[mb22]

I am an engineer with 20+ years of hands on keyboard, I've got projects that are now part of Apache, 1000's of stars on github. I've been CTO at a number of startups that have got significant funding. My point is to establish some credibility. I probably still suck.

Having said that, I have been working with Microsoft PowerAutomate for the past 1.5 years and while it has saved a lot of time and been overall a good experience, there are times when the no code/low code gets in the way and I wish I could just "drop into code" to get something done. Examples are things like data validation. This technology is not going to replace coding, the paradigm shift is really happening for people in the marketing and sales operations parts of the business. For these folks, this tech is life changing. In a lot of ways, this tech felt like when you try a new framework in your language of choice; at first it's super easy and you get hyped, and then you hit a requirement where the nocode/lowcode environment really gets in the way.

[drunkpotato]

I think this is spot-on. No-code solutions allow non-technical folks in marketing and sales to build some amazing things that would have required teams of software engineers: marketing, shopping cart, and email integrations; email onboarding workflows; complex ad campaigns; better inventory and wholesale sales management; and a lot of other things I'm not creative enough to think of. I've seen an entire application prototype built by a product manager by duct taping Google Sheets, Mailchimp, and a database together with Zapier.

However, their wants always grow just beyond the no-code capabilities, and there's still a need for software engineers for things that haven't been fully solved yet.

[ethbr0]

IMHO, the best fusion of the two is offering a no-code tool to non-technical folks... while ensuring you have a tiger team of random and varied developers to produce one-off duct tape bits to cover gaps for them.

It seems far more efficient to have a non-technical person fiddle with a GUI, get most of the way on data integration, etc., and then come to the team with only the parts they couldn't figure out.

"I have this list of strings and I need to X" or "I need to push data to this API"

We did something similar at a previous job, and it generally worked out well. The code assistance kept people from constructing Rube Goldberg machines in the designer tool, to solve simple coding problems that the tool couldn't cover.

[ROARosen]

> I wish I could just "drop into code" to get something done.

Since you're using PowerPlatform you can prob easily do that with Microsoft's Power FX, built - I believe - especially for this.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/power-fx/ove...

[Hjfrf]

I'm confused about the intended audience.

Power FX has a level of abstraction squeezed between MS's other options (excel formulae,power query M/DAX, Powershell, C#).

It gives the impression of a pet project rather than something users actually asked for.

[mb22]

thank you for pointing this out! Microsoft is so vast in its offerings, sometimes you can't even find the thing you believe must exist.

[prepend]

I’ve had a different experience with PowerAutomate.

Both as a no-coder and a user.

As a user the UX is horrible and I’m now swamped with terrible “apps” or “workflows” that people try to get me to use and fail for arcane reasons. Or are just ugly or brittle.

As a no-coder the tools are hit or miss, the docs are bad, and widgets frequently don’t work due to my licensing and there’s no way to know other than to try and see.

It has such promise as the shell scripting equivalent for the cloud what shell was to PCs. But instead it is a costly and difficult thing to use.

[nitrogen]

It has such promise as the shell scripting equivalent for the cloud what shell was to PCs.

What ever happened to Yahoo Pipes?

[prepend]

I really miss yahoo pipes.

I played with Huginn a bit, but it’s a steeper learning curve.

I feel like the promise of the Internet has really been blocked off my adding in some nice business models. So now companies don’t want interoperability and orchestration as that stuff just reduces revenue. Why would goog/face/etc want us spending less time doing mundane tasks. They want us spending the max amount of manual stuff as long as we don’t quit.

[mb22]

I find the UX horrible for different reasons, ones that I believe are pretty easy for microsoft to address if they just watched someone like me use the product. I have not experienced the brittleness, maybe what I am doing is more trivial.

[nodejs_rulez_1]

> I am an engineer with 20+ years of hands on keyboard, I've got projects that are now part of Apache, 1000's of stars on github. I've been CTO at a number of startups that have got significant funding. My point is to establish some credibility. I probably still suck.

More about being in a right place at a right time, but granted.

> Having said that, I have been working with Microsoft PowerAutomate for the past 1.5 years and while it has saved a lot of time and been overall a good experience, there are times when the no code/low code gets in the way and I wish I could just "drop into code" to get something done. Examples are things like data validation. This technology is not going to replace coding, the paradigm shift is really happening for people in the marketing and sales operations parts of the business. For these folks, this tech is life changing. In a lot of ways, this tech felt like when you try a new framework in your language of choice; at first it's super easy and you get hyped, and then you hit a requirement where the nocode/lowcode environment really gets in the way.

I think higher-level languages with a dual code-graphic representation and a possibility to drop into lower level are an interesting option, but even that is not new - Unreal/Unity3D etc.

[bluedevil2k]

Why are you trying to diminish his accomplishments? Does that make you feel better, to try to bring someone down? You come off as bitter and unaccomplished and this site could use less of people like you.

[dudeman13]

Humble-bragging either works real well or backfires real hard.

[mb22]

It was not meant to be a humble brag, sorry if it came off that way.