🦾Trends #0055 — Low-Code

"Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them."

Why It Matters

Low-code lets us focus on unique problems. Leading to leverage and specialization. The same forces behind million-dollar, one-person businesses.

Problem

Reinventing the wheel wastes time.

Solution

Use low-code tools to solve non-unique problems.\
Focus on what you do best. Let WordPress, Stripe, Shopify, AWS and others do the same.

Players

Platforms

Shopify - Build online stores
Heroku - Deploy and manage apps
Webflow - Build websites

Tools

Retool - Build internal tools
TextRetailer - Shop by text
Bildr - Build full-stack web applications
Kelp - Build interactive, data-driven apps
MavenCart - Host ecommerce stores

APIs

ScrapingBee - Scraping API
Segment - Collect and manage customer data
Plaid - Connect financial accounts

Frameworks

Ruby on Rails - Web framework
React - Front-end framework
Angular - Cross-platform framework

Libraries

OpenCV - Computer vision
TensorFlow - Create and evaluate ML models
Moment.js - Manage dates and times in JavasScript

Predictions

"Full-code" is here to stay. Low-code tools allow developers to work on new problems. We can build brain-computer interfaces instead of CRUD apps.
Lawyers, accountants and other professionals will be impacted by low-code-like phenomena. Low-law (Termly), low-accounting (TurboTax) and low-podcast-editing (Descript) are on the rise. This is a low-pro movement.
DeFi will embrace low-code. Token standards (ERC20, ERC721) "ensure" security. Billions of dollars staked in standards are implied, uncaptured bug bounties.

Opportunities

Build the first version of your app with no/low-code tools. Shoutout started on Bubble.
Equip non-engineering teams (marketers, product managers and customer support) with low-code tools to reduce internal dependencies. Tara Reed did this at Google.
Use low-code tools to help businesses. See Clutch Software and Anything as a Service (XaaS).
Democratize new form factors. Wine Text sends daily deals via SMS. TextRetailer gives anyone the ability to run daily deals.

Key Lessons

Focus on what you do best. Don't rebuild AWS, Twilio or Stripe. Use them. Innovate on another front.
There's a tradeoff between customization and abstraction. Low-code is "opinionated."

Haters

"You can't build everything with low-code."\
Sure. That which can be. Should be. Work on unique problems.\
"This isn't customizable."\
It's all relative. Abstraction isn't free. Nothing is.

"This will take developer jobs."\
Developers will work on unique problems. See creative destruction.\
"Functions, libraries, frameworks and APIs are not low-code."\
Each is an abstraction. i.e. Low(er)-code