4 ms·

"no code" is just "somebody else's code" with a GUI. We're more than just a generation away from being able to generate meaningful application outside of the or

"no code" is just "somebody else's code" with a GUI. We're more than just a generation away from being able to generate meaningful application outside of the original toolings scope without coding it at some point in the pipeline

trey-jones 6y ago
Always keeping a sharp eye out for denial, I believe this seems completely obvious to people that actually write code and/or build software for a living. 1. As many others point out, "no-code" is just a different way of representing code/logic. The skills are the same, except for typing. 2. Even if it did take off, someone still has to maintain the code for the no-code tools. I guess eventually the no-code tools are meant to be written in no-code. This doesn't happen overnight.
- syshum 6y ago
  While somewhat true, my experiance with these types of products see this following reoccuring pattern 1. Sales for a No Code product talks up how you will not need programmers to create solutions 2. Company buys No Code product deploys it to users 3. A few users "get it" and create solutions with no code 4. Something in the environment changes, or the original creators of the solution move on from the company and the "no code" solution breaks, no one can fix it or understand what broke or even really explain the "solution" 5. Devs / SysAdmins now have to detangle and figure out how these "no code" solutions works, what they were suppose to be doing in the first place, and figure out why they do not work any more. Often times this results in the dev / admin just redoing everything properly, in a proper programming enviroment because there was no logic to no-code solution
  - kevincox 6y ago
    3. Sounds like the company just found the people who had programmer tendencies.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    Sounds like the marketing was correct: they were able to create solutions without hiring programmers to do it. There's a reason excel is so ludicrously wildly popular as a business tool. It lets accountants do things you used to need a programmer for. That the automation may eventually grow so complex as to require a programmer anyway is not relevant to the utility of excel.
    - syshum 6y ago
      Technically yes, but most of the time it wholly inefficient, not very secure, many times not even accurate or has very little in way of data validation (like Excel) You also end up with a TON of XY problem "solutions" It is a nightmare 90% of the time >>There's a reason excel is so ludicrously wildly popular as a business tool. Because it allows lower wage workers to implement half baked solutions, and manipulate data in away that executives want regardless if it accurate, true, or reliable? I will agree that Excel is a poster child for "no code", it has EVERY problem of no code in spades, I wish i could get back even 1/10th of the time I have wasted in my career trying to decipher some of the moronic things I have seen people do in excel. and do not get me started on people that treat Excel as a Database, Literally pulling in an entire table with a Select * SQL Query then using some excel function to do sorting and filtering.....
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
        > Because it allows lower wage workers to implement half baked solutions, and manipulate data in away that executives want regardless if it accurate, true, or reliable? Or to phrase it more generously: It allowed people to create the tools they needed to make their lives easier without engaging the services of a professional programmer. I know that to the professional programmer this is a high-crime worthy significant prison time, but to me it is basically the point of personal computing.
  - trey-jones 6y ago
    This pattern is not even limited to no-code. You could just substitute "No Code" for mongodb (or coffeescript, or AngularJS, or pretty much any of the short-lived tech that we used or watched people use over the last several decades). Some new hotness catches on and some doesn't. It's really too early to tell for No-Code, but proclaiming its arrival is also premature. Not that the media/marketing machine has any problem beating the drums about unproven tech. But yeah, I feel like I've seen this cycle dozens of times in the last decade of auditing failed software projects that someone is looking to salvage.
    - syshum 6y ago
      No Code is not new, it has been around for decades and decades. it is like "Write one, Run Anywhere" code... It has been promised by vendor after vendor who all have slick sales people that promise the world, and deliver something less functional than excel
syshum 6y ago
I am glad to see the development world using the same statements from the sysadmin world were we have "The cloud is just someone else's server that you do not control"

trey-jones 6y ago

Always keeping a sharp eye out for denial, I believe this seems completely obvious to people that actually write code and/or build software for a living. 1. As many others point out, "no-code" is just a different way of representing code/logic. The skills are the same, except for typing. 2. Even if it did take off, someone still has to maintain the code for the no-code tools. I guess eventually the no-code tools are meant to be written in no-code. This doesn't happen overnight.

syshum 6y ago
While somewhat true, my experiance with these types of products see this following reoccuring pattern 1. Sales for a No Code product talks up how you will not need programmers to create solutions 2. Company buys No Code product deploys it to users 3. A few users "get it" and create solutions with no code 4. Something in the environment changes, or the original creators of the solution move on from the company and the "no code" solution breaks, no one can fix it or understand what broke or even really explain the "solution" 5. Devs / SysAdmins now have to detangle and figure out how these "no code" solutions works, what they were suppose to be doing in the first place, and figure out why they do not work any more. Often times this results in the dev / admin just redoing everything properly, in a proper programming enviroment because there was no logic to no-code solution
- kevincox 6y ago
  3. Sounds like the company just found the people who had programmer tendencies.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Sounds like the marketing was correct: they were able to create solutions without hiring programmers to do it. There's a reason excel is so ludicrously wildly popular as a business tool. It lets accountants do things you used to need a programmer for. That the automation may eventually grow so complex as to require a programmer anyway is not relevant to the utility of excel.
  - syshum 6y ago
    Technically yes, but most of the time it wholly inefficient, not very secure, many times not even accurate or has very little in way of data validation (like Excel) You also end up with a TON of XY problem "solutions" It is a nightmare 90% of the time >>There's a reason excel is so ludicrously wildly popular as a business tool. Because it allows lower wage workers to implement half baked solutions, and manipulate data in away that executives want regardless if it accurate, true, or reliable? I will agree that Excel is a poster child for "no code", it has EVERY problem of no code in spades, I wish i could get back even 1/10th of the time I have wasted in my career trying to decipher some of the moronic things I have seen people do in excel. and do not get me started on people that treat Excel as a Database, Literally pulling in an entire table with a Select * SQL Query then using some excel function to do sorting and filtering.....
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      > Because it allows lower wage workers to implement half baked solutions, and manipulate data in away that executives want regardless if it accurate, true, or reliable? Or to phrase it more generously: It allowed people to create the tools they needed to make their lives easier without engaging the services of a professional programmer. I know that to the professional programmer this is a high-crime worthy significant prison time, but to me it is basically the point of personal computing.
- trey-jones 6y ago
  This pattern is not even limited to no-code. You could just substitute "No Code" for mongodb (or coffeescript, or AngularJS, or pretty much any of the short-lived tech that we used or watched people use over the last several decades). Some new hotness catches on and some doesn't. It's really too early to tell for No-Code, but proclaiming its arrival is also premature. Not that the media/marketing machine has any problem beating the drums about unproven tech. But yeah, I feel like I've seen this cycle dozens of times in the last decade of auditing failed software projects that someone is looking to salvage.
  - syshum 6y ago
    No Code is not new, it has been around for decades and decades. it is like "Write one, Run Anywhere" code... It has been promised by vendor after vendor who all have slick sales people that promise the world, and deliver something less functional than excel

syshum 6y ago

I am glad to see the development world using the same statements from the sysadmin world were we have "The cloud is just someone else's server that you do not control"