No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming • Hacker News Board

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#61

Post by CodeWriter23 » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

nbzso wrote: post #57

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is PHP worth learning in 2021? I’m calling that out as a straw man. Who uses PHP to run gear / robots?

This is an example of old technology (programming language) pronounced dead numerous times. I can give another example: COBOL. https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-cobol/ The idea behind this is that marketing and agenda driven "visions" often paint wrong picture towards an ideal future. And reality always finds a way to strike back.

I code in PHP very frequently (thanks to Laravel), I’m not declaring it dead by any stretch of the imagination. I just don’t think it’s in daily use on the assembly line. It’s all PLC. And where you do see a Raspberry Pi on the floor, it’s Python, C/C++ or C# before it’s PHP.

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#62

Post by OkayPhysicist » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 10:46 AM UTC

The fundamental problem with no-code/low-code products is that they are a solution to the wrong problem. To an outsider, code is basically indecipherable. Just like weird math symbols, bizarre physics equations, scientific jargon, etc.

Because they don't know how to read code (or substitute in any of the other examples I gave), the outsider assumes that that's the hard part: "If the code/jargon/equation was simply in plain English, anybody could program/do science/understand math".

But they're wrong. Anybody who spends enough time to pick up the actual underlying skill (whether it be programming, mathematics, or science) will trivially pick up the language of the trade, which, on the whole, exists because it expresses complicated ideas in a convenient way.

The hard part of programming is solving the actual problems, not expressing those solutions in code. Likewise, the hard part of electrical engineering isn't reading circuit diagrams, or the hard part of being an author is knowing English. Thus, if you want to make programming your system easier, you don't throw out the idea of code. You solve as many of the hard problems as you can, and then supply those solutions as a library.

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#63

Post by voakbasda » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #60

jjk166 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is absolutely nothing in the manufacturing world that would ever require millions of lines of code. There's a big difference between software development, which they are not doing, and coding, which these no-code solutions seek to help them with. For reference, I'm currently dealing with a customer whose most complex machine (which automates a job that used to take two people per shift) runs on 128 lines of…

The problem is many of them think that they can handle larger problems

Let them think that. As the GP poster said, it is unlikely they will ever be asked to work on a bigger program.

Re: No-code in manufacturing: automation without programming

#64

Post by jamexcb » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

I work for a "no-code" app (Kalipso Studio) with focus in logistics and shop floor applications. But the programmer needs to have some basic programming skills and at a little bit of SQL. This guy is a bit exaggerated. We have many costumers using this manly to interface PLC that now come with Webservices or have other software to convert the protocol, etc... We have companies using this to control robots, but the movements was natively programing. Now they just use our software to manage the robot, get data/statistics, and load different parameters. I don't think the "no-code" is for people with less skills. Our clients buy this because they what to be more productive, or they can't or don't want to buy the solution from a external company. Governments and military also don't like external companies, so they buy to use internally like big companies. And apps in the industries are always changing, so they need to be fast to adapt. They don't need a very fancy interface, most of them will never be published, they are not building a Tiktok app.