No-Code Addiction: Professional Cul-de-Sac?

Avoiding code is not always a good thing.

I’ve recently written about the aggressive, sometimes irrational use of glue factories¹. Leaning into these tools can show massive progress and tremendous innovation, but not without expense and risk. The NoCodeOps folks know this all too well.

But there’s also an equally risky element to no-code saturation in your professional endeavors. It can be addictive. You begin to see the world through a no-code lens that can manifest delusional ideas and confirmation biases you may regret long after a solution is produced.

No-code is like a beautiful tropical beach, the ideal vacation that you never want to end. It helps you forget about your fast-paced lifestyle if for only a few days. It simplifies the day’s decisions and generally insulates you from all your actual worries. This is where you go to sustain a brief abstraction from everyday life.

The new and popularized no-code movement is much like that ideal vacation. Software engineering challenges melt away in the warm glow of your monitor configured for night use because you stay up late basking in the success of a new democratized information system that your team will cherish.

This is fun. It makes software development seem easy. Unlike before, you feel in control; you are the master of your data management destiny. Sure, there’s some loneliness because the engineering team is no longer there with you, hashing out requirements that might become actual software in days, weeks, or months. But you’d rather be lonely than endlessly waiting for developers to build something that’s wrong and then many more days patiently waiting for them to get it right.

You are finally a domain expert who has been set free to build software solutions exactly the way you want them and your users expect.

But are you truly free? Or is your no-code preoccupation a different kind of constrained work model? Are there some downsides?

If everything you build requires no additional code, you have built nothing that defines the basis for any intellectual property. Try to copyright or patent a no-code solution. I can’t recall a single instance where this has happened. It is a gray area and one that is complex. For example, your favorite no-code platform is copyrighted by the company that created it. It may include libraries that have copyright or licensing restrictions. Your no-code solution is a derivative work and may also be your copyright, albeit with strings attached to the platform itself. VCs are reluctant to fund startups unless they have a clear title to the solution as a copyrighted work.

The business logic of no/low-code apps comprises collections of fragmented formulas, workflows, and automations, some residing outside your no-code platform of choice. This atomization of the logical elements that make your no-code solution valuable adds another layer of risk because your secret sauce is scattered across other platforms where you are a guest. These dependencies are often difficult to sustain and create new security attack surfaces for your prized business logic.

At the heart of your no-code endeavor is the desire to create value. For a startup that needs funding or a business that wants to create competitive advantages, no-code solutions may present a few downsides that are not easy to mitigate. But the big one is defensibility.

If it was easy to build, it’s easy for your competitors to build.

Setting aside these potential downsides, a deep admiration for no-code and a commitment to avoid coding changes you.

The Hidden Side of No-Code

In the rapidly evolving world of technology, the no-code movement has emerged as a game-changer, empowering individuals and businesses to create digital products without extensive coding knowledge. However, a hidden side to this no-code revolution often goes unnoticed - the phenomenon of no-code addiction.

No-code addiction refers to the over-reliance on no-code tools and platforms, often at the expense of understanding underlying system principles. This can lead to a decrease in value as a consultant, as it limits your ability to manipulate digital products to achieve outcomes far beyond mediocre success².

The following thread, involving many prominent no-code consultants, demonstrates how myopic your innovation skills may become when wearing no-code blinders.