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Is the success of the no-code trend really a given? Insofar as I can tell no-code addresses configuration management of known entities. It’s not a dsl and it’

Is the success of the no-code trend really a given? Insofar as I can tell no-code addresses configuration management of known entities. It’s not a dsl and it’s not a visual programming environment - it’s, generally speaking, a graphical layer on top of one or more yaml / xml / whatever-file(s) with a finite set of options. That’s good enough in many, many cases. But it’s not a panacea. And it’s certainly not “no-code means no coders.”

MattGaiser 6y ago
We already have no-code for the web. It is called WordPress. We have no code for calculation. It is called Excel. I can see it having applications, but for programs that have a value of $1000 only to the business.
- msla 6y ago
  > We have no code for calculation. It is called Excel. By that metric, Python is "no-code" for practically everything: It's code, but it isn't called that because it isn't written by coders, it's written by people who write software to do their jobs, see? "Formulas" and "scripts" and, in a previous era, "macros" are what we call software written by people who are being paid to do something else.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    Excel comes with most people's computers and they can do it all by clicking buttons and drag and drop. If you are someone who spends all day in VBA, you are at least a software engineer lite if not a software engineer. Doing a table of calculations in Python is much more difficult than doing it in Excel without programming knowledge.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      Learning the abstractions that Excel uses, how to write formulas, and where to click, drag, and drop is programming. Python is no harder if you spend as much time with it as the average Excel expert does in Excel.
- novok 6y ago
  And 25 years ago, no code database apps were things like microsoft access, filemaker pro or even hypercard. And along with those access apps where the programmers hired to fix the mess that the access app became. Within every big central spreadsheet or access database running some business critical process is a seed of a new software startup.
gitgud 6y ago
In my opinion it will provide growth for the software industries, as it lowers the cost of entry for many companies who would otherwise not develop anything. It will also increase demand for integration and plugins for those (low-code) ecosystems, just like all platforms create.

MattGaiser 6y ago

We already have no-code for the web. It is called WordPress. We have no code for calculation. It is called Excel. I can see it having applications, but for programs that have a value of $1000 only to the business.

msla 6y ago
> We have no code for calculation. It is called Excel. By that metric, Python is "no-code" for practically everything: It's code, but it isn't called that because it isn't written by coders, it's written by people who write software to do their jobs, see? "Formulas" and "scripts" and, in a previous era, "macros" are what we call software written by people who are being paid to do something else.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Excel comes with most people's computers and they can do it all by clicking buttons and drag and drop. If you are someone who spends all day in VBA, you are at least a software engineer lite if not a software engineer. Doing a table of calculations in Python is much more difficult than doing it in Excel without programming knowledge.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Learning the abstractions that Excel uses, how to write formulas, and where to click, drag, and drop is programming. Python is no harder if you spend as much time with it as the average Excel expert does in Excel.
novok 6y ago
And 25 years ago, no code database apps were things like microsoft access, filemaker pro or even hypercard. And along with those access apps where the programmers hired to fix the mess that the access app became. Within every big central spreadsheet or access database running some business critical process is a seed of a new software startup.

gitgud 6y ago

In my opinion it will provide growth for the software industries, as it lowers the cost of entry for many companies who would otherwise not develop anything. It will also increase demand for integration and plugins for those (low-code) ecosystems, just like all platforms create.