Will Low Code/No Code Kill Programming Jobs? • Dave Farley • GOTO 2022

We’re so pleased to announce that we’ve teamed up with Dave Farley, author of “Continuous Delivery” and frequent GOTO Conferences speaker, for a monthly video series featuring ideas about continuous delivery, DevOps, test-driven development, BDD, software engineering and software development in general.

Find plenty more from Dave on his @ContinuousDelivery channel.

Dave Farley - Continuous Delivery & DevOps Pioneer, Award-winning Author, Founder & Director of Continuous Delivery Ltd.

ABSTRACT
Low code and no code are ideas that are gaining traction. Low-code development platforms are used to solve all sorts of software development problems, but what is no code development, is this a new idea that will take your job, or is this another attempt at an old idea and some kind of no-code bubble. What is the effect of low code on programmers, and the organisations that employ them? What are the pitfalls to adopting low-code solutions and what should you do to avoid them?

In this episode, Dave Farley, author of “Continuous Delivery” and “Modern Software Engineering” explores the use, and problems in using, low-code for software development. Computer science and software engineering have evolved strategies to deal with the complexities at the heart of software, but can low-code really hide these complexities? Dave describes some common, maybe unavoidable problems and discusses what you need to do to avoid them.

CD TRAINING COURSES
If you want to learn Continuous Delivery and DevOps skills, check out Dave Farley's courses

RECOMMENDED BOOKS & LINKS
You can grab Dave Farley's new book 'Continuous Delivery Pipelines' here:

#GOTOxDaveFarley #Programming #SoftwareArchitecture #CD #ContinuousIntegration #LowCode #NoCode #LowCodeNoCode #LowCodeTutorial #NoCodeTutorial #DevOps #DaveFarley #GOTO #GOTOcon #ContinuousDelivery #Accelerate #Complexity

DAVE'S LINKS
Gregor Hohpe’s article “The Quest for Low-Code: 9 paths, some of which actually work”:

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[brnto]

I’m glad you mentioned spreadsheets as a low/no code solution. Many businesses small and large run off them lol. And they can be quite complex systems.

[rothbardfreedom]

Let me translate for you:

No code -> Someone else's code
Serverless -> Someone else's server

[scottsnelson]

I did a proposal last year where LCNC was one of three options with a bespoke solution as another and I on the positive side of bespoke I listed that it could be built faster. A project manager pushed back on this because the expectation is that no-code is faster. This is a frequent assumption because people who don't understand how to do something assume it takes longer. To be fair, people who do know how to do something often underestimate the time.

[dannygb]

Even if the thing you're working on appears simple and straightforward at first sight, my experience tells me it won't stay that way for long and once you're invested in LoC solutions getting out of them when you realise this is costly and time consuming.

[elmoe]

It's great until your requirements get complicated.

[uomek]

The more code reviews I do...the more code I end up helping supporting....the more I think these things fail because most programmers are not designers and even a lot of the programmers are not good programmers. If you cant build your own code in concise/simple implementations, creating code with someone elses APIs isnt going to help do it for you.

[stephendgreen]

If we get forced to spend a lot of time, say, designing and writing simple stateless lambda functions and configuring cloud solutions we might forget how to code properly. The longer the gap between episodes of real coding activity, the easier it is to on one hand forget the skills and on the other hand lose the recognition from paying customers for such skills. Then we have to leave it to the youngsters who are happier to merely dabble.

[TNothingFree]

That's a good basic talk but he missed couple of things:
1. He did mention re-use but I think the most common behavior for "no code" infrastructure and products is the re-use of a known solution to a problem.
One common type is using design templates with html-css-js based products.
You could argue that GUI applications are just "no code" interfaces for bash commands (Such as git).
At the end it makes our lives easier both for developers and non developers.

2. Packing "no code" infrastructure" is just a way of simplifying the horrible complexity of bits and bytes.
Gui apps are a perfect example for that, a bash tool will simplify the behavior of code for a developer or a power-user.
While a GUI simplifies this behavior for common users.

3. The rise of AI,
This is changing because AI can solve all kind of problems and "no code" won't be just simplifying known solutions, but AI will help to solve solutions that couldn't be solved or provide a "no code" solution for new problems in much cheaper way.

4. Focus on products:
"No code" like "serverless" components aren't meant for developers only.
If the cost to MVP of a business or a startup dramatically decreases people are able to solve problems in much cheaper price and faster.
That's why developers since the 40's has been working on simplifying solutions and packaging them as "no code" re-useable components.

In more technical view we have standards that are able to translate things much easier:
- JSON and CSV that are used non stop as translation of data (Logs, transactions, information, web site interactions, etc...)
- Easier GUI based solutions to integrate 2 JSON servers (Via endpoints and description of schemas).

Almost all popular products, databases and servers use these kind of behaviors to simplify .
- You don't need a L3 developer to debug issues.
- You move more responsibilities to L2 and L1.
- It costs you much less to develop and maintain.

A proficient developer may develop a production server in just 1-2 days of work and this decrease in time and effort is astonishing.

We as developers need to push more "no code" solutions, it's good for business and good for humanity.