of previous cond. form - connects to an external system with cron daily - sends email daily from backend - u…

I just looked through there website and I fail to see how it would be quicker or better than spinning up a quick rails app with a bootstrap template. Most of my time developing is thinking about the domain model and workflows. Once I've decided on that it takes a matter of minutes to code features and then you are not restricted in your ability to adjust and enhance after the fact.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#132

Post by ZephyrBlu »

lucasverra wrote: post #69
deeviant wrote: post #10

I think the biggest problem with this approach is at some point, they necessarily reach a level of complexity that it takes the same amount of time to learn how to use their "no-code" tools than it does to just learn how to code.

Simply not true. I’ve been programming with bubble from “technical aware founder PM/founder” and bubble is liberating. In the past i’ve built a webapp that : - Renders desktop - Renders mobile - store in database - after a conditional form - create a complex journey of to do list with defaults based on answers of previous cond. form - connects to an external system with cron daily - sends email daily from backend - u…

What you described is a relatively simple web app. For a more complicated app, Bubble would likely be more complicated than coding it up.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#133

Post by vbezhenar »

mattmanser wrote: post #71
capybara_2020 wrote: post #35

Can someone help me understand the no-code movement and what supposedly has changed in the last few years? I know Microsoft tried to allow non-developers to create apps without developers, and they have been trying for decades. But failed! They built an app that allowed you to drag and drop blocks, and they tried a visual query builder(not sure what the exact name was) for SQL. They added a workflow builder to ShareP…

Not just MS, RAD tools were the big thing about 20 years ago Total failure, From reading the comments here, sounds like the no-code, the rebranded RAD, has the exact same problems again.

Back in the day RAD tools created forms with fixed layout, fixed sizes. Everyone used similar computers with similar displays. There were some simple ways to create windows with dynamic size, but those were very primitive and most dialogs were fixed.

Creating fixed UI is extremely easy to understand. You just put a control, snap it to grid for consistent spacings and that's about it. Everyone can do it, very fast with very little time spent on UI.

Modern computers are highly variable in size. Small smartphones, large smartphones, tablets of all sizes, laptops, 5K mac displays.

Smartphones and tablets expect full-width applications. It's not appropriate to design your UI for 320 px fixed width. It'll be too terrible on larger phones. It's expected to have fully stretchable UI at least.

But that leads to very complex to understand creator UI. Xcode, Android Studio, Java Swing. They have powerful layouts, but their GUI to build those layouts are incredibly complex. You might spend lots of time for very simple thing. It's nowhere near good old Delphi, when I could put few buttons around and call it a day.

Of course I'm not arguing that layout managers are not needed. Another feature is internationalization and it was terrible with Delphi, when you had to translate a button but translated text could not fit into its fixed width. What I want to point out is that there's still unfulfilled need for layout manager, which is powerful, yet very easy to use.

May be we need some AI for that.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#134

Post by paou »

deeviant wrote: post #10

I think the biggest problem with this approach is at some point, they necessarily reach a level of complexity that it takes the same amount of time to learn how to use their "no-code" tools than it does to just learn how to code.

I think regardless of whether what you say is correct or not - there is another benefit you are missing, the same one that Unity brought to game development - i.e. removing the developer as the bottleneck / gatekeeper for making changes - lost count of how many times our designer has created tickets to just update small styling things, or our PO wants wording or small flow changes. A tool that solves this at scale for teams will be worth it's weight in gold. #fulldisclosure am CTO of HarmonyCB - this is exactly what we are trying to achieve. Rightly or wrongly we still use a nocode moniker though, as it explains the area of work to non-tech people rather well.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#137

Post by xyst »

I wonder how long it will take until I see “must have 10+ years of X-low-code-solution experience” in job searches and cold calls/emails from recruiters

Personally, I think low code is a farce. It’s useful for prototyping but beyond that I wouldn’t use it in any production system.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#139

Post by redsymbol »

Some people here are giving examples of using Bubble a few years ago, and found it too limited to be useful. Have any developers here used it recently?

When I first looked at Zapier about 2.5 years ago, as a developer I found it limiting and just not useful compared to writing custom webhooks that I sometimes glued together with cron jobs, etc. But since late last year, Zapier has matured so much I am able to use it for almost every integration I need. It has probably saved me ~100 hours of development time in the past year alone.

I wonder if Bubble might have passed a similar threshold of utility, so that it is useful even to people who DO have good coding skills.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#140

Post by redsymbol »

Inspiringer wrote: post #138

Have they ever addressed what would happened to the app you build if their company disappear one day? It doesn't seem safe to build your system on Bubble or any SaaS for that matter unless you know the company will never go away e.g. Salesforce.

This would be my concern also, same as with other tools like repl.it, etc. But it could still be useful for a prototyping phase. (Potentially. I have not used it.)
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