How low-code platforms can destroy the efficiency and innovation of the development team step by step!

Regarding low-code platforms, I also posted two related articles before. My point is very simple: things are good, and there are areas where they are good at and applicable, but there is no silver bullet for software products, the same is true for low-code platforms!

Now search for keywords like "low code" on search engines, and you will see a lot of exaggerated titles, such as:

• After "everyone is a product manager", the era of "everyone is a programmer" is coming?
• Alibaba and Tencent are betting on the new track, can programmers say goodbye to hair loss and 996?
• There are also news that many low-code platform companies have received various financing or regional government subsidies

Even I was still on the Douyin account of Fubao Chief and saw a short video of programmers sitting outside drinking coffee in the afternoon and saying that they have low code and now take a lot of time to rest. . .

Is the low-code platform really so amazing? Can all of our development tasks in the process of enterprise digital transformation be solved with a low-code platform? Is the destiny of our developer 996 fixed like this?

If you are having the above illusions about low-code platforms, be sure to take a good look at the following content!

First express your point of view: if you try to use a low-code platform to solve all development problems, it is very likely that such a decision will bring a huge disaster in 2-3 years!

Why do you say this way? Let's talk about it for everyone in combination with our practice 10 years ago!

Pseudo-new technology

You read that right, it is a combination of practice 10 years ago! So, low-code platform is not a new concept, we played it 10 years ago!

I remember that when I was in the universe before, there was a period of implementation of a development platform, which also encouraged everyone to use drag and drop to implement various business functions.

Leaders also highly praised, hoping to bring revolutionary changes to development efficiency through the use of this platform.

Of course, there are still some gaps between the platform at that time and today's low-code platform. The platform we see will be more complete (the interface is good, and the controls are also more), but from the perspective of a developer who has been in the industry for more than ten years, There is no qualitative progress, and this level is still a long way from eliminating developers.

Efficiency Poison

Low-code platforms are efficiency poisons!

According to the publicity of various products, the goal of low-code platforms is to liberate us and allow us to develop products faster, so why do we say that low-code platforms are efficiency poisons? Is the promotion deceptive?

The publicity is not deceiving. When we actually use it, you will find that it is indeed much faster when developing some simple applications!

At the same time, in our past practice, the efficiency at the beginning is okay! It depends on two aspects of credit:

1. Trial and error
2. Simple application first

However, as the promotion spreads, it will gradually face these problems:

1. Platform support has become a bottleneck: a large number of usage problems and various platform errors have accumulated to the responsible team of the low-code platform. For the personnel support of the platform, it is impossible to configure a support staff for every business system, right? Therefore, once the application is expanded, the platform support team will soon become an efficiency bottleneck in the entire system.
2. The problem of wrangling began to increase: When an online accident started to rule, there might be wrangling between the original systems, but with a low-code platform, the implementation in the system also had an additional direction of wrangling. Is it a component bug or a usage problem? If there is a problem, is it impossible to write clearly in the document for this special case? The emergence of this new wrangling posture hinders the efficiency of problem-solving.

The reason why a low-code platform is an efficiency poison is that you can't feel it at the beginning. Only when the application is gradually deepened and fully implemented, its toxicity will begin to occur!

Innovative poison

Low-code platforms are innovative poisons!

Regarding innovation, the first drawback, you will surely think, is the problem of solidifying components, so that all implementations are the same.

But on today's low-code platform, there is actually a good solution, that is, various custom implementations.

Since the platform is used to make business development more focused on the business, and after using the low-code platform, such component innovation tasks often return to the support of the platform.

Thus, the most classic scene appeared:

Product Manager: With this function, we want to do it like this...this way...then do it again...can we?
Developer: The platform cannot be implemented without this module
...
Product Manager: Can the platform be supported by a module?
Low-code platform: This requirement, we can consider the next version
Product Manager: When is the next version?
Low-code platform: half a year later... or you first use xxx component + yyy component this way... that way... and finally... make do with it first?
Product Manager:...

This was a very real and frequent scene at the time! The business is always changing, but the new functions of the platform are always lagging behind. As a business development, it must be realized through the platform. In many cases, because of lack of flexibility, the development loses its original innovation ability. At the same time, it has become a magic weapon for developers to reject business needs.

I remember that at that time, basically all projects looked the same... There is nothing new at all, how could this promote business innovation? Such a platform has almost become a poison for innovation!

Stance

Why efficiency and innovation, the original vision of low-code platforms, will eventually become poison and bring negative effects to the team?

Of course, there are over-boasting by the sales side, just like the indiscriminate use of Ali Zhongtai in the past few years, many paying companies scold their mothers! But as a manager who introduces this type of platform, he also has an inescapable responsibility.

Based on the negative experience in the past, you might as well think about it: Why are there so many negative effects when recommending to developers?

I think this core problem is caused by the mismatch between the platform's capabilities and the capabilities of the users.

Recall what is the goal of a low-code platform?

• Quick to get started
• High development efficiency
• Low R&D cost
• Short deployment time
• Low maintenance cost

Taken together: Effectively improve team efficiency. But what team's efficiency is to improve? Since it has been pushed to the development team and received so many eyes, how about pushing it to the product side? Operation side? Is it feasible?

Imagine that the goal of a low-code platform is to lower the threshold for getting started, so for developers, he finally has the threshold knowledge, and suddenly he uses the low-code platform for him, and then tell him how you developed before No need, you can spend more energy on business thinking. Is this kind of goal peculiar? From the original more flexible development method to the restricted method of using a low-code platform, isn't it a waste of the more flexible development capabilities of the original developers? Then have developers focus on learning the business? So can the efficiency and accuracy of the learning business be guaranteed? Is there someone who has finally recruited martial arts wizards to criticize martial arts, learned the nine-yin white bone claws, and then gave them a pair of gloves to tickle it? Is this a downgrade of ?

Think about it from another angle. What if the low-code platform is pushed to the product side? They have a more professional business background, and then rely on a low-code platform to complete the development of a business system by dragging and dropping. This way of use seems to be more worthy of the goal of lowering the threshold of getting started with a low-code platform? Because it did not occupy the resources of developers, it also greatly reduced the research and development costs for the company? Have greatly improved the development efficiency of the business system? What the development team should do more are those more innovative or challenging development tasks that low-code platforms cannot do, right?

It seems that pushing the low-code platform to the product side will get good results? The vision is beautiful, but the reality is also very skinny! Recently, I tried to make some small cooperation with a few product manager friends, because it happened that the company needs some tools to operate, and then I recommended a few low-code platforms for them to try, but the results were not completely satisfactory. But it seems that I also got some new enlightenment from it!

I found that if the product manager has some development background, has studied programming, or graduated from a software major, the effect is particularly outstanding when using a low-code platform. Perhaps it is because their knowledge background a certain software development thinking mode , combined with business understanding, so it is more friendly to the application of low-code platforms!

Therefore, for low-code platforms, good things are understandable, but the posture must be correct! Anything can only become an artifact if it is used in the right place! A misplaced artifact, sometimes even garbage is not as good as .

So what do you think of low-code platforms? What is your posture? Are there any discomforts? Leave a comment and tell us your thoughts! If you want to collide with more interesting souls, you can also join our technical exchange group to discuss our technical life together!

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