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Comment by joaodmj | Hacker News Reader

I want to launch a discussion on the future of software development. It’s a fact that front-end development will be deprecated in a near future with tools like Webflow, Squarespace or Wix. This will mean that the future of front-end development will be made by designers or anyone with good sense of style. My question for debate is: shouldn’t we already have a tool that allowed us to build software on a visual / no code matter?

A non technical founder that don’t want to waste one year learning to code should have tools available to build software without knowing any programming language? Makes sense or is this just utopian?

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"Waste" and "one year" are horrible assumptions behind this question.

What about "wasting" 4 years of high school and "wasting" a few years of college? Why should someone with an idea be hampered by wasting this time? One year is nothing, and even if it were a long time, it's not a "waste" -- you come out of it with a skill that is needed today, ie if you want to be part of the technical side of the company you wish to found.

Secondly, a mere one year of study is not going to result in a skilled practitioner. You will be able to make prototypes.

Digging a little deeper:

> *It's a fact"

No, it isn't. FE development is still not a "mature" space and Wix and the like only offer rather trivial customizations to a well-defined and constrained environment. What you describe as FE development is really content creation and styling, not "development".

Now that I've poo-poo'd the thought, in counterpoint do you know about kintone and the like? There's an entire ecosystem of no-code app development systems out there already. Some of them probably qualify as "mature".

Any sufficiently flexible tool for development is pretty much indistinguishable from a programming language. No-code programming is still programming.

Interesting point. I have to agree 100%. No matter how you create an application it will always have to have code. Even if for the user it may seem a "no-code" app.

I agree with you "waste" is a strong word when talking about learning new concepts.

On the FE side I stated it is a fact because of the revenue numbers of Wix and Squarespace (both around $500 Million / year). These numbers establish that they are solving a problem, i.e. non-technical people creating and managing their own applications. I can see my kids creating their apps and sites on a visual base...

"They're solving a problem (for some people)" != "they will replace FE development for (almost) all people", though.

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