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Rails is better low code than low code

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Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#111

Post by gardenhedge »

ajcp wrote: post #101
throwaway42668 wrote: post #83

I never understood the "low code" microbubble that was being inflated. We went through that era already. We called them RAD tools, and they targeted the same sort of strange, mythical end user profile. Someone so technically capable and apt that they could navigate a dizzying domain of deeply buried checkboxes, property fields, and sprawling relationships & side-effects, but who was also simultaneously unable to unde…

I think you're taking the intent of "low-code" too literal, or have not worked in an organization of sufficient size for its value proposition to be evident. It's not to solve a solutioning problem; it's to solve an organizational one. While any "low-code" is marketed as a WYSWG, business friendly solution platform, what it actually is is a way for the business to get access to capabilities IT otherwise gatekeeps as…

From your first sentence it is implied you have some working experience with this. What are your thoughts on end user computing and the longer term effect in the business?

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#112

Post by matwood »

throwaway42668 wrote: post #83

I never understood the "low code" microbubble that was being inflated. We went through that era already. We called them RAD tools, and they targeted the same sort of strange, mythical end user profile. Someone so technically capable and apt that they could navigate a dizzying domain of deeply buried checkboxes, property fields, and sprawling relationships & side-effects, but who was also simultaneously unable to unde…

I don’t think they were strange or mythical users. Excels and Access gave business analysts enough power to make real tools tailored to specific needs. VB would have been the next step. One thing that made this possible was the ubiquity of Windows though.

I still haven’t used anything as easy and powerful as those tools were even if they were Windows only and lacked easy distribution.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#113

Post by ozim »

throwaway42668 wrote: post #83

I never understood the "low code" microbubble that was being inflated. We went through that era already. We called them RAD tools, and they targeted the same sort of strange, mythical end user profile. Someone so technically capable and apt that they could navigate a dizzying domain of deeply buried checkboxes, property fields, and sprawling relationships & side-effects, but who was also simultaneously unable to unde…

I see it quite often as SaaS platform I work for the configuration grew into small time low code because business wanted to do all kinds of changes skipping dev cycle to deliver faster.

„low code” appeals to people - who are not technically capable, whose numbers are big - who think if they can get rid of this complex writing stuff they will be able to do stuff. Those people are on all levels of seniority so if CEO mandates stuff, company will do that.

Unfortunately essential complexity of an application does not go away and I have seen those people struggling, cursing and shooting themselves in the foot.

proper software dev tooling has all the right solutions for handling complexity like version control, CI/CD, unit/integration testing - no low code tools implement that.

But if people hear my solution „let’s teach you proper dev tools” they are pretty much uninterested.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#114

Post by matwood »

gardenhedge wrote: post #111
ajcp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're taking the intent of "low-code" too literal, or have not worked in an organization of sufficient size for its value proposition to be evident. It's not to solve a solutioning problem; it's to solve an organizational one. While any "low-code" is marketed as a WYSWG, business friendly solution platform, what it actually is is a way for the business to get access to capabilities IT otherwise gatekeeps as…

From your first sentence it is implied you have some working experience with this. What are your thoughts on end user computing and the longer term effect in the business?

One of my very first jobs was taking tools that were developed at the team/dept level and scaling them up org wide if they were useful. Honestly it was great to have end users already deeply thinking about what’s needed by building prototypes themselves. This business was much better for it. Looking back I was very fortunate to land in a large business who embraced technology as a key differentiator very early on.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#115

Post by hks0 »

Low code starts failing when one expects it to go turing complete. I also experienced the reverse (unfortunately) a couple of times until I gave up: Can we teach basic python to non-programmers in a 1-week workshop, so they can automate boring tasks without needing the developers? Answer: No.

And once I switched from trying to teach python, to just using click-clicky through Zapier or alike, people started to be way more productive without having to deal with us pesky programmers directly. Zapier does have big limitations, but people got creative on how to overcome them. Python would've consumed all their mental energy leaving no room for this. And they did create some hard to maintain horror in the UI, yet it had lower cost thanks to people's self sufficiency.

The article's conclusion says:

> Also, if you’re not a programmer, then absolutely, low code is great. But if you’re reading this article, you’re probably a programmer. So, why are you even thinking about it?

And I would like to add: If you _are_ a programmer, then absolutely, coding is great. But otherwise, why are you even thinking about it?

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#116

Post by urban_winter »

ajcp wrote: post #101
throwaway42668 wrote: post #83

I never understood the "low code" microbubble that was being inflated. We went through that era already. We called them RAD tools, and they targeted the same sort of strange, mythical end user profile. Someone so technically capable and apt that they could navigate a dizzying domain of deeply buried checkboxes, property fields, and sprawling relationships & side-effects, but who was also simultaneously unable to unde…

I think you're taking the intent of "low-code" too literal, or have not worked in an organization of sufficient size for its value proposition to be evident. It's not to solve a solutioning problem; it's to solve an organizational one. While any "low-code" is marketed as a WYSWG, business friendly solution platform, what it actually is is a way for the business to get access to capabilities IT otherwise gatekeeps as…

My experience of apps built by "the business" is 13 years in UBS and Bank of America. "The business" cannot be trusted to understand regulatory and privacy concerns, they cannot test their apps, they do not concern themselves with vulnerabilites in their dependencies or the licence terms therof. For those reasons, and more, the ability for the business to deliver apps more cheaply than IT is illusory.

That doesn't stop a cyclical swing towards RAD/no-code/AI when people forget this and then a swing back when we remember.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#118

Post by potamic »

Gigachad wrote: post #91
brightball wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the perks of Rails is that Ruby itself makes it more compelling. When you need to get to something that the framework doesn’t expose, Ruby makes it easy to get to it without having to rewrite the framework, extend a class and replace it in multiple places or fork it just to use your modification. This applies to the entire gem ecosystem too. Over the years this ability has saved me numerous headaches with only…

Ruby is my least favorite part of Rails by far. The lack of type checking makes every single gem and rails update extremely dangerous in ways that are incredibly difficult to predict. For example the redis gem updated to return an int from exists() instead of a bool like it did before. This doesn’t raise any exceptions because all ints work in if statements. They just always return true. Silently breaking all of the…

Anyone maintaining software in the public domain needs to understand Torvald's first rule of kernel development. YOU DO NOT BREAK USERSPACE! Seriously, how hard is it to understand? The collective impact across thousands of users will always be greater than any overhead in versioning. It's equivalent to willingly shipping a bug, and you would never do that, would you? Arguments about keeping the interface simple are weak because it only helps potential new users at the expense of existing users. As users, we need to encourage such norms by not adopting or advocating for software that has a history of breaking changes. Some communities are better at this than others, and the difference in developer experience is very evident for those of us who have seen both.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#119

Post by quantadev »

jayd16 wrote: post #109
quantadev wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. You are exactly right. Low Code stuff is usually invented by people with a specific set of criteria that they realize can be generalized, and defined by a GUI, but who lack enough experience to realize the entire world of possibilities can't be crammed into their model. Languages (like Python, etc) are already the most compact way to represent most things, and trying to avoid that fact just makes things ev…

You're letting perfect be the enemy of good. The low code solutions can simply have a full-code escape hatch with interop. Much like how Python can interop with C.

Oh, I definitely agree that's what should be done. You'd have generated code and non-generated code that way.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#120

Post by Gigachad »

lazylester wrote: post #95
Gigachad wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ruby is my least favorite part of Rails by far. The lack of type checking makes every single gem and rails update extremely dangerous in ways that are incredibly difficult to predict. For example the redis gem updated to return an int from exists() instead of a bool like it did before. This doesn’t raise any exceptions because all ints work in if statements. They just always return true. Silently breaking all of the…

"...but will constantly run in to situations where another gems code is using the method that just changed". I've worked with Rails for 20 years and haven't seen this. Have I just been really lucky? I'm sure your test suite showed the warnings about the Redis `exists()` change for many versions prior to its actually being changed, right?

I’ve worked on rails apps for a while now and on previous jobs it wasn’t so bad, but those were smaller apps. At the current company, almost every update manages to slip something through CI that blows up on production. Even with 30,000 rspec tests and tons of cypress tests. The CI is set up to raise exceptions on warnings, but I think it only applies to warnings raised by rails.

I guess rails works alright at the start, but eventually your app gets so big that it becomes a nightmare to verify updates before they roll out.

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