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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

#81

Post by Dangeranger »

kinj28 wrote: post #73
foxbee wrote: post #70

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 pro…

Looks like you are associated with Budibase from your previous submissions & ideally you should have disclosed it to let others reading your comment understand your bias

They commented in another thread that they are the founder of Budibase. It doesn’t seem like they’re trying to hide their position. I’m not sure a disclaimer on every comment is warranted, nor desired.

By your logic, shouldn’t you also disclose that you are a marketer for a for-profit no-code app platform?

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#82

Post by rory »

andrewstuart wrote: post #8

The thing I'm finding hard to get my head around is people who are arguing that various languages such as COBOL or Python are, or might be considered low code or no code. To anyone who needs to hear this: if it's code based programming then it's not no-code or low-code - it's code. Put more simply: code != no-code

Well, it's a scale though, isn't it?

Each one involves telling your computer some logic, but on the left you have to be much more detailed and the computer makes fewer assumptions than on the right. Is Hasura Code or No Code™? I write some SQL or a GraphQL query, but I also click around and set permissions and relationships in a GUI.

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#83

Post by ethbr0 »

beanjuiceII wrote: post #78
bilalq wrote: post #21

I've seen "low code" and "no code" solutions running at huge enterprises and it always inevitably ends up resembling a house of cards. Proponents often cite how much quicker they can ship things and how it lets users define and automate their own workflows without waiting for engineers. The reality is that these time savings come by cutting corners from the development cycle. Because you're not doing "code", the code…

I been at one very large enterprise for the last 15 years; the amount of low/no code apps I've been through is...well you know when neo is in the matrix, he is shown the previous matrix versions by the architect? its that feeling, but in this case there is no version of reality where there is a win. The biggest problem I see even if this were to work, is that you don't really want non-developers using these tools. Wh…

That's an organizational problem.

If you use this stuff right -- citizen-developers should be developing their own work.

Or at most, the work of their immediate group / team.

Who's to blame when the low/no code makes a booboo? The citizen-developer. And who fixes it? The citizen-developer. And who can fix it, because they already know how to do the work manually? The citizen-developer!

And, most critically, who is then incentivized to correct their own low/no code so it doesn't break again? The citizen developer.

The central organizational anti-pattern around this is "users build + IT maintains." Just... don't do that, or allow it. Make it clear when they get this capability, that they're responsible for fixing issues, and that IT will only advise.

And have that talk with their VP up front, so that when he or she tries to escalate because they have an "Oh @&$+" outage, you let them suffer long enough to hurt, before pitching in.

And then after the incident is over, you return with "So one way we prevent this on the other side of the house is {cvs/testing/environments/etc}..." And there's a chance they listen to you, because it's a solution to a problem they just had.

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#84

Post by tharne »

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

> Excel is the original low code solution

I'm surprised how infrequently this comes up, given the massive usage of Excel in the business world; low-code/no-code is always discussed as if it's something new. Non-programmers in corporate America have been building excel applications for decades. You'd be surprised and a little scared by how many business critical processes depend on an excel workbook stored on a sharepoint somewhere.

Interestingly enough, Excel in many ways is also a sort of functional programming for the masses. Excel functions are (mostly) pure. Columns are sort of immutable, and you tend to build applications as collections of smaller functions composed together as you might in Lisp.

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#85

Post by ethbr0 »

jmfldn wrote: post #49
bilalq wrote: post #21

I've seen "low code" and "no code" solutions running at huge enterprises and it always inevitably ends up resembling a house of cards. Proponents often cite how much quicker they can ship things and how it lets users define and automate their own workflows without waiting for engineers. The reality is that these time savings come by cutting corners from the development cycle. Because you're not doing "code", the code…

So many good points here, best summary of the problem of no code I've read yet. Whether you write lots of code or no code, all the principles you mentioned remain i.e. testing, deployment complexity, maintainability, rollback, release strategies etc. If you tried to do all that in a no code environment it would be horrendous. If you skip it, as a non engineer might, you're courting catastrophe. No code will often mak…

I think this argument against low-code is based on a misunderstanding of how most companies are staffed.

Truth: in normal companies, there are never enough software developers to build everything that needs building

Consequence: tons of processes and people get by as best they can, their never-prioritized project languishing in IT's backlog, often manually processing things that could be trivially automated

Consequently this isn't about a choice between (traditional software development with all the trimming) vs (low-code). It's a choice between (nothing/Excel) vs (low-code).

And given that reality, I'd argue that moving to a well-integrated, gutter-guards-in-place, documented low-code system is a HUGE win for the company as a whole.

And sure, you can say "It isn't this or that" (that should be there in well designed software). But it's also a helluva lot better than what they were running their part of the company on before.

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#86

Post by commandlinefan »

midjji wrote: post #69

Alas no level of convenience will ever save you from having to specify what it is you want to do.

There's a disturbingly large number of people who look at computer programming, say "this is too complex - programmers must be artificially making it complex to keep me out".

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#87

Post by miohtama »

nielsbot wrote: post #25
miohtama wrote: post #7

All this posts miss the best low code environments of all time: Microsoft Access and FileMaker Pro. Unfortunately these two never made it to Internet era in big time and we have greatly come down from 90s RAD movement.

I actually use FMP for a database at my wife's work. FMP is still shipping updates and new versions. Surprisingly you can pay to have your DB hosted on AWS. That said, it's very expensive.

Are there any FMP like low code products that would also allow user sign up/sign in? I believe the problem with Access/FMP were that they were single user or trusted user setups.

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#88

Post by [deleted] »

bilalq wrote: post #21

I've seen "low code" and "no code" solutions running at huge enterprises and it always inevitably ends up resembling a house of cards. Proponents often cite how much quicker they can ship things and how it lets users define and automate their own workflows without waiting for engineers. The reality is that these time savings come by cutting corners from the development cycle. Because you're not doing "code", the code…

[deleted]

Re: Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

#89

Post by GuB-42 »

> In the past decade, the growth in low-code and no-code solutions...

The articles then shows that it is far from a "past decade" thing.

Low-code, no-code, RAD, or whatever you want to call it has always been a thing. Code is an obscure thing to the uninitiated, and it costs a lot of money to hire the initiated. So of course people want to make it more accessible. Today is nothing new, if anything, it tends to go the other way: people are getting more comfortable with code.

And the article explains it very well, in fact, it is one of the best overview I've seen. It takes about Excel, the most successful "low-code" platform, UML, which is mostly a failure, and modern takes like Copilot which offer guidance but do not try to hide the code.

The conclusion however seems to be "I don't know", told in a particularly convoluted way in entire chapters. I think the article would have been better if it didn't try to predict the future.

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