Three years of building no-code software for political organizations
https://write.as/conjure-utopia/three-years-of-building-no-code-software-for-political-organizationsOpen linkView original on lemmy.ml147
Comments28https://write.as/conjure-utopia/three-years-of-building-no-code-software-for-political-organizationsOpen linkView original on lemmy.ml
I didn't finish this article because I'm procrastinating before a minor deadline, but I read enough to realise that my prior bias against no-code software was excessively strong and largely based in gatekeepy ideals; I am a weirdo who loves to tinker, and I earnestly believe that many of the people who don't consider themselves techy could find joy in this path if not for platform capitalism, bullshit laws around software, and IT education that creates a class of obedient users.
However, it's unrealistic to hope that it's possible to "convert" everyone to this path, or even the majority of people. It's useful to remind myself that my goal of facilitating more tinkerers and builders in the world is that I think that's a route towards greater empowerment and freedom in interfacing with our tech-heavy world, and that the template that feels most natural to me is not the only route to tech empowerment
“No-code software”, aka, CMS.
Why do we need a new term that is vastly worse than the old term?
A CMS is a specific type of no-code software. N8N or Appsmith are definitely not a CMS
Can you define no-code software?
From the article:
So.. is it just software that has a plugin architecture?
You're focusing too much on the WordPress example. There are a dozen tools mentioned in the article that will clarify what's possible.
I don’t see what these things have in common other than just being software tools, generally for managing content. And I really don’t understand the term “no-code software”. It’s all built with code. If I use an operating system to run a program, that doesn’t mean I’ve invented some sort of new software system, that’s just what they’re designed to do. Using a tool in a way that it’s designed to be used isn’t really novel.
On the off chance you aren't being intentionally obtuse to troll:
No-code is a term that refers to the perspective of the end user. Of course it is built using code, that's not the point. The person ultimately using it doesn't need to use any code to construct whatever the tool is enabling (automatons, websites, etc), which massively increases the target demographic who can use the tool.
Yes, I get the intention of the term. I don’t understand why it exists. It’s unnecessary. Most software is designed to not require you to write code to use it.
Hmm okay, that's true. I guess there's another aspect missing from my description above then: no-code is for doing tasks in ways that resemble how you'd do them with code, but without directly using code.
Think about the nodes in Blender or Node-RED, or the blocks in visual scripting for kids to learn. It's using the same concepts of code, but with varying amounts of abstraction depending on which example we look at.
WordPress is a CMS, that's true, and is usually how it's described. Specifically, though, the block editor is what I assume the OP was referring to as no-code. That part of WordPress is abstracted more than a tree of nodes in Blender, but they're both examples of an effort by those softwares to make doing those tasks more approachable to users.
Inkscape could probably also be described as no-code if you squinted hard enough, since it's letting you manipulate SVG tags directly without needing to open a text editor and know the SVG spec.
Naming things is hard. But if you have a better category name to distinguish from classic cms software I am all ears.
And yes no-code software itself is written with code.
But I dont mind having a name for software in which
It is classic CMS software. Wordpress is listed. That’s an CMS. And what you listed doesn’t fit all the things called no-code in the article.
Maybe this would be easier. Can you name some software that isn’t no-code software and tell me why? (I mean, obviously other than software you use to write code.)
"no-code" software is a very specific category of software that aims to enable users to build something that usually is built by a dev, without needing one.
And while "no-code" can be a weird name, it makes sense when you read the definition I just gave. Just like "serverless" does not mean there is no server involved (obviously), but simply means you don't even need to think about the server part.
Yes, so it’s software with logic abstractions. Why do we need a name like that? That covers almost all software, and you can just say extensible and configurable software. That name actually makes sense.
No, it definitely does not cover almost all software. Most software does not aim to allow a random user to build something that usually requires a dev.
When you use an OS, you build nothing. When you use a browser, you build nothing. When you use a game, you build nothing. When you use a graphics editor, you build something, but it's not something that a dev could do.
I could go on with a list of almost all software like this, but that's not a good use of my time, and I hope it is not necessary.
So basically anything that’s extensible or customizable?
No-code goes further then the "configuration" level and its features are very generic, to make endless use cases possible.
It’s a meaningless term then. Is Apache “no-code software”? What about Windows?
"No code" is just another way of saying there is a base of code. Call it base code instead!
That's not always the case. For instance https://github.com/kelseyhightower/nocode
I'm on the yunohost wagon for almost 4 years, I'm really happy and I could cut a lot of big tech off my digital life
This is interesting. I've been setting up our non-profit's new grant-funded Azure VM, then Wordpress site, then CiviCRM, then hardening it all, and I'm hoping to offer this as a (volunteer) turnkey service to a few other nonprofits in town. And it's amazing to me how many hours this still takes, and how out of reach it is for the average nonprofit.
Bad example. Wordpress is to create blogs, not webpages (or even webshops). If you use it for anything more, you end up with one of the weekly critical security holes in plugins.
Wordpress makes up like 40% of the Internet depending on the source of the claim. I'm pretty sure it's used for more than just blogs.
Yes, and that's why the security holes in plugins are an issue.
Wordpress has native support for pages.