[stdbrouw]

But that's exactly what people used to think in the 60s and 70s: instead of requiring a bunch of electrical engineers to build some arcane contraption, now ordinary folks can just write something that almost looks like English and you can automate anything and do calculations in seconds that used to take months! If that didn't pan out even though it seemed so freaking obvious that it would, why will No Code be any different?

[bildung]

To add an anecdote: No Code already was the hot new thing in the 90s when I studied CS. You could click together custom interfaces in Delphi and even do basic wiring with clicking alone, IIRC. Devs expected that laypeople click together the solution they want and developers do the remaining wiring. Yet no non-developer could actually use that thing. Nowadays I think the main hurdle is the transformation of a fluffy real world problem into something of an algorithm. Developers do this almost unconsciously, because they practice this all the time, and thus are usually not aware of it. Yet this process of quantification of the real world problem often is the actual problem, not writing it down as code.

[carbonguy]

> I think the main hurdle is the transformation of a fluffy real world problem into something of an algorithm.

I came to a very similar conclusion after I had been teaching programming in high school for a few years: the difficulty of "programming" is in learning to think algorithmically, and no amount of "No Code" tooling gets you around that problem. The article alludes to this with the "PBJ sandwich problem" - people are used to specifying processes based on a collective (and often unconscious) cultural understanding, which computers obviously do not share!

[hvidgaard]

I'm inclined to agree. One of the most successful "No Code" programs is Excel. Yet we still, time and time again, see people struggle with basic calculations in it. It's literally elementary school mathematics we're talking about.

I think most "No Code" and especially RPA in general will fall into that. The required mindset to think programmatically is not something the majority of people have unfortunately. But "No Code" will enable those that is somewhat technically inclined and able to think sufficiently programmatically.

[toolslive]

Yes! SQL for example, was invented for business people to allow them to pull their own reports iso having to bother programmers to do it for them. We all know what really happened.

[datavirtue]

Millions of business people pulling their own reports? That is a thing.