<story><title>Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?</title><text>Hi HN, maybe it&amp;#x27;s just the bubble I&amp;#x27;m in but these days I see a lot of discussion around &amp;quot;no-code&amp;quot; and the &amp;quot;no-code&amp;quot; movement. There&amp;#x27;s also a bunch of new no-code apps being launched every day - https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.producthunt.com&amp;#x2F;topics&amp;#x2F;no-code#order=trending.&lt;p&gt;Some seem to supplement developers (eg: retool) and some empower non-engineers to be able to build websites&amp;#x2F;apps&amp;#x2F;integrations without necessarily having a developer in the loop (eg: shopify&amp;#x2F;zapier&amp;#x2F;airtable).&lt;p&gt;What do you think about this movement? Clearly these apps&amp;#x2F;platforms enable non-developers to solve a bunch of problems which would otherwise need a software engineer. Is this a paradigm shift?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jl6</author><text>This is an imperfect analogy, but consider for a moment the role Microsoft Excel plays.&lt;p&gt;Excel allows non-coders to do many useful things, and provides a relatively gentle on-ramp to actual code via formulas. If you take that on-ramp and keep going, towards VBA and add-ins and other pieces of Microsoft technology, you might wind up becoming a full-time software developer, leaving Excel behind and using “real” tools.&lt;p&gt;Now, there’s a happy path and an unhappy path here.&lt;p&gt;The happy path is that you use Excel for what it’s good at, but recognize when you are operating at its limits, and at that point pivot into “real” software engineering tools.&lt;p&gt;The unhappy path is that you stick with Excel too long and become mired in the world of VBA and advanced formulas and attempts at shared workbooks, and build pseudo-database application-contraptions.&lt;p&gt;No-code can be like that early Excel usage: it can grant some limited but useful powers to non-developers. But no-code can also evolve to become like those contorted, unmaintainable spreadsheet monstrosities that stretch the technology far beyond the point where some “real” software engineering would have been the right answer.&lt;p&gt;Short version: use the right tool for the job.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ethbr0</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Excel allows non-coders to do many useful things&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I heard a great quip at some point: &amp;quot;Why is Excel the most useful IDE?&amp;quot; Answer: &amp;quot;Because it&amp;#x27;s the one IDE every business allows every user to access.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Most of us here have forgotten that many businesses flat out ban access to programming tools for the majority of users.&lt;p&gt;And what is an enterprising user to do, when they realize they&amp;#x27;re performing the same process 100 times a day?&lt;p&gt;Reach for the only wrench they&amp;#x27;ve been given access to.&lt;p&gt;PS: I guess an analogy would be people griping about shell scripting, without considering that someone might not have the ability to install their framework of choice when connecting into a client server. It gets the job done, with the tools available.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?</title><text>Hi HN, maybe it&amp;#x27;s just the bubble I&amp;#x27;m in but these days I see a lot of discussion around &amp;quot;no-code&amp;quot; and the &amp;quot;no-code&amp;quot; movement. There&amp;#x27;s also a bunch of new no-code apps being launched every day - https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.producthunt.com&amp;#x2F;topics&amp;#x2F;no-code#order=trending.&lt;p&gt;Some seem to supplement developers (eg: retool) and some empower non-engineers to be able to build websites&amp;#x2F;apps&amp;#x2F;integrations without necessarily having a developer in the loop (eg: shopify&amp;#x2F;zapier&amp;#x2F;airtable).&lt;p&gt;What do you think about this movement? Clearly these apps&amp;#x2F;platforms enable non-developers to solve a bunch of problems which would otherwise need a software engineer. Is this a paradigm shift?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jl6</author><text>This is an imperfect analogy, but consider for a moment the role Microsoft Excel plays.&lt;p&gt;Excel allows non-coders to do many useful things, and provides a relatively gentle on-ramp to actual code via formulas. If you take that on-ramp and keep going, towards VBA and add-ins and other pieces of Microsoft technology, you might wind up becoming a full-time software developer, leaving Excel behind and using “real” tools.&lt;p&gt;Now, there’s a happy path and an unhappy path here.&lt;p&gt;The happy path is that you use Excel for what it’s good at, but recognize when you are operating at its limits, and at that point pivot into “real” software engineering tools.&lt;p&gt;The unhappy path is that you stick with Excel too long and become mired in the world of VBA and advanced formulas and attempts at shared workbooks, and build pseudo-database application-contraptions.&lt;p&gt;No-code can be like that early Excel usage: it can grant some limited but useful powers to non-developers. But no-code can also evolve to become like those contorted, unmaintainable spreadsheet monstrosities that stretch the technology far beyond the point where some “real” software engineering would have been the right answer.&lt;p&gt;Short version: use the right tool for the job.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jimbokun</author><text>I would go further and say Excel is the ultimate no-code solution.  It has been used by more people to solve coding like problems by non-coders than any other no-coding tool.</text></comment>