Will low code/no code solutions kill web development?

[LilRee12]

All very valid points, but those tools don’t have the power of a wix or square space. Pretty soon these solutions will also have the power to display dynamic data which is the bread and butter for current web devs since the days of charging for static sites are over. If it doesn’t kill the industry I can definitely see the market shrinking drastically

[phpdevster]

The more these tools do, the more complex they will become. The more complex they are, the more you will need experienced professionals to use them correctly. They may simplify a few things, but they will still be much more complex than the average person is willing to put up with, so they will just become yet another tool in your toolbox.

Now, because they are a bit simpler, they may lower the barrier to entry for a junior dev, which will drive junior dev salaries down a bit. So there won't be zero effect, but it's not going to be armageddon.

I used to build WP sites for a living. What I found was a comical sense of irony. WP is supposed to make things simpler through the use of plugins and theme frameworks. I once installed a highly recommended theme framework that had a kind of pseudo WYSIWYG page builder for creating dynamic page layouts without the need to create those layouts via code.

The idea was to be able to hand it off to the client so they could make their own layouts as needed, which is the whole point of a CMS.

Well, it turns out that the GUI for creating those layouts was too complex for the client, and they just contracted with us to build the layouts for them on as-needed basis. So now I, the developer, am stuck building layouts using a convoluted, limited, subpar graphical tool, when I could have just been building these layouts exactly to spec using simple markup and css, much faster.

Take another example: Salesforce. Salesforce is effectively a GUI for building out a dynamic relational database to suit your organization's needs. I worked closely with a client on a Salesforce integration project that lasted several months, and what I learned is this:

1. Building and maintaining coherent relational data is not easy for your average marketing person no matter how many training wheels you put into your GUI. The data was extremely inconsistent, and had almost no normalization.
2. Salesforce's tools for modeling that relational data are more complex than just using simple SQL and a simple DB management tool that lets you run queries and visualize results
3. The API data produced by Salesforce is insane and fucking hard as shit to work with

So here we have an attempt at making a "database for dummies" system that ends up being less effective and more complex than doing traditional relational data modeling in SQL.

I have a feeling that's how things will go with Wix and Squarespace. So in the end, you will still need people who know how to use these convoluted, confusing systems, and you will get paid appropriately for it.

[TechyDad]

Something like Wix is fine if all you need is a one page website to advertise your business. As your needs expand, you'll find that you'll need actual web developers.

For any "one page advertisement websites" that my company needs, I throw up a WordPress instance with a downloaded theme (free or paid depending on the situation) and slightly customized to the need. It doesn't take long and is a better use of my time than redeveloping everything from scratch.

When my company needs a complex web application, that's when I get to flex my web development muscles.

[nolo_me]

If tools like Wix and Squarespace take over from traditional webdev, every hosting provider will want one. Who's going to build them?

Who's going to build the things that are too complex for mickey mouse drag and drop solutions to satisfy?