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No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

reuters.com

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Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#181

Post by rattlesnakedave »

gilbetron wrote: post #175

What's the difference between no/low-code and just an application? Most of these just seem like a solidly built application that allows users to do complex things. MS Word is a no-code application to generate documents, Photoshop is a no-code application to generate images, Chrome is a no-code application to explore the web. "no-code" just seems like a marketing term.

No-code platforms allow one to create applications via a GUI or similar. Word, Photoshop, Chrome are all applications. No-code applications like bubble allow users to define workflows graphically, and then execute them later as a part of an application.

Hopefully that makes sense. I think the key bits here are "it's being built through a GUI" and "you are building an application that will be executed later."

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#182

Post by wittycardio »

flarg wrote: post #107
ramraj07 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People (especially the kind that hangs out in HN) dont seem to understand that there’s a vast ocean of fairly smart people, much smarter than the average (or even above average) programmer, who are unable to build what they can imagine because of the coding bottleneck. I know many, and it’s not for a lack of significant effort that they are not able to learn to code in a way that’s meaningful. I suppose there’s somet…

In life sciences the people are smarter than any developer but software is IT-captured so all they can work with is Excel. No code is meant for these people. Software developers will never deliver what life sciences needs without no code.

Life sciences people are generally far less intelligent than the average developer lol

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#183

Post by gavinray »

ghuntley wrote: post #74
breck wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitPod.io I was waiting for something like this for years, it’s great.

Try it out https://Gitpod.io#https://GitHub.com/gitpod-io/website PS. If you aren't impressed by a JavaScript app then take Kubernetes for a spin! https://github.com/gitpod-io/template-k3s :-)

Seconding Gitpod, I really wish every repo would take the couple of seconds (to minutes, depending on how complicated) to just create the Docker config for developing it.

I use VS Code devcontainers a lot locally, and it's the same concept. This really ought to be something we aspire to as a standard IMO.

I've submitted several Gitpod + VS Code Devcontainer setup PR's to projects to spare others the pain of having to figure it out.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#184

Post by teh_klev »

thrav wrote: post #40
capybara_2020 wrote: post #35

Can someone help me understand the no-code movement and what supposedly has changed in the last few years? I know Microsoft tried to allow non-developers to create apps without developers, and they have been trying for decades. But failed! They built an app that allowed you to drag and drop blocks, and they tried a visual query builder(not sure what the exact name was) for SQL. They added a workflow builder to ShareP…

I’m interested in what these things do better than Salesforce, which is incredibly powerful Apps for gaps foothold, and allows both code and no code development. I suspect the answer is that they don’t require you to buy seats for all the users, but wonder if anyone is familiar with both.

> what these things do better than Salesforce

Not being Salesforce ;)

I worked on a bunch of Salesforce stuff for about a year, including building an app. Can't say I relished that time. I think the thing that seems attractive about Bubble is it doesn't carry the other baggage that you get included with Salesforce.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#185

Post by adrianmsmith »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #50
brundolf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a more useful category would be "just-code". I.e., even today you have to know quite a bit of auxiliary stuff about computers, your environment, tooling, networking, to realistically contribute to a real codebase (much less start one from scratch!). I think this is the real unnecessary barrier. Logic doesn't go away, but plenty of smart people can do logic who don't want to learn esoterica about fixing th…

I have seen simple things in Open Source Programs that I know I could track down and fix. Off by one errors, modulus stuff and such. Do open source projects have an obvious "run this script to configure your complete dev environment in respect to this project" ? I would be happy to spin up a new VM for every project on that basis.

> Do open source projects have an obvious "run this script to configure your complete dev environment in respect to this project" ? I would be happy to spin up a new VM for every project on that basis.

Have used Vagrant for that, worked well, but not popular these days. Spins up a VM, you check in a script to install everything you need inside it.

Docker Compose isn’t bad for that either. Can specify a bunch of components such a databases, and a Dockerfile can specify what you need in your main container such as particular versions of Java or whatever.

Not to say all projects are using these things. But they’re out there, and can be used if the developers want.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#186

Post by mdoms »

mrspeaker wrote: post #48
deeviant wrote: post #10

I think the biggest problem with this approach is at some point, they necessarily reach a level of complexity that it takes the same amount of time to learn how to use their "no-code" tools than it does to just learn how to code.

It works best for prototyping and rapidly testing ideas. I joined a startup that didn't have any deep coding skills - but had a great idea and vision for a product. They had made a pretty decent prototype with Bubble and could quickly implement suggestions from the beta testers. When I joined I instantly suggested re-writing it in a "real" stack. But when I dived into it, there was a lot of built in features of Bubbl…

Thanks for your comment which definitely isn't sponsored or paid for.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#187

Post by patrickthebold »

gilbetron wrote: post #175

What's the difference between no/low-code and just an application? Most of these just seem like a solidly built application that allows users to do complex things. MS Word is a no-code application to generate documents, Photoshop is a no-code application to generate images, Chrome is a no-code application to explore the web. "no-code" just seems like a marketing term.

I think it's more or less continuous from data -> application -> no/low code -> programming languages. Where you get more flexibility at each step.

E.g if I want to crop a photo I'm not going to do it in Java even though Java gives me all the power to do that and more. And of course LaTeX is Turing complete so I could mine bitcoins with a document.

So in one sense it is arbitrary but in another the marketing is useful to give some idea of how much power/flexibility the application will allow.

I think you can argue Excel is a low-code application.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#188

Post by jacquesm »

deeviant wrote: post #10

I think the biggest problem with this approach is at some point, they necessarily reach a level of complexity that it takes the same amount of time to learn how to use their "no-code" tools than it does to just learn how to code.

Clearly you haven't actually used any of these tools or you likely would not have written it.

I've worked with '4G' since Mimer, Mapper and all kinds of other contenders and until a few years ago (roughly until 'Mendix') low code / no code was a limiting environment.

But Mendix got it right and there are plenty of valid domains of application for the current crop. Plenty of success stories of companies that used it as RAD and validation tool. Once the money rolls in you can always do a rewrite, it is much easier to do that when you are successful then to try to find success on a platform that is slower to develop for. Like every other tool: use where appropriate, there are plenty of domains where this approach would not work.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#189

Post by cam-perry »

redsymbol wrote: post #139

Some people here are giving examples of using Bubble a few years ago, and found it too limited to be useful. Have any developers here used it recently ? When I first looked at Zapier about 2.5 years ago, as a developer I found it limiting and just not useful compared to writing custom webhooks that I sometimes glued together with cron jobs, etc. But since late last year, Zapier has matured so much I am able to use it…

Yep. My partner is non technical and has been using Bubble since October. I have great impressions. The responsiveness editor could be better, or maybe just better documented.

As a developer, you can't come in thinking you'll just get it. Bubble has renamed things for simplicity to non-technical folks and you need to take the time to learn their system.

Something I found great is Bubble's API Connector plugin and their REST Data API to. It lets you to call out to external APIs and CRUD into the bubble database. When my partner's app had a bit of "complex" backend logic that couldnt be easily done in the Bubble UI, I wrote a lambda function and they call it using the Bubble UI.

Bubble has been great for them. As their product / company grow that may not always be the case. But I think it'll hold up for longer than most developers believe, well beyond the initial prototype phase.

Re: No-code startup Bubble raises $100M

#190

Post by orliesaurus »

I used to work at a company which was doing "AWS Lambda" before AWS lambda was official and Bubble had just started. Unfortunately that company I worked at didn't make it through the journey - but Bubble did...and it's awesome for them. As a developer I tried Bubble and got frustrated but I can totally see how people that don't know too much about code can simply learn the platform and build ton of useful things with it. Some can also make a living out of it. So that's good! I also wanted to add that there's other nocode tools and then the "retool" startup that was here on HN a couple of times in the past....they branded themselves as No-code for enterprise?

The right tool in the right hands can be like a torch in a dark abyss. (But please don't bring a torch in a cave full of ignitable gas)

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