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> Low-code enables domain experts to become citizen developers. I have yet to see a single "citizen developer" successfully building stuff using low-code/no-c

by RajT88 3y ago

> Low-code enables domain experts to become citizen developers. I have yet to see a single "citizen developer" successfully building stuff using low-code/no-code solutions.* > At the same time, low-code platforms should also strive to make pro-developers (professionals with an education or career in software development) more productive. This is mostly what I see. Occasionally, I see real developers sticking with the low-code/no-code solutions far beyond what it should ever be used for, to the detriment of the product. What I do see a lot of is people with a long history in the business aspect being brought in as program managers, QA testers, UI designers, etc. They are generally very successful in those areas. *VB6 and Visual FoxPro I have seen business people building production apps with. You may not consider those to be "real" low-code/no-code solutions, but... I've seen business people teaching themselves those to build their own stuff.

threatofrain 3y ago
I've seen designers build pretty good websites without touching code.
- sarchertech 3y ago
  My mom was building pretty good websites in dreamweaver nearly 25 years ago without touching code. As soon as something went wrong though—watch out.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    Exactly the problem with low code tools. As soon as you have a small deviation from the framework (be it an issue or just a wonky requirement) you are stuck.
    - michaelteter 3y ago
      And we face situations like this all the time as developers building full-code solutions. We get stuck because the PoC which went into production can't scale, and we buckle down and build an appropriate V2. You're essentially arguing that MVPs are a bad idea, but evidence suggests the contrary.
      - RajT88 3y ago
        > You're essentially arguing that MVPs are a bad idea Except I am not arguing that at all! I am arguing that there are reasons low/no code tools have not been more successful.
      - wizofaus 3y ago
        I'd certainly suggest building an MVP with a low-code platform isn't a good use of resources unless your actual devs are all flat out doing other stuff and there are spare resources on the product team capable of putting something together with such a tool.
      - hinkley 3y ago
        V2 is often a surprise to management and many of us have a lot of scar tissue originating from these sagas. We are not eager for more repeats. Sunk cost fallacy begets cheapness, not frugality.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      I would say “code generator” here but there’s only been one domain where I’ve seen respectable code being generated and that’s CSS. before SCSS and Less I’d never met one that didn’t horrify or even terrify me. Haven’t met many since, either. But in theory a code generator could be evacuated to version control and forked. Of course you have no commit history, which impoverishes the value of the code, but you have something.
amilios 3y ago
Not sure if this counts, but many successful games have been made with Game-maker-style tools, which I think would be classified as "low-code". E.g. Undertale
Karrot_Kream 3y ago
Excel sheets and now Airtable bases are another way to build apps I see pretty often. The problem is when these things outgrow their original platforms there's a huge step in effort up from "simplify the formula/query" to "ingest all the data into a database then write a view on top". My own wish for low-code tools is to cross this chasm.
- michaelteter 3y ago
  Productionisation of these things can be a chore, but it's always doable. And you have the benefit of a working model to base your "real" solution on. I don't think this chasm will ever really be bridged without real developers. However, a lot of problems are ephemeral, and the short term low-code solution is adequate until the problem no longer exists; or it's small enough that the low-code solution can run meet the need indefinitely.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- hinkley 3y ago
  When Oracle bought Sun Microsystems they got OpenOffice people, and they could have tried to build such a thing on top of the light version of Oracle. That’s when I learned the complaints about Larry were right. Larry only cares about Larry, money, and the Church of the Database. Fixing spreadsheets is a little too egalitarian.
michaelteter 3y ago
> I have yet to see a single "citizen developer" successfully building stuff using low-code/no-code solutions.* I've seen plenty, in billing reconciliation, marketing, fraud detection, etc. in major telcos. I've also trained non-programmers to do this, with success (even adding enough Python to create custom nodes for scenarios where no prebuilt block is suitable). Also, plenty (millions?) of citizen developers have built complex "applications" in Excel.
- dleeftink 3y ago
  I concur, people can go a long way with IFTT, Tableau, Blockly and services like Octoparse. For the more creative, there's Cycling '74 Max and Flash back in the day, and I'm sure there are many more low code tools out there that have been stretched beyond their original domain.
hinkley 3y ago
Just looking at code that QA or Ops people write makes me unbearably nervous. Look at all of these load bearing posters everywhere. And those people have been thinking about software their entire career. Domain experts being embedded in Agile teams is not so they can keep an eye on us, it’s so we can keep an eye on each other.

by RajT88 3y ago

threatofrain 3y ago

I've seen designers build pretty good websites without touching code.

sarchertech 3y ago
My mom was building pretty good websites in dreamweaver nearly 25 years ago without touching code. As soon as something went wrong though—watch out.
- RajT88 3y ago
  Exactly the problem with low code tools. As soon as you have a small deviation from the framework (be it an issue or just a wonky requirement) you are stuck.
  - michaelteter 3y ago
    And we face situations like this all the time as developers building full-code solutions. We get stuck because the PoC which went into production can't scale, and we buckle down and build an appropriate V2. You're essentially arguing that MVPs are a bad idea, but evidence suggests the contrary.
    - RajT88 3y ago
      > You're essentially arguing that MVPs are a bad idea Except I am not arguing that at all! I am arguing that there are reasons low/no code tools have not been more successful.
    - wizofaus 3y ago
      I'd certainly suggest building an MVP with a low-code platform isn't a good use of resources unless your actual devs are all flat out doing other stuff and there are spare resources on the product team capable of putting something together with such a tool.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      V2 is often a surprise to management and many of us have a lot of scar tissue originating from these sagas. We are not eager for more repeats. Sunk cost fallacy begets cheapness, not frugality.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    I would say “code generator” here but there’s only been one domain where I’ve seen respectable code being generated and that’s CSS. before SCSS and Less I’d never met one that didn’t horrify or even terrify me. Haven’t met many since, either. But in theory a code generator could be evacuated to version control and forked. Of course you have no commit history, which impoverishes the value of the code, but you have something.

amilios 3y ago

Not sure if this counts, but many successful games have been made with Game-maker-style tools, which I think would be classified as "low-code". E.g. Undertale

Karrot_Kream 3y ago

Excel sheets and now Airtable bases are another way to build apps I see pretty often. The problem is when these things outgrow their original platforms there's a huge step in effort up from "simplify the formula/query" to "ingest all the data into a database then write a view on top". My own wish for low-code tools is to cross this chasm.

michaelteter 3y ago
Productionisation of these things can be a chore, but it's always doable. And you have the benefit of a working model to base your "real" solution on. I don't think this chasm will ever really be bridged without real developers. However, a lot of problems are ephemeral, and the short term low-code solution is adequate until the problem no longer exists; or it's small enough that the low-code solution can run meet the need indefinitely.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hinkley 3y ago
When Oracle bought Sun Microsystems they got OpenOffice people, and they could have tried to build such a thing on top of the light version of Oracle. That’s when I learned the complaints about Larry were right. Larry only cares about Larry, money, and the Church of the Database. Fixing spreadsheets is a little too egalitarian.

michaelteter 3y ago

> I have yet to see a single "citizen developer" successfully building stuff using low-code/no-code solutions.* I've seen plenty, in billing reconciliation, marketing, fraud detection, etc. in major telcos. I've also trained non-programmers to do this, with success (even adding enough Python to create custom nodes for scenarios where no prebuilt block is suitable). Also, plenty (millions?) of citizen developers have built complex "applications" in Excel.

dleeftink 3y ago
I concur, people can go a long way with IFTT, Tableau, Blockly and services like Octoparse. For the more creative, there's Cycling '74 Max and Flash back in the day, and I'm sure there are many more low code tools out there that have been stretched beyond their original domain.

hinkley 3y ago

Just looking at code that QA or Ops people write makes me unbearably nervous. Look at all of these load bearing posters everywhere. And those people have been thinking about software their entire career. Domain experts being embedded in Agile teams is not so they can keep an eye on us, it’s so we can keep an eye on each other.