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Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

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Re: Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

#61

Post by cookie_monsta »

zadokshi wrote: post #13

No code has its role, there are many simple things it can make easier. For most non trivial systems, no code will get you 80%-90% to a solution and the last 20% of your solution will be extremely difficult, complex, or impossible to deliver in any maintainable way. Developers are hostile to these types of solutions specifically because once you go past basic CRUD your no code solutions make everything so much harder…

Not at all a sales person, but...

I think that a lot of the problems that general wisdom thinks are implicit to no/low code are so prevalent precisely because the barrier to entry is so low.

You get a lot of people who have never programmed anything who can basically put together something that almost works by tweaking tutorials and googling around.

But where they get stuck is lacking the programmer's mentality - of being able to puzzle around restraints (which all programming languages have) and then imagine all the worst case scenarios and test against them.

Down thread, somebody even makes the claim that low code doesn't permit for maintenance but of course this isn't true - again, it's just inexperienced users thinking that once something works once it will work forever.

And the amount of professional developers who would be willing to come in and untangle a low code mess as opposed to suggesting a "real" solution (coincidentally using their favoured stack) probably reinforces the idea that the last 20% is impossible with low code.

It's not about agendas or people being stubborn, it's just about people playing to their strengths and having their perspective coloured by experience

Re: Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

#62

Post by namaria »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #61
zadokshi wrote: post #13

No code has its role, there are many simple things it can make easier. For most non trivial systems, no code will get you 80%-90% to a solution and the last 20% of your solution will be extremely difficult, complex, or impossible to deliver in any maintainable way. Developers are hostile to these types of solutions specifically because once you go past basic CRUD your no code solutions make everything so much harder…

Not at all a sales person, but... I think that a lot of the problems that general wisdom thinks are implicit to no/low code are so prevalent precisely because the barrier to entry is so low. You get a lot of people who have never programmed anything who can basically put together something that almost works by tweaking tutorials and googling around. But where they get stuck is lacking the programmer's mentality - of…

Yeah code is not a bad thing. It constrains us and make the hard things about designing and building non trivial systems up front.

It may seem like a good idea to postpone such considerations. And it might even be in some situations. But complexity will still bite you in the ass even if you sweep it under the carpet and tell people not to worry about it (for now).

But if people say you can't replace a railroad consist that necessitates engineers and designs with wheel barrels that anyone can push and you say "you totally can, you just need enough wheel barrels" you're being disingenuous about the realities of the two approaches.

Re: Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

#63

Post by jiriro »

bob1029 wrote: post #47

> My group writes .NET code If you are clever enough, your current ecosystem can be bent into a "low" code arrangement. We pushed most of our logic into SQL queries over time. Domain experts write "code" these days. This was only possible after years of refining our schema relative to our customers and problems. Learning what should be configurable and what should not. To do this effectively usually requires that you…

Would you mind elaborating on “pushing logic into SQL queries”?

Also how “SQL databases are a superpower”?

I suppose one still needs a non trivial dev infrastructure and dev skills to make the SQL a superpower:-|

Re: Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

#64

Post by wakahiu »

Here's the short answer - Retool - Anvil - Bubble - Airtable - Webflow

The reality is that you shouldn't be turned away from these tools simply because of the negative developer perspective they tend to have, but you should consider the practicality of your situation. What matters is that you are aware that these platforms have limitations, and that you solve the inherent business problem you are seeking to solve immediately. Additionally, always have a plan to eventually migrate out if the platform if the situation warrants it.

What I find paradoxical is that we SW engineers tend to neg on low-code tools, yet proclaim that code is simply a means to a business problem. We enjoy coding new projects, and hate integrating or migrating off shityly built applications.

The practical reality is that whether it's code you wrote or a no-code platform, getting your tool to work in the 99th percentile is always going to be the hardest part of the problem. In this case, using a no-code platform whose inner workings are obscured away from your is just as challenging as working with an arcane internal application whose original developers left the company a long time ago.

Disclaimer - I'm building Leaptable - a Low-code database powered by AI Agents. It's still not ready for prime-time and would love your feedback. https://github.com/peterwnjenga/leaptable

Re: Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

#65

Post by ivanmontillam »

zadokshi wrote: post #13

No code has its role, there are many simple things it can make easier. For most non trivial systems, no code will get you 80%-90% to a solution and the last 20% of your solution will be extremely difficult, complex, or impossible to deliver in any maintainable way. Developers are hostile to these types of solutions specifically because once you go past basic CRUD your no code solutions make everything so much harder…

> Developers are hostile to these types of solutions specifically because once you go past basic CRUD your no code solutions make everything so much harder and complicated compared to if you had of just used JavaScript in the first place.

And being fully honest, I've not seen basic CRUDs since college homework days. Every CRUD I've seen since has some business rules applied to it, whether these are triggers or some special field constraints.

If a business needs a basic CRUD, it gets away using a spreadsheet.

Re: Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

#66

Post by ivanmontillam »

I used to work for a small software consultancy firm, and we used to configure some integrations between systems with public APIs using Zapier.

What you're looking from a no-code platform is a way to execute custom code, and Zapier has this little virtual machine step that could be either JavaScript or Python and then you can "meet in the middle" systems, that would otherwise not meet before. They behave pretty much like your typical AWS Lambda function, with an input and an output.

I think n8n and Huginn could be suitable for this, but I don't know for sure as I've not had the need to use them.

A few of the shortcomings I had with Zapier (and our people) in this regard:

- Both systems must have public APIs that could be authenticated using bearer tokens. If the system had oAuth or something that requires a token to be generated dynamically, then the integration could not be performed because Zapier's Python VM only has a few libraries (I relied on Python's requests for this).

- For the above: if you had a way to flatten library code in a single Python script, that would have a worked around it I guess.

- All your code must run under 256 Mb or 10 seconds.

- Our Project Managers believed any integration could be done, but actually very few of them could be done because of the public APIs limitations stated above. Our salespeople thought we were on a mission to disappoint them, but most integrations weren't technically possible given these constraints and we weren't permitted to develop custom installable on-premises code for these.

> I know most “normal” developers have a reputation for being hostile to low-code platforms

There's a reason for that, and it's that no-code is absurdly limited. The moment you need to do something outside of the use cases the no-code platform was designed for, it's the moment you'll outgrow it.

The thing is, you'll outgrow no-code faster than you think. Weeks, if not days.

Re: Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

#67

Post by Maultasche »

zadokshi wrote: post #13

No code has its role, there are many simple things it can make easier. For most non trivial systems, no code will get you 80%-90% to a solution and the last 20% of your solution will be extremely difficult, complex, or impossible to deliver in any maintainable way. Developers are hostile to these types of solutions specifically because once you go past basic CRUD your no code solutions make everything so much harder…

Having worked with several low-code/no-code systems in the past, I've had similar experiences. They work really well if you stay within their area of strength, but once you go outside of what it was designed for, it becomes an ugly, unmaintainable mess.

In every project I worked on, the users of the system always wanted it to do things that go beyond what the low-code system was designed for. That always required what was essentially coding, but using some clunky UI for advanced code-like functionality.

In the end, you have a system that would have been much more maintainable if you had just gone with a standard "with-code" solution.

They always sell these things with the idea that non-coders can do most of the work on the system, but that's only true for a very basic system. In my experience, it's coders that end up doing 90% (or more) of the work and it ends up being inferior to a coding-based solution.

Re: Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

#69

Post by yaaang »

https://plasmic.app is a soon-open-source visual builder that (uniquely) integrates with codebases. (I work on this!)

So you can build within existing apps and use your own arbitrarily complex React components. This is what makes it suitable for complex production projects, because (as many others note) you'll invariably hit ceilings with typical low-code tools.

It focuses on both websites and applications, so it can be wielded as either a Webflow or Retool alternative.

Re: Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

#70

Post by bob1029 »

jiriro wrote: post #63
bob1029 wrote: post #47

> My group writes .NET code If you are clever enough, your current ecosystem can be bent into a "low" code arrangement. We pushed most of our logic into SQL queries over time. Domain experts write "code" these days. This was only possible after years of refining our schema relative to our customers and problems. Learning what should be configurable and what should not. To do this effectively usually requires that you…

Would you mind elaborating on “pushing logic into SQL queries”? Also how “SQL databases are a superpower”? I suppose one still needs a non trivial dev infrastructure and dev skills to make the SQL a superpower:-|

> I suppose one still needs a non trivial dev infrastructure and dev skills to make the SQL a superpower:-|

Exactly.

My intended takeaway from this is that there is no free lunch unless your business is super simple.

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