Ask HN: Any resources for developing low-code/no-code tools? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Any resources for developing low-code/no-code tools?

2 pointsnotadev3 comments

When googling for any tutorials or resources for creating low-code/no-code tools, it seems like all results are how to use low/no-code tools to create apps, but not how to create these tools themselves.

Just giving it some thought, I would assume it's some JavaScript drag-and-drop functionality for the user interface and converting selected components to pre-defined functions? I understand that's an over-simplification, so I'm looking for a better source to really understand everything involved. Can anyone provide any links?

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This isn't an answer to your question, and I apologize for that. But I have a tangential question of my own: what is the motivation driving the creation of "no code" tools?

I don't mean simple graphical editors for workflows with a very defined scope. I refer more to things like Amazon Honeycomb.

As I see it, the sort of apps you could reasonably create with no code solutions can be purchased off the shelf and offer way more features. And you don't need to do your own bug squashing.

And if you really _do_ need custom functionality, a no code solution is painting you into a corner. At some point your app will grow beyond what can be accomplished with these basic tools. Now you need to scrap the whole thing and rebuild from zero in a real programming language.

That's how it roughly plays out in my mind, anyway. Anybody see one of these "no code" apps deployed in a sensible context before?

Indeed sounds like circular reasoning, cannot come up with a sensible context to waste code on such a tool.

To jump the wagon, since it passes by, the former points to the latter: coders should stop their toddler approach to language. Streamline all possibilities and probabilities, all needs, problem-solving, into a single vocabulary, library, "framework". Make it a self-censoring effort, that opens up addressing the use-case of code: addressing problems in the real world, what can be called science, data-mining, AI, ...what frees the mind to the utmost, into what is possible. Do work that does not result in coder farms (thousands a la google), complexity and derivative overflow. Learn once, learn well, and be able to express your needs, in a language that does not change from tool to tool, from coder-critter to the next one. Cut the archane-ry, the brabbling, the proprietary obfuscation, the phishing for a "job" as an atom of some entity that redistributes the wealth to few and singular no-effort individuals, those who herd the energy of the workhorses and leave them empty hulls, spent consumers of their own making.

I see two forks of no-code development:

1. no-code development of UI

2. no-code specification of workflows and business rules.

The first case is often a formulation of forms which could be good for individual or enterprise applications, but 2 solidly puts you in the enterprise area. There are many applications where somebody fills out a form, a record goes into a queue, somebody fills out another form, etc.

The rise of React and similar frameworks has been good for no code, not least because it is a hassle to generate the wiring to update the UI in that kind of application by hand and that it's straightforward to write a generator for it.

The API economy is another big factor: many applications now are a thin back end against an existing API.

If you want to succeed at AI automation the key is to first build a system that can handle 100% of cases manually, and then build up training and test cases that will let you automate as much as you can. A "no-code" tool that lets you define the workflow and the forms can be a big help here.

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