If you can believe it, the future of programming is not coding. Everything tends to reduce costs – automation and simplification, including web and application development. But before you can learn to program without code, you must first understand how to do it using code. But that can be tricky, especially when you've just started coding. Here, special services come to the rescue, which can be found simply by searching Google for "do my coding homework." This is a great opportunity to quickly sort out your coding weaknesses and move on to further study.
SummaryProgramming without using codeThe main advantages of no-code toolsDrawbacks of no-code toolsIs it worth learning no-code?No-code platformsZapierMendixWhat will happen to no-code in the future?About seven years ago, the trend in America was to "program" without using code. You've probably heard of it. You can easily create a finished product like a mobile app with little technical knowledge by simply dragging and dropping elements. Average users will not be able to distinguish it from the one made by the development team.
Since then, platforms like Tilda and Bubble have grown by leaps and bounds. A large number of them have appeared for every type of user and project. Using a simple interface, even without using the keyboard, entrepreneurs can complete their projects and check if they become popular.
Builders such as Sharetribe, Webflow, Bubble, Glide and others allow you to launch your marketplace in hours. You don't need any development team and investment. You can create a service that looks and works like Airbnb in 2-3 days with just Glide and Google Sheets at your fingertips. Designers have grown so much over the past two years that there is again talk that a good portion of programmers will soon have to look for new jobs. Why should you hire people and spend money if you can quickly create an entire product (website, app) yourself and without any programming knowledge?
People are even afraid that millions of programmers with the development of no-code and AI will soon go to the job market. And they will be forced to retrain as cashiers, movers or truck drivers.
In almost all cases, this will be more than enough to launch a new MVP product. Ben Tossell, founder of Marketpad, says that for 90% of small businesses (that make less than $10 million a year), no-code opportunities are more than enough. Instead of looking for mobile app developers, building a team for a project, and spending months or even years building a product, just drag and drop a few things and you're done!
Are employees specializing in no-code tools needed? Yes and no. If we study job postings on LinkedIn and similar sites, you may notice that owning codeless programs is like owning digital literacy. You don't need Word and Excel knowledge anymore – it's more important to know how to work with Notion, Webflow or Airtable. Often, basic knowledge is enough, but if you upgrade to the power user level, your chances of success will be higher.
Knowing how to work without tool code is like being versed in new technologies – for example, you can become a voice bot customizer or a developer of integrated e-commerce solutions, because these fields are growing all over the world.
The advantage is that to master zero code, you don't need to spend several years and invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in education. For example, the Bubble platform can be mastered at an initial level in 4-5 hours, and you can get into the nuances in 10-15 hours. Of course, basic programming knowledge will not be superfluous yet – for this you can take a course on the basics of web development.
By the way, having a mentor will help you quickly master codeless development – a specialist will tell you how to quickly improve your skills and advise you on interesting life hacks. No-code mentors already exist:they lead webinars, conferences and master classes for beginners.
Zapier describes their platform as the glue that connects thousands of web applications. With the help of Zapier, you can integrate various services; for example, there is a feedback form on the online houseplant store. After a user wrote a review, you had to manually add it to your file on Hubspot, where you store customer reviews, because it wasn't clear how to integrate it into your site. Zapier automates the integration and therefore the extension of the functionality of the services.
Zapier now has over 2,000 integration features, including web apps like Google Sheets, Mailchimp, and Hubspot. Zapier costs around $20 per month.
According to research by Gartner, one of the best-known low-code players is Mendix, which was recently acquired by Siemens for the cosmic sum of $730 million. With its help, ordinary users will be able to independently create business applications, create product prototypes and automate workflows.
All workflows take place inside the Mendix platform, not on the customer's site or department. The visual editor lets you describe data models, quickly create screens using a set of widgets, and even describe process logic.
For example, your online store selling indoor plants must add an attribute to the business object sheet and indicate there, in addition to the date of appearance of the ficus in the pot, the time of its sale – this will allow us to know how long the ficus has been in the warehouse. When using a relational database, programmers will add an attribute and reconfigure the database in the development environment and block user access to the system while pushing changes to the main environment. Also, if the amount of data is very large, access will be blocked for a long time. In low-code systems, including Mendix, graph databases are used, which make it possible to update this data through visual systems without involving programmers and blocking user access to the system.
It seems that the market for no-code services will actively continue to grow. In addition to increasing the attractiveness of investments in this area, more and more people will use the capabilities of these technologies against the background of a gradual decrease in entry into the field of programming.
In general, the sphere of no-code is actively developing as well as that of no-design, where more and more companies are using services like Canva instead of professional designers.
No-code tools are great, but they can't solve all programming problems these days. Even Mendix, the low-code platform sold to German giant Siemens for $730 million in 2018, recently had to admit that the world needs developers more than ever. Anything more complex than a simple interface and basic data manipulation will always require a professional developer, just like servicing a car requires a professional mechanic.
