No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#1

Post by stelza26 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming
smartindustry.com

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#2

Post by throwme159 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

The site is unusable/unreadable on mobile. So many ads.

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#3

Post by kwhitefoot » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

I wish people would stop claiming that drag and drop program creation is not programming. It is simply a different style of programming using a different language.

From Wikipedia: "Computer programming is the process of designing and building an executable computer program to accomplish a specific computing result or to perform a specific task."

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming.

The same claims used to be made regarding Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), despite the word programming being part of the name.

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#4

Post by lifeisstillgood » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

I often claim software is a new form of literacy. And I see no-code as the equivalent of cutting up all the frames from marvel comics and tippexing out the speech bubbles, then handing them to some illiterate and saying "hey, you can write your own story now !"

It's not how we (as a society) need to handle this.

Edit: i.e. that is not empowering the illiterate.

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#5

Post by dsaavy » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

As a consultant in the business automation and data space, the promised "paradigm-shift" is sort-of accurate but a little too optimistic in what the author believes the implications are.

No-code/low-code has been a game changer in many ways for businesses. It lets people dip their toes into improving their efficiency and productivity with low-hanging automations and simple apps. These things can have huge payoffs. And if you stick within that realm, it actually is a paradigm-shift to be able to build solutions as a non-tech person.

But there's always a point where you:

1. need more complex no-code/low-code solutions to get big pay-offs 2. have a mess of so many no-code/low-code solutions that they end up causing tons of maintenance/issues and you have trouble getting all your separate solutions to play nicely together

You end up spending a lot of money to get someone who is very advanced with those no-code/low-code tools (which usually ends up with code solutions inside of those tools), or end up building completely custom solutions anyway.

Also, there are a lot of nuances in what could be considered no/low-code. This article isn't too clear on which types of applications are considered no/low-code, and throws out everything from cellular-IoT infrastructure to MES. Is something like Tableau low-code? Or are we talking more about the Zapier kind of tools? Both of those examples have giant roadblocks once you get to a certain point, where you need some type of dev/architect knowledge to really get the most use out of the tools.

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#6

Post by all2 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

> So, what is no-code? No-code development is perfect for engineers who have zero programming knowledge. It’s based on a visual drag-and-drop user interface, with no hand coding required to reach the end goal. It empowers workers to design solutions they need to overcome the challenges they face every day—without writing a single line of code. In 2019, 84% of enterprises across the US, UK, Canada and Australia had already implemented a low-code development tool or platform to take care of some of their coding needs.

This piece is a fluff piece at best. Looks like a "guest blog" entry to advertise for the writer's company [0]

The problem with no/low code is it mirrors a DSL for whatever problem being solved. Anything more general becomes a programming language.

Maybe my understanding of language is limited? I'd love to be wrong about this.

[0] https://www.emnify.com/

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#7

Post by helltone » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

Is no-code the new trend because full automation with AI failed? I wonder if we're trying to realise what jobs actually require skilled labour.

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#8

Post by nbzso » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

I see a different future.

As a side-effect of pushing "automation" agenda corporations will not have needed workforce to accomplish the task.

The marketing delusions and wishful thinking are popular methods of self-destruction. Sadly in the corporate world, the more you climb the less oxygen you get. And with lack of oxygen human brain is prone to malfunction.

You can have some form of automation, but the need of competent programmers will not vanish into the thin air.

>Is PHP worth learning in 2021?

The first google result:

PHP is an open-source programming language that is completely free, and because it supports all the main browsers, it is highly scalable. ... PHP is not dying and is definitely worth learning in 2021 and beyond. There are still thousands of jobs available for new PHP programmers

https://www.google.com/search?q=Is+PHP+worth+learning+in+202...

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#9

Post by adflux » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

nbzso wrote: post #8

I see a different future. As a side-effect of pushing "automation" agenda corporations will not have needed workforce to accomplish the task. The marketing delusions and wishful thinking are popular methods of self-destruction. Sadly in the corporate world, the more you climb the less oxygen you get. And with lack of oxygen human brain is prone to malfunction. You can have some form of automation, but the need of com…

Php supports browsers?

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#10

Post by munro » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

kwhitefoot wrote: post #3

I wish people would stop claiming that drag and drop program creation is not programming. It is simply a different style of programming using a different language. From Wikipedia: "Computer programming is the process of designing and building an executable computer program to accomplish a specific computing result or to perform a specific task." See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming . The same claims…

Outside of tech, I think coding means green text on a black background--but I think of it more generally, describing a process that you want something/someone else to run... a cooking recipe for someone to follow, it's CODE! So yeah, to that end, visual programming is still coding. AI that generates code, well, you still have to tell the AI what to do, still coding--on that tangent, if AI code generation ever is perfected, I'd rather work in that language, and not even look at the output like assembly.

I really want visual programming to succeed, but there's something fundamentally harder with it. I'm starting to think written language can't be beat for expressing thought. Visual programming is probably a great introduction to computer programming for people to quickly automate simple tasks, but I rest assured that as soon as they want to describe any complex process, they're going to fall into written language like the rest of us--or do lots of copying and pasting and create a mess. To write is to think, I think.