Low Code Software Development Is a Lie
The heart of this complaint is essentially that some people think that the difficulty in implementing something is because it requires code, and they can’t write code. “If only I could code, this would be easy”, they think. Code, as they view it, is incidental complexity, not essential complexity.<p>For a lot of tasks, this is actually true. Take away the requirement to write code by supplying them with a low code tool, and suddenly people can do lots of useful things that they couldn’t before. So in that respect, it’s no lie.<p>But of course, there are a tonne of other situations, where code is not the only complexity present. Sometimes you’re just trying to solve a big, complex problem. Take away the coding requirement, and you’re still left with a tonne of complexity to manage. And low-code tools aren’t the best for handling that. In those cases, you’re better off hiring developers.<p>I’ve seen a few people build very complex things using low code tools. Modern ones, but also going all the way back to the original low code tool itself, spreadsheets. People really can build huge things with them. But after a certain degree of size and complexity, it’s more trouble than it’s worth to go with low code tools.<p>But that doesn’t mean low code tools are useless – they are great for the first set of problems, where the code required is just incidental complexity. You shouldn’t write off this substantially useful product category just because people get into trouble using them for problems they aren’t suitable for.