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No code is a sales tactic to circumvent engineering folks who would correctly point out that the tool helps with 80% basic use cases and for the remaining 20% e

No code is a sales tactic to circumvent engineering folks who would correctly point out that the tool helps with 80% basic use cases and for the remaining 20% engineers have to be involved, but now instead of using python or something appropriate, they have to build it on top of this proprietary crippled framework.

moomoo11 4y ago
I would argue that’s almost using no code solutions incorrectly because they are good for super initial mvp and validation by people who are non technical. I’m trying to be an entrepreneur and I’m heavily technical. My struggle is on the business side and figuring out how to talk to people, but I can whip up fully functional mobile apps in like 10-20 hours because I’ve done that so many times, or build a solid backend that can easily scale to millions of people (granted that’s not so hard these days). I know how hard and intimidating it is for people without a technical background to SHOW their idea beyond a image or PowerPoint. No code helps such people get something working out and I’m sure once they raise money for their validated idea they can hire engineers to build good long term solutions. I’ve never raised money so idk if that’s reality but I don’t think it’s purely marketing. It’s a valid solution for some people. Anyone can put videos on YouTube to start but once they find their audience and grow the quality and production of the channel grows as well. No code is the same way. Start with what you can like your smartphone and focus on the content, until you’re big enough to have a team and nice gear.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
  I’m a heavily technical engineer and also an entrepreneur. I’m looking at low and no-code solutions right now (specifically Draftbit currently) because even if I can whip up something quickly, I can do it even faster with a low-code solution in areas that aren’t my domain. Also when I have a thousand other things to worry about learning mobile app dev as a primarily backend guy isn’t high on the list of priorities.
  - smaudet 4y ago
    RAD (Rapid Application Development) is a valid way to brainstorm. Offloading solutioning to other people or tools is also a valid strategy. Ultimately, RAD is just a design phase. Commercial No Code companies aren't positioning themselves to be phased out of the design phase, they want to keep collecting your money for as long possible...and if your only advantage is that you have capital to pay someone to do your work for you, you have no advantage over competitors who are likewise capable of doing the same thing, against large companies who can pay much, much more money for the same thing, or eventually against people who figured out how to do it for themselves, more efficiently, than you.
  - moomoo11 4y ago
    I wish you all the best, so that you don't ever have to worry about learning mobile app dev because you are successful with the no-code mvp and can raise funding to hire mobile devs :) Good luck!
bitwize 4y ago
Engineers end up having to be involved anyway. The marketers and business people who slap something together in no-code don't realize that maintenance is the fat bit of the SDLC and they get to the point where they either get overwhelmed by the complexity of the spaghetti they've made, they don't know how to make changes to make the no-code thing do what they want, or they just get tired of maintaining the damn thing. So over the fence it goes to Software, because "they're good at this sort of thing". And now all they have to do is open JIRA tickets -- or send Excel sheets -- with the changes they want made. So yeah. No-code. Easy solution for implementing functionality for managers and marketers -- who have a team of developers they can offload the hard grungy bits to.
iostream24 4y ago
Indeed, we’d be better off just having them make UML diagrams
dgb23 4y ago
There are plenty of low/no/visual code environments that are very successful and ergonomic, some of it is free software, some of it proprietary. I refer to it as visual programming from here on, because it is still a form of programming, the 'no code' term is marketing bull that detracts from that basic fact. A common theme is that visual programming part is a restrictive DSL. So its about configuration and composition. The visual DSL is coded in a general purpose programming language. This model is I think quite powerful. CMS: In Wordpress for example, themes and plugins are provided via code. Users have varying degrees of freedom depending on said themes/plugins to compose them. Game Engines: In Unity visual programming is baked in. Programs can expose varying degrees of configurability. There are whole visual programming tools that let you define logic and behavior. Speadsheets: Already quite powerful on their own, can be extended with scripting languages to gain new capabilities and triggers. Video and Animations: Very typical for visual programming affordances. Users often get drag and drop interfaces to encode logic and behaviors. etc... These types of visual DSLs are incredibly successful, because they allow the programmers/engineers to solve the technically interesting, general problems and the domain experts to solve the domain specific problems. However I agree that these tools often go too far, especially if they don't respect where a visual DSL should stop. Almost half of the work I get is from clients who previously used a "low-code" solution that got them into a mess, which was slow, brittle and unmaintainable.

moomoo11 4y ago

I would argue that’s almost using no code solutions incorrectly because they are good for super initial mvp and validation by people who are non technical. I’m trying to be an entrepreneur and I’m heavily technical. My struggle is on the business side and figuring out how to talk to people, but I can whip up fully functional mobile apps in like 10-20 hours because I’ve done that so many times, or build a solid backend that can easily scale to millions of people (granted that’s not so hard these days). I know how hard and intimidating it is for people without a technical background to SHOW their idea beyond a image or PowerPoint. No code helps such people get something working out and I’m sure once they raise money for their validated idea they can hire engineers to build good long term solutions. I’ve never raised money so idk if that’s reality but I don’t think it’s purely marketing. It’s a valid solution for some people. Anyone can put videos on YouTube to start but once they find their audience and grow the quality and production of the channel grows as well. No code is the same way. Start with what you can like your smartphone and focus on the content, until you’re big enough to have a team and nice gear.

SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
I’m a heavily technical engineer and also an entrepreneur. I’m looking at low and no-code solutions right now (specifically Draftbit currently) because even if I can whip up something quickly, I can do it even faster with a low-code solution in areas that aren’t my domain. Also when I have a thousand other things to worry about learning mobile app dev as a primarily backend guy isn’t high on the list of priorities.
- smaudet 4y ago
  RAD (Rapid Application Development) is a valid way to brainstorm. Offloading solutioning to other people or tools is also a valid strategy. Ultimately, RAD is just a design phase. Commercial No Code companies aren't positioning themselves to be phased out of the design phase, they want to keep collecting your money for as long possible...and if your only advantage is that you have capital to pay someone to do your work for you, you have no advantage over competitors who are likewise capable of doing the same thing, against large companies who can pay much, much more money for the same thing, or eventually against people who figured out how to do it for themselves, more efficiently, than you.
- moomoo11 4y ago
  I wish you all the best, so that you don't ever have to worry about learning mobile app dev because you are successful with the no-code mvp and can raise funding to hire mobile devs :) Good luck!

bitwize 4y ago

Engineers end up having to be involved anyway. The marketers and business people who slap something together in no-code don't realize that maintenance is the fat bit of the SDLC and they get to the point where they either get overwhelmed by the complexity of the spaghetti they've made, they don't know how to make changes to make the no-code thing do what they want, or they just get tired of maintaining the damn thing. So over the fence it goes to Software, because "they're good at this sort of thing". And now all they have to do is open JIRA tickets -- or send Excel sheets -- with the changes they want made. So yeah. No-code. Easy solution for implementing functionality for managers and marketers -- who have a team of developers they can offload the hard grungy bits to.

iostream24 4y ago

Indeed, we’d be better off just having them make UML diagrams

dgb23 4y ago

There are plenty of low/no/visual code environments that are very successful and ergonomic, some of it is free software, some of it proprietary. I refer to it as visual programming from here on, because it is still a form of programming, the 'no code' term is marketing bull that detracts from that basic fact. A common theme is that visual programming part is a restrictive DSL. So its about configuration and composition. The visual DSL is coded in a general purpose programming language. This model is I think quite powerful. CMS: In Wordpress for example, themes and plugins are provided via code. Users have varying degrees of freedom depending on said themes/plugins to compose them. Game Engines: In Unity visual programming is baked in. Programs can expose varying degrees of configurability. There are whole visual programming tools that let you define logic and behavior. Speadsheets: Already quite powerful on their own, can be extended with scripting languages to gain new capabilities and triggers. Video and Animations: Very typical for visual programming affordances. Users often get drag and drop interfaces to encode logic and behaviors. etc... These types of visual DSLs are incredibly successful, because they allow the programmers/engineers to solve the technically interesting, general problems and the domain experts to solve the domain specific problems. However I agree that these tools often go too far, especially if they don't respect where a visual DSL should stop. Almost half of the work I get is from clients who previously used a "low-code" solution that got them into a mess, which was slow, brittle and unmaintainable.