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0 pointsethbr04y ago0 comments

I've been consulting in no-code platforms, in addition to writing actual code, for about 8 years. Producing something that works isn't the problem.

Maintaining it is.

The legacy codebases from this stuff are dumpster fires, because most of the tools are closed enough ecosystems that the companies supporting them have to reinvent every programming best practice from the last 30 years.

'Version control? Sure, that's a feature on our roadmap that we'll get to at some point...'

In addition to going back to the bad old days of limited-use, proprietary compiler problems. 'Oh, that bug? Yeah, just don't do that.'

Furthermore, unless you choose very carefully, you're playing right into vendor lock-in, and a lot of the people buying this stuff aren't technically proficient enough to realize that.

Once these companies hit the end of the easy growth ramp, and the industry turns into monetizing & squeezing existing customers, there's going to be migration pain on an Oracle scale.

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winterplace4y ago

Maintainability is always the issue, even for the things made from code.

What do you think will happen if the no-code platforms become open source?

ethbr0OP4y ago

Every general no code platform I've worked with has had an order of magnitude (sometimes, multiple) worse maintainability story than code alternatives.

And admittedly, maybe I've worked with a series of terrible ones, but I've also worked with a lot of popular ones that big enterprises are adopting.

As for open source, I'd say zero percent chance that happens, because no code solves problems developers don't have: (1) I want to write code, but I don't know how to code & (2) I need to integrate a lot of really boring, legacy, usually-Windows apps.

It's the "Why are there no polished open source desktop environments?" problem from the 90s, multiplied by ten.

Which I think is why you see what open source no-code tools do exist focus on web, because that's closer to what their developers are curious about.

krishvs4y ago

Based on your experience would you be comfortable to list a few of the no-code tools to avoid when taking maintainability into account? Would be useful.

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jcpst4y ago

People who have maintained these systems know the level of pain is much worse than nearly any codebase. No code solutions that end up mission-critical can stay active for decades.

We have solutions from the 90s that, thank the heavens, I don’t have to work on them. If I did I would probably quit. But the business has to keep the thing chugging along, and it’s _very hard_ to get out of.

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