The rise in NoCode platforms and what it means for small developers.
NoCode platforms are software that allows users to build their own applications without having to code. Recently, there has been an increase in such platforms in the market allowing for the democratization of app development. Back in the days, one had to learn a set of languages to develop apps. Then platforms emerged to facilitate the development of native apps which essentially means that you have to code only one version of your app for both android and iOS. Now, this latest surge in NoCode platforms will help anyone with minimal coding background to build apps.
The NoCode platforms are not a new thing. In fact, it has been here for years. It started off by enabling the common man to build websites by drag and drop methodologies thus eliminating the need to learn development languages. Some companies achieved extraordinary growth by bringing such drag and drop tools to the market. Lately, this method has ported itself to the app development market. What this means is that, if you are a small business owner with a need to digitize your store, you don't have to find a developer and pay big money to get a scalable app. You can find a ton of websites that help you build the app of your choice and that too for less money. The extra cash you spent on the developer will be in your pockets by sacrificing the flexibility of the app. This trend does posses some dangers to the developers who earn a living by freelancing and building apps for small businesses. Being a developer myself, I hate to admit that building apps from such platforms are easier than building one from scratch, thus underwhelming the developer industry. Obviously, you need someone to write the code for the NoCode platform but that represents only a small portion of the engineers.
The only major tradeoff when choosing NoCode platforms is flexibility. Having a developer write for you will help you have your app in any way you want. This is in contrast with the NoCode platforms that are rigid as of now. But as time passes improvements can be made thus allowing for much flexible development. Soon, it can be safe to assume that the superior developers have dug the graves for the less superior ones, thus eliminating yet another job to automation.
