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by tenaciousDaniel 1757 days ago
I find the no-low-code trend really interesting, because it shines a light on the difference in perspective between programmers and non-programmers. It's generally assumed that "code is complex", and therefore that's where the complexity lies in producing software. It's a reasonable assumption if you're looking at it from the outside, but anyone who codes knows that complexity is, well, complex.
2 comments

Here's my thinking:

1. There is a lot of complexity in building, deploying and maintaining software

2. There is a lot of complexity in understanding a domain and figuring out precise business logic

Often, (1) and (2) are known by different people, from technology and business functions. There is a communication overhead.

We can eliminate the communication overhead if (1) and (2) are known by the same person. But learning to code is hard... so if we make the programming easier (or even "no code") then people who know (2) can easily pick up (1)!

Ultimately though, I'm not convinced that (1) will ever be easy...

In all seriousness, in the real world the business types don't actually know the precise business logic, and the people who know number 1 are the ones that have to figure it out.
I've always found the complexity was implementing business requirements. for example if field x is "y" then fields g is required, and field f can only be these three choices. and if field g is filled in, then field x can not be y

Stuff like this is where a lot of no-code stuff falls down.

I find it difficult to agree with this statement. But perhaps I am biased towards no-code.

I have always been able to find a way around when implementing complex business logic.

A very peculiar use case I had to solve was for a parking slot booking app - limited spots available, one spot can hold either one large vehicle (car) or six 2-wheelers.

So essentially it became like how you mentioned-> if x=car then parking spots available can only be N choices. If x = bike, then spots is 6N or 6(N-1) if someone booked a spot for a car. If spots remaining = 3 then x can not be Car.

Took me a couple of days to get it working but i was in the end able to get a working app built purely with no-code on DronaHQ.

Disclaimer - I work with DronaHQ.

Yep exactly. I've found that to be the case as well.