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Having been on the "actually has to deal with the aftermath of investing in no-code" that is when the cost comes in. Out of the literally dozen or so places I'

Having been on the "actually has to deal with the aftermath of investing in no-code" that is when the cost comes in. Out of the literally dozen or so places I've worked and the half of those that went heavy on low code, it has never worked. The complexity becomes too great after a few months of "wins" and the system falls over on itself because the people using low code need increasingly complex things. But I assume as a marketer once you've finished your sale you move on to the next one. Because that what they all did.

cm2012 3y ago
The trick is to use the no code implementation to learn what you need to build from scratch. Don't think of it as expensive time to redo - think of it as valuable work finding out what your org actually needed. I'm sure you know that people don't even know what they need when they send developers their brief half the time. It's like excel. Yes excel is used for all sorts of messy things its not ideal for, and would be better built by a programmer. But the excel file teaches the developer what their co workers actually need the product to do. It's not wasted time, it's invaluable.
- mellosouls 3y ago
  That's a good observation but falls apart if actual developers have to maintain the Rube-Goldberg app created by well-meaning "Citizen Developers" (© Acme No-Code Corp) using a framework which is only intended for prototypes but not fit for purpose beyond that. Of course, that's a management issue - but managers who are easily taken in by consultancy sweet talk about the power of these frameworks are not always the most likely to understand the problems they cause or have the wisdom or resources to clean up afterwards by doing what you suggest.
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    We can't design tools which are incompetent-manager-proof. There are companies with incompetent management having no clue about software development, but business selection should eventually sort them out.
- leejoramo 3y ago
  The most successful projects I have been on started with a smart manager, admin, engineer or other non-programmer who used Excel, FileMaker, FrontPage or the like. Using the tools they know defined their real scope of work. Projects that start at an empty white board are much harder, which scope creep and higher failure rates
- pdimitar 3y ago
  I don't see how it's a valuable work finding out what your org actually needed if the cost compared to a proper programmer [team] is 3x - 10x more. I mean I get what you're saying but finding one senior dev and onboarding him into the business and using him as a litmus test for most of your ideas as your concept evolves seems like the more sensible and cheaper option.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    The most valuable code is the 2 or 3 prototypes you intentionally wrote in python and throw entirely away. The no-code could easily fall into the same category, as valuable hashing-out process. Any "proper programmer" should know this.
    - pdimitar 3y ago
      I as "a proper programmer" also include cost analysis, which was the main argument given by my parent poster.
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    > I don't see how it's a valuable work finding out what your org actually needed if the cost compared to a proper programmer [team] is 3x - 10x more. They seem to be talking about building real production systems using no-code. Building a prototype using no-code can be faster (at least in some cases) than coding them. Esp. if you consider the cross-org coordination needed to get an allocation for dev team.
Dwolb 3y ago
A rogue marketer at a former company spent weeks with Zapier "trying to improve analytics". They went way too far to the point of saying, "I almost re-built Segment with Zapier". Needless to say the Rube Goldberg machine of Zaps was impossible to debug and all the data and metrics ended up being wrong for the whole quarter. We ripped it all out and had to start fresh.
- FridgeSeal 3y ago
  Low-code-no-code: it’s all fun and games until it isn’t; and when it isn’t it’s an tire-fire.
- ebiester 3y ago
  It did a good job, then. How long would it have taken for the marketer to get their project prioritized if it hadn’t already demonstrated value?
ramesh31 3y ago
>The complexity becomes too great after a few months of "wins" and the system falls over on itself because the people using low code need increasingly complex things. But I assume as a marketer once you've finished your sale you move on to the next one. And those "few months of wins" can mean millions of dollars in revenue for the business that would have been lost with a longer time to market. If it works, it works. And if it breaks, it can be plugged up until something can replace it. But nothing can replace lost time in a competitive industry.
- hftthw 3y ago
  It also means tens of millions of losses when the data pipeline falls over silently. My first job out of university was to work on a compliance tool after someone used yahoo finance for exchange rates in a business critical spreadsheet. The losses were large enough to threaten the viability of the company. Picking pennies in front of steamrolles is a pretty good description of putting no code in production.

cm2012 3y ago

The trick is to use the no code implementation to learn what you need to build from scratch. Don't think of it as expensive time to redo - think of it as valuable work finding out what your org actually needed. I'm sure you know that people don't even know what they need when they send developers their brief half the time. It's like excel. Yes excel is used for all sorts of messy things its not ideal for, and would be better built by a programmer. But the excel file teaches the developer what their co workers actually need the product to do. It's not wasted time, it's invaluable.

mellosouls 3y ago
That's a good observation but falls apart if actual developers have to maintain the Rube-Goldberg app created by well-meaning "Citizen Developers" (© Acme No-Code Corp) using a framework which is only intended for prototypes but not fit for purpose beyond that. Of course, that's a management issue - but managers who are easily taken in by consultancy sweet talk about the power of these frameworks are not always the most likely to understand the problems they cause or have the wisdom or resources to clean up afterwards by doing what you suggest.
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  We can't design tools which are incompetent-manager-proof. There are companies with incompetent management having no clue about software development, but business selection should eventually sort them out.
leejoramo 3y ago
The most successful projects I have been on started with a smart manager, admin, engineer or other non-programmer who used Excel, FileMaker, FrontPage or the like. Using the tools they know defined their real scope of work. Projects that start at an empty white board are much harder, which scope creep and higher failure rates
pdimitar 3y ago
I don't see how it's a valuable work finding out what your org actually needed if the cost compared to a proper programmer [team] is 3x - 10x more. I mean I get what you're saying but finding one senior dev and onboarding him into the business and using him as a litmus test for most of your ideas as your concept evolves seems like the more sensible and cheaper option.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  The most valuable code is the 2 or 3 prototypes you intentionally wrote in python and throw entirely away. The no-code could easily fall into the same category, as valuable hashing-out process. Any "proper programmer" should know this.
  - pdimitar 3y ago
    I as "a proper programmer" also include cost analysis, which was the main argument given by my parent poster.
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  > I don't see how it's a valuable work finding out what your org actually needed if the cost compared to a proper programmer [team] is 3x - 10x more. They seem to be talking about building real production systems using no-code. Building a prototype using no-code can be faster (at least in some cases) than coding them. Esp. if you consider the cross-org coordination needed to get an allocation for dev team.

Dwolb 3y ago

A rogue marketer at a former company spent weeks with Zapier "trying to improve analytics". They went way too far to the point of saying, "I almost re-built Segment with Zapier". Needless to say the Rube Goldberg machine of Zaps was impossible to debug and all the data and metrics ended up being wrong for the whole quarter. We ripped it all out and had to start fresh.

FridgeSeal 3y ago
Low-code-no-code: it’s all fun and games until it isn’t; and when it isn’t it’s an tire-fire.
ebiester 3y ago
It did a good job, then. How long would it have taken for the marketer to get their project prioritized if it hadn’t already demonstrated value?

ramesh31 3y ago

>The complexity becomes too great after a few months of "wins" and the system falls over on itself because the people using low code need increasingly complex things. But I assume as a marketer once you've finished your sale you move on to the next one. And those "few months of wins" can mean millions of dollars in revenue for the business that would have been lost with a longer time to market. If it works, it works. And if it breaks, it can be plugged up until something can replace it. But nothing can replace lost time in a competitive industry.

hftthw 3y ago
It also means tens of millions of losses when the data pipeline falls over silently. My first job out of university was to work on a compliance tool after someone used yahoo finance for exchange rates in a business critical spreadsheet. The losses were large enough to threaten the viability of the company. Picking pennies in front of steamrolles is a pretty good description of putting no code in production.