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No code tools all involve code. What they skip or dont involve are as many decisions and combinatorial effects that most “custom” software gets saddled with. Fo

No code tools all involve code. What they skip or dont involve are as many decisions and combinatorial effects that most “custom” software gets saddled with. For example in Retool if you want a table you get a table. One table. You can do a lot with it but you skip all the debate about how to do sorting, padding, styles, optimization, etc. Thats valuable. Today no code seems more like visual basic 6. You drag and drop a bunch of stuff but realistically the meat of it requires more “advanced” knowledge but so does making a really good spreadsheet.

scrame 4y ago
Exactly, the same way "serverless" code is all run on servers.
RajT88 4y ago
This! I love logic apps. I move mountains with them. But to effectively use logic apps, you already have to have some knowledge of programming concepts. Flow control, parsing JSON/XML, parsing strings for meaningful triggers, calling API's. A non-programmer would have a tough time. A programmer can build some pretty nice automation in almost no time at all. I have yet to see a really good no-code solution that lets laymen be productive fast.
smaudet 4y ago
"realistically the meat of it requires more “advanced” knowledge but so does making a really good spreadsheet." Same way the no-code developer doesn't want to learn the harder (more useful tool), the coding developer balks at learning a shitty, constraining language. There is no advantage to learning and using a no-code tool, which is likely incompatible with other tooling. The knowledge is "useless". Its the same aversion a programmer has to "sphaghetti code", not because it doesn't job the done, but because the knowledge is specialized in a non-useful manner. The advantage most developers have found, is that most languages in the C++/Java tradition contain portable idioms - I don't care if you don't know the exact syntax for a for loop, an if statement, etc, once you've learnt to program once, a decent editor makes learning language syntax largely irrelevant. If I were hiring, I would care that you learnt and can use 3+ languages, I don't care which (code) langagues. Now, there are plenty of idiosyncracies within textual languages - package managers, arbitrary gotchas due to language design (is it a reference? immutable? Does it live on the stack/heap/get auto collected?) - textual programmers shouldn't pretend like we live in a perfect world either. Most no code solutions though are going the complete opposite way of standardization. Its like being told "here's a jail, its your new home" and being supposed to be OK with that.
alkonaut 4y ago
> so does making a really good spreadsheet. Excel probably hits the sweet spot for no-code vs low-code vs actual code. The transiion between the levels is completely seamless. If you want to add a complex calculation you can. If you really want to go crazy, you can too. Sure, it's not maintainable, you can't google the formula syntax (because it's translated) etc. An important aspect of "no code" and "low code" isn't that there is no code being typed, there is "no coding tools", "no code compilation", "no code maintenance".

scrame 4y ago

Exactly, the same way "serverless" code is all run on servers.

RajT88 4y ago

This! I love logic apps. I move mountains with them. But to effectively use logic apps, you already have to have some knowledge of programming concepts. Flow control, parsing JSON/XML, parsing strings for meaningful triggers, calling API's. A non-programmer would have a tough time. A programmer can build some pretty nice automation in almost no time at all. I have yet to see a really good no-code solution that lets laymen be productive fast.

smaudet 4y ago

"realistically the meat of it requires more “advanced” knowledge but so does making a really good spreadsheet." Same way the no-code developer doesn't want to learn the harder (more useful tool), the coding developer balks at learning a shitty, constraining language. There is no advantage to learning and using a no-code tool, which is likely incompatible with other tooling. The knowledge is "useless". Its the same aversion a programmer has to "sphaghetti code", not because it doesn't job the done, but because the knowledge is specialized in a non-useful manner. The advantage most developers have found, is that most languages in the C++/Java tradition contain portable idioms - I don't care if you don't know the exact syntax for a for loop, an if statement, etc, once you've learnt to program once, a decent editor makes learning language syntax largely irrelevant. If I were hiring, I would care that you learnt and can use 3+ languages, I don't care which (code) langagues. Now, there are plenty of idiosyncracies within textual languages - package managers, arbitrary gotchas due to language design (is it a reference? immutable? Does it live on the stack/heap/get auto collected?) - textual programmers shouldn't pretend like we live in a perfect world either. Most no code solutions though are going the complete opposite way of standardization. Its like being told "here's a jail, its your new home" and being supposed to be OK with that.

alkonaut 4y ago

> so does making a really good spreadsheet. Excel probably hits the sweet spot for no-code vs low-code vs actual code. The transiion between the levels is completely seamless. If you want to add a complex calculation you can. If you really want to go crazy, you can too. Sure, it's not maintainable, you can't google the formula syntax (because it's translated) etc. An important aspect of "no code" and "low code" isn't that there is no code being typed, there is "no coding tools", "no code compilation", "no code maintenance".