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Rails is better low code than low code

radanskoric.com

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Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#31

Post by Klonoar »

p1necone wrote: post #9
Neywiny wrote: post #8

It would be nice to get a brief definition of "low code." Otherwise great article. I've found myself using "low code" frameworks when they setup my environment for me and can generate the code files. Key example was a Minecraft mod maker. Within a minute I was fed up with the scratch style programming, but it had all the Java build stuff ready for me to just edit the files myself. No setting up gradle or anything.

I think this is the key to them actually being useful - generate a sane project in some widely used language under the hood, and let people give up on the low code solution when they outgrow the guardrails. Otherwise you're just dooming yourself to an eventual rewrite as soon as you need some feature that's not supported.

“Ejecting” is the key term here I think, or at least the one I’ve always used - for when you need to shed the handlebars for more control.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#33

Post by valiant55 »

dallasg3 wrote: post #19
bravura wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the best static languages + frameworks for shipping CRUD web apps?

ASP.NET and C#

I'm currently building an internal app with Pico CSS, htmx and ASP.NET minimal APIs returning Razor components and it's a joy. I'm a Developer DBA with no perfessional front end experience but I feel really productive and the final results look great.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#34

Post by ozim »

jiggawatts wrote: post #28
Neywiny wrote: post #8

It would be nice to get a brief definition of "low code." Otherwise great article. I've found myself using "low code" frameworks when they setup my environment for me and can generate the code files. Key example was a Minecraft mod maker. Within a minute I was fed up with the scratch style programming, but it had all the Java build stuff ready for me to just edit the files myself. No setting up gradle or anything.

Generally these are the drag & drop visual editors like Microsoft Power Apps and the like. Like the article said, my experience is that they're Great!™ until they're not, at which point you're painted into a corner.

Funny thing is they stop being great rather quick.

When you configure 10 controls and then you have to do another 10 but slightly different - with code you can mostly copy, paste, modify with search and replace and you are done.

With low code tools usually it is just the same work again and even if you can duplicate stuff with an option in the interface adjusting stuff goes one by one.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#35

Post by daelon »

Klonoar wrote: post #31
p1necone wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the key to them actually being useful - generate a sane project in some widely used language under the hood, and let people give up on the low code solution when they outgrow the guardrails. Otherwise you're just dooming yourself to an eventual rewrite as soon as you need some feature that's not supported.

“Ejecting” is the key term here I think, or at least the one I’ve always used - for when you need to shed the handlebars for more control.

"Escape Hatch" is also commonly used.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#36

Post by slantaclaus »

Neywiny wrote: post #8

It would be nice to get a brief definition of "low code." Otherwise great article. I've found myself using "low code" frameworks when they setup my environment for me and can generate the code files. Key example was a Minecraft mod maker. Within a minute I was fed up with the scratch style programming, but it had all the Java build stuff ready for me to just edit the files myself. No setting up gradle or anything.

I assumed low-code meant something less bulky like Sinatra

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#39

Post by teitoklien »

chamomeal wrote: post #30
jameslk wrote: post #11

Both low code and Rails have become a lot less relevant since LLM assisted coding became the norm. Low code became less relevant because 1. LLMs solved many of the problems low code solves with better control over the output, and 2. you can’t use many low code platforms as an output from LLMs or other types of models (yet). Rails became less relevant because Ruby is dynamically typed, and this poses a challenge for L…

I don’t rely on LLMs as much as I did when copilot came out, but I 100% agree regarding static types: they make it so much easier to tell when the LLM is spewing nonsense. I probably wouldn’t use one at all with a dynamically typed language.

the key is to not generate huge big spurts of code blocks but incremental, reviewable code blocks in dynamic typed languages. Also,

“LLM”s are a constantly updating product, the new DeepSeek coder model with GPT-o1 like reasoning and chain of thought just came out, and its a lot superior than LLM models from even 1 month ago, especially when trained on internal docs, and files, and synthetic LLM generated metadata on those files, all accessible under an effective hybrid search engine.

It’s perfectly usable with Dynamic languages like JS and Python, and perfectly doable to write bug free effective code, is one is restrained and thoughtful in its use, which builds up as muscle memory over time anyways.

Especially if one considers linters and type hints enabled in js (as ts) and python type hints, then it becomes even more doable, if you’re insistent on static typed only language code with LLM.

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