Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Will low and no code tools ever truly disrupt tech development?

stackoverflow.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 208 posts

Re: Will low and no code tools ever truly disrupt tech development?

#161

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

nscalf wrote: post #43

For everyone saying no, this is exactly what Shopify, and arguably Wordpress are. These things have already disrupted tech development. I think the real question is how much complexity can they take on, and I think they’re largely near the end of that curve.

I would suggest that they are more akin to "control panels," on complex machinery.

Even "control panels," require a lot of training, for complex enough machinery.

However, a great place to see well-written PHP, is inside the WordPress stack.

Re: Will low and no code tools ever truly disrupt tech development?

#162

Post by wolpoli »

ciarcode wrote: post #123
fizzynut wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the main issues with visual programming are: - Logic tends to take up a lot more screen space than real code - There is no defined way to read the code. In real code you start top left and read left to right and down, but in visual code if there are lots of "paths" then your eyes end up darting around everywhere.

In automotive, development of control algorithms for the engine is entirely “visual”, through simulink/matlab. You design the model on simulink, then it generates the C code. I don’t have direct experience outside the automotive sector, but I believe that this approach is used in other sectors like aerospace. Maybe designing models is better than writing low level code for control algorithms?

I don't have any experience in the automotive sector. But when you say that the development of control algorithms for the engine are visual, I immediately thought finite state machine. My question: Are they finite state machines or is there more to it than that?

Re: Will low and no code tools ever truly disrupt tech development?

#164

Post by liketochill »

ciarcode wrote: post #123
fizzynut wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the main issues with visual programming are: - Logic tends to take up a lot more screen space than real code - There is no defined way to read the code. In real code you start top left and read left to right and down, but in visual code if there are lots of "paths" then your eyes end up darting around everywhere.

In automotive, development of control algorithms for the engine is entirely “visual”, through simulink/matlab. You design the model on simulink, then it generates the C code. I don’t have direct experience outside the automotive sector, but I believe that this approach is used in other sectors like aerospace. Maybe designing models is better than writing low level code for control algorithms?

In power generation control when electrical engineers are discussing or analyzing the behavior of a governor or exciter block diagrams representing transfer functions are used. I would program turbine controls primarily in function block diagrams since it a great visual representation of the algorithms that makes It easy for some one to understand and observe how it works. I started with computer programming and it was quite an adjustment in my way of thinking to implement algorithms this way but no question it is the right tool for the job in controls.

Re: Will low and no code tools ever truly disrupt tech development?

#165

Post by bogwog »

nscalf wrote: post #43

For everyone saying no, this is exactly what Shopify, and arguably Wordpress are. These things have already disrupted tech development. I think the real question is how much complexity can they take on, and I think they’re largely near the end of that curve.

I think Wordpress is a great example. I recently tried making a simple website using Wordpress's visual layout editor, and it was absolute hell. The process consists of fighting with unlabeled icons, convoluted UI state that is controlled by mouse movements apparently, shit jumping around all over the place when you add/remove stuff, and a ton of other terrible UX decisions. It felt like I was trying to perform a satanic ritual with my mouse.

I'm not a front end guy, but I was able to write exactly what I wanted directly in HTML/CSS in around 2-3 hours. That's for a static site with responsive layout and like 3 pages.

Could someone who is actually in expert in Wordpress's editor do this in less than 3 hours? No doubt. But at the end of the day, all it cost me to build a vastly superior solution was a few hours (and again, I'm not an expert at frontend stuff at all, so that was not as fast as it could be done). Instead of having to host a bloated Wordpress site now, I just need to serve a few static HTML/CSS files, which can be done for free nowadays with a lot of providers.

So the no code solution is more expensive to operate, and less efficient/performant. But at the same time, it doesn't require an expensive developer (even if an actual front-end dev would only need 1 billable hour at most)

Re: Will low and no code tools ever truly disrupt tech development?

#166

Post by gmadsen »

wolpoli wrote: post #162
ciarcode wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In automotive, development of control algorithms for the engine is entirely “visual”, through simulink/matlab. You design the model on simulink, then it generates the C code. I don’t have direct experience outside the automotive sector, but I believe that this approach is used in other sectors like aerospace. Maybe designing models is better than writing low level code for control algorithms?

I don't have any experience in the automotive sector. But when you say that the development of control algorithms for the engine are visual, I immediately thought finite state machine. My question: Are they finite state machines or is there more to it than that?

Depending on how complex, it would be a hybrid system. You have finite discrete states, but also continuous dynamics that need to be controlled (like a PID)

Control systems have always been designed in a connected box fashion. Before gui software existed. Visual coding is just an extension of what was being done on a blackboard

Re: Will low and no code tools ever truly disrupt tech development?

#167

Post by archi42 »

ciarcode wrote: post #123
fizzynut wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the main issues with visual programming are: - Logic tends to take up a lot more screen space than real code - There is no defined way to read the code. In real code you start top left and read left to right and down, but in visual code if there are lots of "paths" then your eyes end up darting around everywhere.

In automotive, development of control algorithms for the engine is entirely “visual”, through simulink/matlab. You design the model on simulink, then it generates the C code. I don’t have direct experience outside the automotive sector, but I believe that this approach is used in other sectors like aerospace. Maybe designing models is better than writing low level code for control algorithms?

Yes, IIRC some aerospace companies also use simulink. It's popular with safety critical stuff.

> Maybe designing models is better than writing low level code for control algorithms?

If you need both the code and the model, then generating the code from the model is also much easier than proving that your handwritten C code behaves exactly like the model used for verification. Having visual control flow for complex control systems might be less error prone than manually writing C (or Rust or Zig or $flavour_of_the_day) code. You probably know that, but other folks shouldn't forget that automotive and aerospace control software often means "programming errors might result in people getting injured or worse".

Re: Will low and no code tools ever truly disrupt tech development?

#168

Post by thingification »

I can't seem to find people in this thread talking about AI/ML, which surprised me.

For "enterprise software", I imagine a future of domain experts training/instructing AI minions to do things like process sale orders and returns - like the office clerks of the past, but silicon clerks. And if that, why not consumer apps etc. too?

The next "everything is bloated electron apps" is "everything is bloated AI models" ?-)

Re: Will low and no code tools ever truly disrupt tech development?

#169

Post by fatbird »

At my workplace, one of our common sayings is “when you’re doing badly, users complain about bugs; when you’re doing well, they’re complaining about missing features.”

From 1998 to 2004 I worked as the IT manager at a plastics manufacturer whose entire system was backed by SQL Server, and fronted by MS Access databases that people ran locally for the forms and reports (no data was stored in them) or Excel (same thing). This is low-code in a nutshell and it worked well back then: it was CRUD before websites were CRUD. And we were constantly developing it and building out more complex scenarios for industrial production control and accounting and reporting.

Why? Because it worked, it allowed users to conceive of the next thing they could use, which inevitably led out of low-code scenarios. At one point we seriously investigated hiring trying to implement bin-packing algorithms in VBA so that warehouse pickers had better direction in order assembly.

Low code systems either don’t work, or they do and create demand for “high code” solutions.

Post reply on HN