The No-Coding Approach
By: Sergio Avila
Tags: Coding, Computer Science, Startup, No Code, Programming

Photo by Headway on Unsplash

What No-Coding is

In a few words, No-Code platforms enable software development without the part in which you spend weeks, nay, months, trying to code your way to a simple landing page. This means that instead of coding and writing hundreds of lines of code to produce a software product, these platforms use visual modeling to achieve the same objective. Visual modeling is basically the use of drag-and-drop components into logical sequences that result in the creation of functional websites, Apps, bots, etc.

The use of No-Code tools that lead to the replacement of manual programming in various development processes aims to solve two main problems from the world of software development.

First, using traditional coding approaches to build requires a lot of time and complicated processes. Also, learning to code and becoming a proficient developer is an extraordinarily time-consuming task and very few succeed in doing this.

Second, there is an increasing shortage of skilled software developers in the world to meet today’s demand in software creation. The rate at which technology is intruding in our daily lives is way much faster than the rate at which humanity can produce qualified technology creators.

No-Code can accelerate learning and time-to-market of development in ways that we’ve never experienced before. No-Code is easy to learn and fast to deploy, and because of this, it’s possible to foresee a future where anyone can build software. In this future, instead of waiting for an idea to have its turn on a software development team backlog, or having to learn to code from scratch, makers and builders from very different backgrounds will be able to create their own products in an incredibly short amount of time and with quality results.

No-Code is the future. No matter the complexity of the solution that needs to be built, the vast ocean of powerful No-Code tools that already exist can give anyone coding superpowers.

How No-Coding works

Traditional Coding (the type of code you see developers colorfully type into black screens) is done via text and numerical-based languages. Just as learning a complex human language, these coding languages are challenging to master and require specific skills and ways of thinking that take time to develop.

No-Coding, on the other hand, uses graphical language instead of a written one to build software. Using this method, the learning curve in building software shortens significantly since you don’t have to learn a new language. Instead, you just have to use your own logic and translate it into building blocks and drag-and-drop interfaces to achieve your building objective.

This is a drag-and-drop interface.

The rise of No-Coding tools has enabled the existence of a new class of software creator: The No-Coder.

The No-Coder is a tech-savvy person that builds software by using No-Code platforms without writing any code at all. What these platforms basically do, is they translate into written code what you do through the graphical interfaces. These translations are not necessarily shown to you, but some platforms have the option for the user to tweak the underneath code.

In overall, we can say that using a No-Coding approach in building software gives people 3 main benefits:

It’s fast It’s flexible It leads to the creation of more developers

Fast

We’ll say it again. No-Code is fast: It is fast to learn, it is fast to build, and it is fast to deploy.

Contrary to traditional Coding, learning to No-Code is very fast. Just being able to skip the struggle of learning a computer language is a definite plus.

Picture this. If you’re someone trying to build software, but have zero skills in this field, you can opt for two paths, Code and No-Code approach. Let’s say you need to develop a simple landing page to promote your next big startup idea.

Using the Coding approach, you’ll need to understand everything from learning how to buy a domain to learn HTML and CSS languages (at least), understand how to host your code in a server, understand what a server is, master code versioning, and learn what maintenance work you have to do on your website to keep it alive, just to name the essential things. And let’s not even talk about it if you want to scale your landing page to a site where people can log in, accept payments, and more sophisticated stuff that you’ll typically need to do. All this process, from learning to deploying a simple website, can take you around 2 months (if you focus full-time, which is usually not the case).

Now, using a No-Coding approach, you could pack all the things you need to learn and master into just learning how the No-Code platform that suits best your needs work (which usually can take at most, one day). That’s it.

So yes, we’re saying that you, having zero coding skills and knowing nothing about software development, can deploy live your first website in just one day. The same principle applies to Mobile App development, Bot creation, and everything related to software creation.

Flexible

Using No-Code to build new products gives power to the creator on iterating on them in a very flexible matter.

Following the previous example on the simple landing page creation, let’s say that you discovered that the arrangement of the sections in it needs to be changed completely.

Having this landing page built using a Code approach produces two significant problems in this scenario. First, you’re stuck with only coders being able to make the changes (which, assuming you don’t know how to code, leaves you out of the equation and depending on someone else to do the work). Second, when you finally get to find some space in the coder’s agenda to make the changes, the guy would usually take around one or two days to make all the adjustments. Just to make a point here, we’re talking about making a simple layout change in a simple webpage (imagine a significant flow change in a complex Mobile App).

Now, as you can imagine, having built this webpage using a No-Code approach would lead you to two significant upsides. One, you could do yourself the changes, which means you’ll have more control over what has to be done. And two, you could make the changes and deploy them in a matter of minutes.

This flexibility is an essential feature in software development these days since, usually, things change very rapidly. One day you decide that the best option is to have layout A on your landing page just to realize two days later that users are getting lost and not finding the “subscribe” button. Again, this applies not only for landing pages but for any software product as Mobile Apps, Bots, CRMs, and whatever else comes into your mind.

Developer Factory

The world needs more software developers. That’s a fact that is evident in almost every company around the world. The scenario where coders have to work extra hours and weekends to try to satisfy the software needs that the company requires is prevalent. It’s also very common to see a lot of campaigns backed by governments, schools, and companies fostering people on learning to code. Actually, many organizations and countries are encouraging everyone on learning how to code.

However, the truth is that thinking of a future where everyone becomes a coder is kind of utopian. Learning to code, as we’ve explained so far, is a hard and time-consuming task. You can’t imagine asking a doctor to use at least 6 hours of his day on learning to code, or an architect to stop designing buildings to become a proficient coder. In the same way, asking a young professional to dedicate his nights to learn programming is not a request that everyone takes easily. Yes, some people decide to quit everything to commit their time in becoming a proficient developer, but it’s still a small fragment amount of our global population.

Creating a way in which people can still make software and skipping all the struggles behind is the digital Holy Grail of this century. Learning how to build software using No-Coding tools instantly increases the pool of people that could build software in the near future. This, consequently, makes feasible the idea of everyone being able to understand and design software solutions, no matter if it’s for company creation objectives or internal company problem-solving.