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No No No There is such a thing as software literacy just as there is a thing called literacy. We spend the first 15-20 years of life teaching literacy so that

No No No There is such a thing as software literacy just as there is a thing called literacy. We spend the first 15-20 years of life teaching literacy so that a young person will be productive in life. What makes us think it's going to be different with software? The idea of low-code is like the idea of writing a novel by cut and pasting loads of blank comic book panels carefully crafted by Marvel Studios. This job used to be called Analyst-Programmer - and nothing in low code will stop the analyst part from being needed. As for the programmer part, it is way way easier to express yourself in code once you can code than any of these blocky tools. Yes we desperately need new and better tools and languages and processes and so on. But not dumbing down - skilling up

carlmr 5y ago
Well said.
StandardFuture 5y ago
> But not dumbing down - skilling up But, you cannot have Wall Street consolidated market winners if you do that! How dare you! I saw this first hand growing up. The school system had a couple of programming courses a few years before I got into the high school, and then it got all new computers and magically reduced computer education to only a set of Microsoft Office courses offered. Who needs programming? The school knew we would all only need Word and Excel at any "office job" we could possibly ever get ...
- salawat 5y ago
  So much this. I was in that beautiful space where schools experimented with CNA and A+ cert programs that set me in the generalized basics of how to escape from proprietary stacks.
routerl 5y ago
Fully agreed. A former employer once decided to empower non-technical users to design their own integrations using zapier. It was fine until someone wrote an action that changed a cell on a spreadsheet, which triggered another action that, itself, triggered the original action. A more software literate user would likely have noticed the infinite loop. That was not a fun week. And anyway, this specific case was all to keep two calendars in sync, for which there are simpler and more reliable solutions. Even this awareness, of knowing when to look for something instead of making it yourself, is part of software literacy. It also strikes me that the hyperfocus on UX that we've seen in the past, say, 20 years, has systematically removed users' ability to gain software literacy the way it was mostly done in the past: by tinkering. Current young users are mostly clueless about the workings of their apps, since their attention is so well held by apps' prescribed interactions.
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  Agreed - I mean I grew up on a couple of Sinclair's. You literally started in a command line. You needed to load up the distracting game from tape. Magazines had print outs to type in (that was less cool but at least you had he point) Damn I need to start those coding clubs with my kids ... it's like growing up in a chefs house who just orders take out cos he is too tired after a days work. poor kids
  - routerl 5y ago
    Even the tired chef can still raise their kids with a healthy respect for food and cooking. By all means, order takeout every night if you can afford it, but take that as an opportunity for thoughtful critique: "maybe this meal was too salty because it was counterbalancing the sweetness of the sauce, or maybe the meat was rank and so it was oversalted". Don't beat yourself up :) Just be thoughtful and expressive with your kids, and they'll find their own way around software. Just like you did ;)
gervwyk 5y ago
First off, disclaimer, co-founder of Lowdefy [0] and shameless plug. But feel ok since it is on topic. I 100% agree with you on this. We’ve built many back-office tools for customers and the bulk of the engineering time goes into understanding the problem and tranlating that into data. Tools like Lowdefy make it a lot easier to put this translation into action, but the real work is done by a data literate employee. We believe that role will stay with it the IT / dev department, at least for any project / tool larger than a Airtable. It use to be all tools larger than a spreadsheet or access DB, but now that scale has increased slightly but not much. For this reason we are designing Lowdefy to be a dev first low-code platform. By writing apps in a DSL you get the following advantages: - No steep learning curve for new devs :: All devs are familiar with DSLs. - Apps follow a structured schema :: Easy to pick up where others left off. - Nothing is hidden in a GUI :: You can copy, paste, find, replace, review changes, duplicate repos, etc. - Create and manage apps with code :: Develop scripts, like a visual app builder. - DSL files work with all dev tools :: Devs want to use their favorite tools. [0] - https://github.com/lowdefy/lowdefy https://github.com/lowdefy/lowdefy ---- With all this said, you can optimize with tools as much as you like - most dev productivity is always lost in building the wrong things.
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  Ok - piqued interest, the DSL sounds interesting and I tried the demo. Wish you all the best PS Low-Def-ee or Loader-fi ?
  - gervwyk 5y ago
    Thanks :) It's Low-de-fi
mrtksn 5y ago
A lot of the developers these days tend to be integrators. The no-code tooling can help actually take that procedure to a higher abstraction where understanding of the system would still be needed but understanding of the low level details of coding can be completely eliminated. Think languages like JS or PHP. World have been built using these and many of the developers in these languages don’t have understanding on how computers actually work. People can built money making code with these without learning about data types. Both are regarded as low quality languages but both are extremely productive. Also, many people who don’t know any computer languages are programming in MS Excel all the time. Sometimes, some tools are simply extremely productive and intuitive when the mental model of the domain you are solving problems matches the way these tools work.
- gregjor 5y ago
  You don’t need to know “how computers actually work” to write code in high-level languages. Those are too abstracted away from the hardware and OS. PHP and JS are not considered low-quality languages. They are low-hanging fruit for amateurs to write low-quality software. Yes, people who don’t really know what they’re doing can make money with PHP and JS, just like people who don’t know about food, cooking, nutrition can run a restaurant. That’s not really a good argument for low-code, though.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    JS and PHP are often a joke due to their inconsistencies. Anyway, these are also low-code languages. They are not low hanging fruits because of the syntax or the features but because of the API and boilerplate geared towards specific domain. These almost get out of the way of the people who are not fascinated by the technology itself but by the product they are building. It’s so easy to use JS and PHP to solve a problem. For PHP, you simply wrote your code and put in a folder in a LAMP machine and it works. JS is even easier, you open the developer tools in your favorite browser and there you have it. Instantly start working on your idea.
    - gregjor 5y ago
cyanydeez 5y ago
still, the sheer number of ready made sandboxes certainly will expand such that niche software implementations will be far and fewer. of course, like moores law, its likely not going to engulf everywhere a programmer touches, so new use cases will keep busy. but take wordpress, you can basicslly build a whole ecommerce site knowing a couple of plugins real well.

carlmr 5y ago

Well said.

StandardFuture 5y ago

> But not dumbing down - skilling up But, you cannot have Wall Street consolidated market winners if you do that! How dare you! I saw this first hand growing up. The school system had a couple of programming courses a few years before I got into the high school, and then it got all new computers and magically reduced computer education to only a set of Microsoft Office courses offered. Who needs programming? The school knew we would all only need Word and Excel at any "office job" we could possibly ever get ...

salawat 5y ago
So much this. I was in that beautiful space where schools experimented with CNA and A+ cert programs that set me in the generalized basics of how to escape from proprietary stacks.

routerl 5y ago

Fully agreed. A former employer once decided to empower non-technical users to design their own integrations using zapier. It was fine until someone wrote an action that changed a cell on a spreadsheet, which triggered another action that, itself, triggered the original action. A more software literate user would likely have noticed the infinite loop. That was not a fun week. And anyway, this specific case was all to keep two calendars in sync, for which there are simpler and more reliable solutions. Even this awareness, of knowing when to look for something instead of making it yourself, is part of software literacy. It also strikes me that the hyperfocus on UX that we've seen in the past, say, 20 years, has systematically removed users' ability to gain software literacy the way it was mostly done in the past: by tinkering. Current young users are mostly clueless about the workings of their apps, since their attention is so well held by apps' prescribed interactions.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago
Agreed - I mean I grew up on a couple of Sinclair's. You literally started in a command line. You needed to load up the distracting game from tape. Magazines had print outs to type in (that was less cool but at least you had he point) Damn I need to start those coding clubs with my kids ... it's like growing up in a chefs house who just orders take out cos he is too tired after a days work. poor kids
- routerl 5y ago
  Even the tired chef can still raise their kids with a healthy respect for food and cooking. By all means, order takeout every night if you can afford it, but take that as an opportunity for thoughtful critique: "maybe this meal was too salty because it was counterbalancing the sweetness of the sauce, or maybe the meat was rank and so it was oversalted". Don't beat yourself up :) Just be thoughtful and expressive with your kids, and they'll find their own way around software. Just like you did ;)

gervwyk 5y ago

First off, disclaimer, co-founder of Lowdefy [0] and shameless plug. But feel ok since it is on topic. I 100% agree with you on this. We’ve built many back-office tools for customers and the bulk of the engineering time goes into understanding the problem and tranlating that into data. Tools like Lowdefy make it a lot easier to put this translation into action, but the real work is done by a data literate employee. We believe that role will stay with it the IT / dev department, at least for any project / tool larger than a Airtable. It use to be all tools larger than a spreadsheet or access DB, but now that scale has increased slightly but not much. For this reason we are designing Lowdefy to be a dev first low-code platform. By writing apps in a DSL you get the following advantages: - No steep learning curve for new devs :: All devs are familiar with DSLs. - Apps follow a structured schema :: Easy to pick up where others left off. - Nothing is hidden in a GUI :: You can copy, paste, find, replace, review changes, duplicate repos, etc. - Create and manage apps with code :: Develop scripts, like a visual app builder. - DSL files work with all dev tools :: Devs want to use their favorite tools. [0] - https://github.com/lowdefy/lowdefy https://github.com/lowdefy/lowdefy ---- With all this said, you can optimize with tools as much as you like - most dev productivity is always lost in building the wrong things.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago
Ok - piqued interest, the DSL sounds interesting and I tried the demo. Wish you all the best PS Low-Def-ee or Loader-fi ?
- gervwyk 5y ago
  Thanks :) It's Low-de-fi

mrtksn 5y ago

A lot of the developers these days tend to be integrators. The no-code tooling can help actually take that procedure to a higher abstraction where understanding of the system would still be needed but understanding of the low level details of coding can be completely eliminated. Think languages like JS or PHP. World have been built using these and many of the developers in these languages don’t have understanding on how computers actually work. People can built money making code with these without learning about data types. Both are regarded as low quality languages but both are extremely productive. Also, many people who don’t know any computer languages are programming in MS Excel all the time. Sometimes, some tools are simply extremely productive and intuitive when the mental model of the domain you are solving problems matches the way these tools work.

gregjor 5y ago
You don’t need to know “how computers actually work” to write code in high-level languages. Those are too abstracted away from the hardware and OS. PHP and JS are not considered low-quality languages. They are low-hanging fruit for amateurs to write low-quality software. Yes, people who don’t really know what they’re doing can make money with PHP and JS, just like people who don’t know about food, cooking, nutrition can run a restaurant. That’s not really a good argument for low-code, though.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  JS and PHP are often a joke due to their inconsistencies. Anyway, these are also low-code languages. They are not low hanging fruits because of the syntax or the features but because of the API and boilerplate geared towards specific domain. These almost get out of the way of the people who are not fascinated by the technology itself but by the product they are building. It’s so easy to use JS and PHP to solve a problem. For PHP, you simply wrote your code and put in a folder in a LAMP machine and it works. JS is even easier, you open the developer tools in your favorite browser and there you have it. Instantly start working on your idea.
  - gregjor 5y ago

cyanydeez 5y ago

still, the sheer number of ready made sandboxes certainly will expand such that niche software implementations will be far and fewer. of course, like moores law, its likely not going to engulf everywhere a programmer touches, so new use cases will keep busy. but take wordpress, you can basicslly build a whole ecommerce site knowing a couple of plugins real well.