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Haven't we been hearing about "software that doesn't require any tech skills to build" for 25 years now? It seems like a pipe dream. It's built on some innate

Haven't we been hearing about "software that doesn't require any tech skills to build" for 25 years now? It seems like a pipe dream. It's built on some innate belief that someone can create tools that work for every kind of business possible, which is crazy. I can think in the past few years I've worked on health care registration websites, diamond auction websites, oil reserve management software - nothing would have been tied together with any common tool and all required extensive amounts of custom code for their business logic. I think it's time we drop this dream of normal "business analysts" writing all the software in a company.

rcurry 7y ago
No Code is the Duke Nukem Forever of software development.
milesskorpen 7y ago
But a lot of things that used to require custom software ... don't, anymore. I think what happens is that the kinds of jobs that are stitched together with Iftt/Zapier/Google sheets/whatever stop being classified as "software," so we've got an ever-moving-target. There'll always be a frontier that requires deeper technical expertise. But that frontier will keep moving.
- sanderjd 7y ago
  This is the correct answer. I view my career through this lens now: I aim to find things to work on that I believe are very likely to remain in that frontier that remains classified as "software". I find this useful when thinking about companies and projects. If they seem to be building a CRUD app with clients for different platforms, at a small to medium scale, that might not be far enough into the frontier for me. This is purely a matter of taste or personality. Another very useful (and probably more lucrative) thing to do is to find ways to leverage the ever-increasing ability to build that kind of simple but useful application for some domain without writing much or any of your own "software". But for me, that just doesn't match my interests as well.
perlgeek 7y ago
> It seems like a pipe dream. It's built on some innate belief that someone can create tools that work for every kind of business possible, which is crazy. It doesn't need to work for all every kind of business. Often it starts with an excel sheet. Which works for surprisingly long, but eventually problems with concurrent data entry, or more logic / validation etc. really make that untenable. But, going from a highly customized excel sheet to an in-house developed custom application is a huge leap; only when you start to replace it do you realize just how many Excel features you were actually using. When you start writing a custom application, you need to take of authentication, permissions, audit logging, search functionality and so. Maybe your web framework helps you with some of them, but never all of them, and the missing concerns are a huge pain to get right. I really want something, either a framework or a highly extensible application, to let me actually focus on the business logic. And at the same time, still let me deploy on premise, let me have a functioning CI/CD pipeline and keep my code in git. For a complex project, it will be a programmer writing the code, not a business analyst. But they should focus 90% on intrinsic complexity, not on accidental complexity. We're not there yet, so we need something better.
- icebraining 7y ago
  Those exist; the one I'm most familiar with is Odoo. You download it, point it at a Postgres server and start it up. It shows you a web UI which asks you for a name for a new DB and a admin password. After that, you get a login screen of a typical web app, but almost empty, with just a menu to configure users, groups and basic company info. From there, you can create a module (just a folder with some basic metadata) and in it write a Python class with a few fields (like a Django model), and a menu linked to it. The system takes care of generating some views for CRUD: you just click the menu and it shows you a list of records, then click on a record to see an editable form, etc. Permissions is just a matter of configuring in the UI or writing a CSV file that says which user groups can read and/or write which class / model, or you can write more complex rules (like users of certain groups can only see records created by them, other groups can see all). (Disclaimer: I worked for a few years for companies that developed Odoo modules, but have left the platform for a couple of years now)
- ehnto 7y ago
ryandrake 7y ago
It’s funny: nobody asks for “cars that don’t require technical skill to build” or “airplanes that don’t require technical skill to build.” Why this need to open up software development to people without development skill? As you point out, people have been banging this drum for decades! Why is it ok for some goods to require specialized skill to build, but for other goods the need for this skill is always seen as a problem that urgently needs solving?
- petra 7y ago
  People want cheaper engineering services, in all fields. some work and some companies are working on that. See "generative design" in Mechanical Engineering and Architecture. As for the demand for software tools ? Old startups in that field are starting to show good results, there's money available, so it looks like a good opportunity for a VC.
- AlexCoventry 7y ago
  The unit economics for cars and planes are different, because they involve far less customized design.
- icandoit 7y ago
  Cars without human labor is definitely a thing. Lights out factories. I remember reading about a Salesforce conference where the customers cheered when the c level promised "no programmers necessary".
flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
How would you feel if somebody said that 50 years ago now? And you were relegated to writing exclusively in machine code?
- bluedevil2k 7y ago
  What we program in now is a thin veneer over machine code. And as you point out, it's been 50 years. We're supposed to go totally code-free in the next 10?
  - petra 7y ago
    It's not such a thin veneer if you count libraries.
petra 7y ago
I don't know if "software that doesn't require any tech skills to build" is realistic. But a lot can be done, much faster, with much less expertise required, using modern "low code" tools. Just a few examples from the OutSystems marketing materials(i can't vouch for them, but still): ------------------------------------ "Eighteen applications are already in productive use, some of which have hundreds of users. The company has succeeded in its aim to make research scientists self-sufficient, so that they can build and deploy mobile apps for high-speed experiments, without clogging-up the central IT development team." https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/citizen-developers-build-mobile-apps-field-studies/ https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/citizen-developers-b... ------------------------------------ "We don't even have a UI designer—we use templates that OutSystems provides." - for a consumer facing app. https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/oakland-transforms-city-services-residents/ https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/oakland-transforms-c... ------------------------------------ "Using the platform proved so easy that three of the people who develop Allan Bros. mobile apps are actually warehouse employees, includ-ing a shipping clerk and a fruit sizing manager." https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/optimized-field-processes/-/media/Images/Case%20Studies/optimized-field-processes/tech-target-modern-mobility-allan-bros https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/optimized-field-proc... ------------------------------------ Now of course complex apps will require developers, but it will take much less time, and many apps aren't that complex.
mamcx 7y ago
I think is better to say "software usable in 10 minutes" for people that is not a full time developer. Things like excel, access fit there. The big mistake is not provide a way out the "click and get a full app!" step. This in when things go to fail with this kind of ideas. --- I learn foxpro as my first language and is surprising how many "non developers" use it in the day. I think it get loved precisely because was a bit "harder" than access: You hit a wall with access/excel much faster than foxpro/jupyter, making them for some people HARDER tools than the "harder" tool. Not fun when things are easy, and suddenly, impossible. I say that we can give people credit and them could learn some complex stuff, as long fit well their use case.
- icandoit 7y ago
  Foxpro, visual basic (6 and below), and pre-bad delphi were workhorses. Surely, demand for similar tools today still exists.
  - mamcx 7y ago
    I think the same. My side project is to build something alike. Programming move out "RAD" tools when the web come and making rad for web is near impossible, so somehow that translate "and then stop for everything else". Ironic, because now with mobile it have a good chance!
  - jslove 7y ago
    Hypercard, Lotus Notes, Lotus Approach, Excel Macros, Access, and others
- zubairq 7y ago
  Yes, we are building something like this, very VB 6/Deplhi like at yazz.com
chupa-chups 7y ago
Programming shouldn't exist. Problem solving, algorithm development and logic decomposition/recombination should exist instead. To me, and I presume to the author, "no code" doesn't mean no engineering but the exact opposite: do away with mechanic vocabulary to vocabulary translation work and focus on the actual skills, which are decomposing requirements into atomic units of work and (re-)combining them in a manner making the domain understandable if expressed as code.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > focus on the actual skills, which are decomposing requirements into atomic units of work and (re-)combining them in a manner making the domain understandable if expressed as code. That's literally almost all there is to programming; the rest is just typing things up.
iMuzz 7y ago
> Haven't we been hearing about "software that doesn't require any tech skills to build" for 25 years now? Does anyone here have examples of startups/products that tried to build "no-code" tools historically and failed? (aka. more examples like "Dreamweaver"?) I don't have too much historical context on this stuff and would like to look at the graveyard. :)
- wolco 7y ago
  remedy is no-code awful but succeeded.
ori_b 7y ago
> Haven't we been hearing about "software that doesn't require any tech skills to build" for 25 years now? It's not that recent. COBOL was designed with that in mind. So was SQL.
jamesrcole 7y ago
> Haven't we been hearing about "software that doesn't require any tech skills to build" for 25 years now? It seems like a pipe dream Whether or not it is possible, it means nothing that it hasn't happened in 25 years. 25 years may feel like a long period of time, but it isn't when we're considering the development of technology. In historical terms, we're still in the infancy of computer technology.

rcurry 7y ago

No Code is the Duke Nukem Forever of software development.

milesskorpen 7y ago

But a lot of things that used to require custom software ... don't, anymore. I think what happens is that the kinds of jobs that are stitched together with Iftt/Zapier/Google sheets/whatever stop being classified as "software," so we've got an ever-moving-target. There'll always be a frontier that requires deeper technical expertise. But that frontier will keep moving.

sanderjd 7y ago
This is the correct answer. I view my career through this lens now: I aim to find things to work on that I believe are very likely to remain in that frontier that remains classified as "software". I find this useful when thinking about companies and projects. If they seem to be building a CRUD app with clients for different platforms, at a small to medium scale, that might not be far enough into the frontier for me. This is purely a matter of taste or personality. Another very useful (and probably more lucrative) thing to do is to find ways to leverage the ever-increasing ability to build that kind of simple but useful application for some domain without writing much or any of your own "software". But for me, that just doesn't match my interests as well.

perlgeek 7y ago

> It seems like a pipe dream. It's built on some innate belief that someone can create tools that work for every kind of business possible, which is crazy. It doesn't need to work for all every kind of business. Often it starts with an excel sheet. Which works for surprisingly long, but eventually problems with concurrent data entry, or more logic / validation etc. really make that untenable. But, going from a highly customized excel sheet to an in-house developed custom application is a huge leap; only when you start to replace it do you realize just how many Excel features you were actually using. When you start writing a custom application, you need to take of authentication, permissions, audit logging, search functionality and so. Maybe your web framework helps you with some of them, but never all of them, and the missing concerns are a huge pain to get right. I really want something, either a framework or a highly extensible application, to let me actually focus on the business logic. And at the same time, still let me deploy on premise, let me have a functioning CI/CD pipeline and keep my code in git. For a complex project, it will be a programmer writing the code, not a business analyst. But they should focus 90% on intrinsic complexity, not on accidental complexity. We're not there yet, so we need something better.

icebraining 7y ago
Those exist; the one I'm most familiar with is Odoo. You download it, point it at a Postgres server and start it up. It shows you a web UI which asks you for a name for a new DB and a admin password. After that, you get a login screen of a typical web app, but almost empty, with just a menu to configure users, groups and basic company info. From there, you can create a module (just a folder with some basic metadata) and in it write a Python class with a few fields (like a Django model), and a menu linked to it. The system takes care of generating some views for CRUD: you just click the menu and it shows you a list of records, then click on a record to see an editable form, etc. Permissions is just a matter of configuring in the UI or writing a CSV file that says which user groups can read and/or write which class / model, or you can write more complex rules (like users of certain groups can only see records created by them, other groups can see all). (Disclaimer: I worked for a few years for companies that developed Odoo modules, but have left the platform for a couple of years now)
ehnto 7y ago

ryandrake 7y ago

It’s funny: nobody asks for “cars that don’t require technical skill to build” or “airplanes that don’t require technical skill to build.” Why this need to open up software development to people without development skill? As you point out, people have been banging this drum for decades! Why is it ok for some goods to require specialized skill to build, but for other goods the need for this skill is always seen as a problem that urgently needs solving?

petra 7y ago
People want cheaper engineering services, in all fields. some work and some companies are working on that. See "generative design" in Mechanical Engineering and Architecture. As for the demand for software tools ? Old startups in that field are starting to show good results, there's money available, so it looks like a good opportunity for a VC.
AlexCoventry 7y ago
The unit economics for cars and planes are different, because they involve far less customized design.
icandoit 7y ago
Cars without human labor is definitely a thing. Lights out factories. I remember reading about a Salesforce conference where the customers cheered when the c level promised "no programmers necessary".

flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago

How would you feel if somebody said that 50 years ago now? And you were relegated to writing exclusively in machine code?

bluedevil2k 7y ago
What we program in now is a thin veneer over machine code. And as you point out, it's been 50 years. We're supposed to go totally code-free in the next 10?
- petra 7y ago
  It's not such a thin veneer if you count libraries.

petra 7y ago

I don't know if "software that doesn't require any tech skills to build" is realistic. But a lot can be done, much faster, with much less expertise required, using modern "low code" tools. Just a few examples from the OutSystems marketing materials(i can't vouch for them, but still): ------------------------------------ "Eighteen applications are already in productive use, some of which have hundreds of users. The company has succeeded in its aim to make research scientists self-sufficient, so that they can build and deploy mobile apps for high-speed experiments, without clogging-up the central IT development team." https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/citizen-developers-build-mobile-apps-field-studies/ https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/citizen-developers-b... ------------------------------------ "We don't even have a UI designer—we use templates that OutSystems provides." - for a consumer facing app. https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/oakland-transforms-city-services-residents/ https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/oakland-transforms-c... ------------------------------------ "Using the platform proved so easy that three of the people who develop Allan Bros. mobile apps are actually warehouse employees, includ-ing a shipping clerk and a fruit sizing manager." https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/optimized-field-processes/-/media/Images/Case%20Studies/optimized-field-processes/tech-target-modern-mobility-allan-bros https://www.outsystems.com/case-studies/optimized-field-proc... ------------------------------------ Now of course complex apps will require developers, but it will take much less time, and many apps aren't that complex.

mamcx 7y ago

I think is better to say "software usable in 10 minutes" for people that is not a full time developer. Things like excel, access fit there. The big mistake is not provide a way out the "click and get a full app!" step. This in when things go to fail with this kind of ideas. --- I learn foxpro as my first language and is surprising how many "non developers" use it in the day. I think it get loved precisely because was a bit "harder" than access: You hit a wall with access/excel much faster than foxpro/jupyter, making them for some people HARDER tools than the "harder" tool. Not fun when things are easy, and suddenly, impossible. I say that we can give people credit and them could learn some complex stuff, as long fit well their use case.

icandoit 7y ago
Foxpro, visual basic (6 and below), and pre-bad delphi were workhorses. Surely, demand for similar tools today still exists.
- mamcx 7y ago
  I think the same. My side project is to build something alike. Programming move out "RAD" tools when the web come and making rad for web is near impossible, so somehow that translate "and then stop for everything else". Ironic, because now with mobile it have a good chance!
- jslove 7y ago
  Hypercard, Lotus Notes, Lotus Approach, Excel Macros, Access, and others
zubairq 7y ago
Yes, we are building something like this, very VB 6/Deplhi like at yazz.com

chupa-chups 7y ago

Programming shouldn't exist. Problem solving, algorithm development and logic decomposition/recombination should exist instead. To me, and I presume to the author, "no code" doesn't mean no engineering but the exact opposite: do away with mechanic vocabulary to vocabulary translation work and focus on the actual skills, which are decomposing requirements into atomic units of work and (re-)combining them in a manner making the domain understandable if expressed as code.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
> focus on the actual skills, which are decomposing requirements into atomic units of work and (re-)combining them in a manner making the domain understandable if expressed as code. That's literally almost all there is to programming; the rest is just typing things up.

iMuzz 7y ago

> Haven't we been hearing about "software that doesn't require any tech skills to build" for 25 years now? Does anyone here have examples of startups/products that tried to build "no-code" tools historically and failed? (aka. more examples like "Dreamweaver"?) I don't have too much historical context on this stuff and would like to look at the graveyard. :)

wolco 7y ago
remedy is no-code awful but succeeded.

ori_b 7y ago

> Haven't we been hearing about "software that doesn't require any tech skills to build" for 25 years now? It's not that recent. COBOL was designed with that in mind. So was SQL.

jamesrcole 7y ago

> Haven't we been hearing about "software that doesn't require any tech skills to build" for 25 years now? It seems like a pipe dream Whether or not it is possible, it means nothing that it hasn't happened in 25 years. 25 years may feel like a long period of time, but it isn't when we're considering the development of technology. In historical terms, we're still in the infancy of computer technology.