The Future of Development is Visual

No code is a bit of a buzzword in 2024. The idea behind has been around for a lot longer than the term itself (WordPress launched 21 years ago - i.e. WordPress can legally drink now).

But the term 'no code' is actually a little bit outdated. Take Webflow as an example: on launching they were touted as a game-changing no code platform, but slowly they changed their tune from 'no-code' to 'build with the power of code — without writing any'. This is true, the way Webflow's designer is configured is exactly the same as HTML and CSS, but instead of a div block looking like <div/>, it simply just looks like a box.

This isn't some future fantasy. Real people are using no-code to achieve mind-blowing things. If you've heard of Coda, you may or may not know that this platform was built without code. Shishir Mehrotra - Coda's co-founder and CEO - created a powerful tool that merges documents, spreadsheets, and apps that had accumulated a reported $26.8M in revenue in 2023 - without code.

No code has brought about a cognitive shift and is fundamentally changing how people think and approach problem solving relating to technology. Latest advancements in this space are no longer fundamentally 'no code', no longer separate or a way to by-pass IT in the broader subject of web and app development. We're just changing how it looks, how it's understood, and how it's done.

No code is not advancing. Coding is.

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The 'traditional' developer

This is not to say traditional coding and development is obsolete, not at all. In fact, no code has the potential to support traditional developers by supplementing skill shortages and enabling them to focus on the nitty-gritty, behind-the-scenes stuff. In a survey by Appian in 2019, 80% of surveyed developers agreed that the no/low-code space can free developers time to work on higher-level projects.

There's a lot of inflammatory, divisive media out there about this. You may have seen articles with titles like 'the death of code' or 'the no code takeover'. In economic forecasts the growth of no/low code markets is often differentiated from tha of traditional developer/programmer ones.

Einstein did not invent relativity (I know this already sounds eye-rollable but hear me out) he figured out how to codify a complex phenomenon and translate it to everyone else in a simple, usable manner, so they could go on to make light bulbs and telephones and self-driving cars (i.e. Edison, Bell and Musk are technically-very-loosely-very-generally-speaking "Citizen Inventors").

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I believe that no/low code is actually a transformation and revolution forged by developers, a way of innovating and streamlining development as a practice: the metaphorical 'handing-down' of development to the citizen is perhaps necessary in order to enable developers to move up and forward and continue to transform the digital world. We need developers' skills, knowledge and ideas to build the platforms to faciliate this.

Indeed, development and the idea of 'building' technology or technical processes has rapidly begun to move out of just the IT department. IT departments are recognizing their role is evolving, too. Instead of being the solution-builder, the technical problem-solver, the hardware specialists, the all-round technical every-thingers, they're becoming facilitators and enablers for these problems to be solved outside of the IT department.

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Technology is no longer extrinsic

Think about Apple's latest announcement, Vision. Rather than a new piece of hardware, Apple has developed technology that is embedded into the human experience. Parents are less and less frequently asking their kids how to use phones and "the internet", because less and less "the internet" has become more intrinsically involved in how we live our lives.

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If you build in Webflow, you (perhaps unknowingly) have a high-level understanding of HTML and CSS. If you use Airtable, Notion or Bubble, as some examples, you understand the foundational ideas behind backend DB's like Postgres. Though we're not all the way there yet, and there are still risks and significant gaps between citizen and professional developers, it illustrates an emergence of platforms working to slowly close that gap.

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Airtable is one of the earlier platforms to inadvertently begin this process. If you're familiar with it and have used it asx something more than an excel alternative, you have interfaced with a lot of the foundational ideas of object-relational databases and Structured Query Language. As an (very over-simplified) example of this, below is a quick glossary of terms to illustrate what you may not know you know about object-relational databases (yes - it's certainly more complex than this when you're actually in a backend DB like PostgresSQL, but you have interfaced with these ideas in abstracted ways):

• Primary key: Record ID
• Foreign key: Relationships/links to other records
• Cron job: Automations in your base tables
• CRUD: Integrations (built-in or set up in tools like Zapier)

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The term 'bytea' is an interesting one to elaborate on this. In PostgreSQL, bytea is a data type that allows for the storage of binary strings, which are sequences of bytes. This means it can hold raw binary data. This may make no sense to you.

However, consider how email attachments work. When you attach a file to an email, the email system stores that file somewhere so that it can be sent along with your message. In a similar fashion, when you use an application that saves attachments to an app (in this scenario one specifically built with PostgresSQL), those files are stored using the bytea data type in the app's backend.

Platforms like Airtable and Bubble are abstracting away the complexities of database management systems by changing how backends can be translated to the citizen eye and mind.

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Why you should stay on top of these developments

The accessibility being enabled by what are currently touted as 'no/low code' platforms lowers the barrier to entry for innovation. SMBs and entrepreneurs can quickly build and test prototypes, launch new services or automate processes without significant financial investment in resources and/or talent. Further:

• They allow for rapid prototyping, which means businesses can quickly develop and iterate on new ideas. This agility is crucial in today’s fast-paced market, where being first can provide a significant competitive advantage.
• They foster new kinds of problem-solving skills and enable the creation of niche-specific solutions.
• Development no longer require years of expensive formal education, allowing those who may have never been able to access formal education or time off work (and salaries) to learn development to bypass economic barriers, creating amplified diversity in the market and a significant reduction in skill shortages in the technology sector.

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To better access the level of digital transformation made available by these tools:

Continuous Learning: To leverage the benefits of no-code, staying updated with the latest developments and tools is crucial. At Stackradar we vet new innovative tech tools every week and regularly publish curated stacks by industry and profession to help you better understand how to leverage new technology to scale.

Practical Tips: Engage with communities, participate in online courses, and experiment with different no-code tools to find the best fit for your needs. Some useful platforms and content creators enabling digital transformation and upskilling in this space:

• Flux Academy / Ran Segall
• Makerpad
• Kevin Stratvert
• Keep Productive / Francesco D'Alessio
• Layla at ProcessDriven
• NoCode.Tech Academy
• 100 Days of No Code

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Final thoughts

The future of citizen development is incredibly bright. As AI and machine learning continue to advance, these technologies will integrate more deeply with citizen-friendly platforms, enabling even more sophisticated applications.

Ultimately, this is all thanks to developers, who from this revolution should begin to see their own workforce transform as a wave of opportunities emerge to continue to drive this global shift.

No code as a term might be a 'trend', but the foundational ideas behind it are not. It’s a new way of thinking about development. It’s about making technology accessible and empowering everyone to innovate and create in the digital age. In this sense, 'no code' isn't the death of code, it's its evolution. It's about empowering everyone to build, to think differently about technology, and ultimately, to transform our entire digital landscape and workforce.

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Below we've included some of our favourite platforms enabling broader access to digital transformation, up-skilling and scaling 👇