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Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

oreilly.com

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Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#61

Post by rvense »

wiseowise wrote: post #43
not-elite wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is the most stupid thing I've read in a while. Arrogance. It takes 10 lines of Python to compute a multiplicative inverse mod p, using arbitrary precision integers. [1] Try doing the same thing with nothing but x86 assembly and Volume 2 of Knuth's AOCP. It's a useful, humbling exercise. [1] https://karpathy.github.io/2021/06/21/blockchain/

That doesn't make it no-code or low-code. It's just a high level programming language that's more efficient at solving one problem than another.

You're really just arguing about the definition of the word "code".

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#62

Post by lysecret »

blunte wrote: post #37

The challenge of programming is not really about writing in a programming language - it's about thinking, problem solving, and organization. What low/no-code does is remove the setup and tooling barrier. I believe it's this barrier which scares most people away from programming. After all, even as an experienced software developer, I find some languages more intimidating because of the many tooling choices and setup…

Exactly that. Also in my expereince as a Data Science consultant was that by far the best approach was to just rebuild what they attempted in excel in python. Also now that I think of it Excel is the original low code solution haha

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#63

Post by lysecret »

cblconfederate wrote: post #57

Programming is inherently hierarchical profession, because it's one of the few that progresses by automating itself. Therefore it will never be "democratized" (by this the author means equality). At the bottom of the pyramid sit the Excel-handlers and people who "program" a few lines of pre-made templates. At this level programming is similar to a GUI, a language that appeals to intuitions of everyday life so that it…

True, its a pareto distribution as much as any creative endeavor.

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#64

Post by nickthemagicman »

Isn't regular code, low code?

Like isn't a turing complete language proven to be the highest level one can go to be able to do anything required with code?

Everything past that reduces the amount of code but also reduces the number of things the code can do and at some point in the code reduction, it's just a declarative language?

Its all shades of gray between imperative/functionsl and declarative.

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#65

Post by forinti »

JamesAdir wrote: post #54

Am I the only one here who remembers MS Access? It was a great no-code/low code product that created silos of information in many organizations and it was a real PITA to transfer it to other technologies. The advantage in MS Access was that it was part of the MS ecosystem and used VBA which is well documented. What will happen when you'll want to transfer something you've made in today no-code solutions to another pl…

I've seen this in different organisations: an accountant writes an MS Access app and when he cannot handle it anymore, he hands it over to IT (which is always so slow to provide solutions because they keep worrying about security, interoperability, consistency, and such).

One such app had in all its tables a column called "useless". It turns out it was the primary key. The author didn't know what it was for and didn't figure out from its name that it was important. There were also foreign keys referring to the description columns, not the primary key column (which was useless, after all).

In one instance, I saw an IT manager being asked for support for an app he had never heard of. It was another attack of the coding accountant! I call it code and run.

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#66

Post by [deleted] »

revskill wrote: post #42
jojobas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The problem is not that that programming languages are create an undemocratic force field around programming, it's that only very few people can efficiently translate any sort of requirements into any sort of machine-comprehensible instructions, doesn't matter if it's code, excel formulas, multitude of ERP checkboxes or something else. The high demand and pay of the last few decades brought a lot of people into…

Programming is just like Algebra to me, and many. The issue is how the education system and teachers don't know the principles behind programming. They teach Algebra but they can't apply that knowledge to programming.

[deleted]

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#68

Post by ignoramous »

lysecret wrote: post #62
blunte wrote: post #37

The challenge of programming is not really about writing in a programming language - it's about thinking, problem solving, and organization. What low/no-code does is remove the setup and tooling barrier. I believe it's this barrier which scares most people away from programming. After all, even as an experienced software developer, I find some languages more intimidating because of the many tooling choices and setup…

Exactly that. Also in my expereince as a Data Science consultant was that by far the best approach was to just rebuild what they attempted in excel in python. Also now that I think of it Excel is the original low code solution haha

> Also now that I think of it Excel is the original low code solution haha

It indeed is: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-fx-open-sou...

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#70

Post by foxbee »

The problem with many low-code platforms is three fold:

- many over-promise and under deliver. Low code platforms are great for simple CRUD apps, defined automations, etc.

- some, like Bubble, are anti-code to their own detriment - code is good, your platform was created with code

- only a few, like Budibase [1], Tooljet [2], n8n [3] are open source. I cannot understand how users are willing to bet their data and processes on closed source tooling

[1] https://github.com/Budibase/budibase

[2] https://github.com/ToolJet/ToolJet

[3] https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n

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