eweekchat

Agree with Jason

Can you name 1 or 2 examples of what you'd like to see?

Would AI assists be helpful in no-low-code? How so?

A4 assisted development is definitely an opportunity - many of the vendors have early solutions but there is much more potential

A4: yes, two different dimensions to the use of AI --- (a) making the apps intelligent, and (b) making the platform intelligent

A4 a few examples - suggesting next best action for models - suggesting data models based on common industry patterns - examining running apps and anticipating problems... AI use cases are many

@editingwhiz A4 Long-term I'd like to see a voice-based AI that I can describe my business process to and that builds the app for me.

@JourneyApps take a look at "Start with an Idea" in AppSheet

AI is very important as the system learns it makes the experience better for the user.

Q3/A3 End-to-end testing such as automated testing of UI remains a big challenge.

A3: this is a very interesting question. At AppSheet, we find that QA is very much easier with no-code. Because it is the same code running across 10,000 apps. Rather than different code in each of them

A3 - i think similar concepts apply - you create units test but you write them in a visual language (so simpler and easier to understand) - at the end of the day, testing is an important part of development regardless of approach

Agree with @mnjhughes .One interesting thing we find with no-code apps is that it is possible to auto-capture and auto-play tests. It does automate some of the traditional "test development"

I suspect the same is possible with low-code as well.

@journeyapps A3 on the plus side, often the same testing tools and resources can be applied to the output of the no- low-code platform

A3 no- and low-code platforms also offer many guardrails that reduce some of the testing burden - this is an interesting area for AI-assisted dev where prior coding patterns help identify potential issues from developers

A2 I think it really depends on the scope of the project. For simple and med complexity apps I think yes, all mobile apps will eventually be built under this paradigm. For more complex use cases though, this becomes more challenging.

A2: I was thinking it's largely because there are so many mobile devices and services needed that demand alone for this is a major reasons.

A2: mobile apps are particularly difficult to write with traditional code. Differences between iOS and Android, device form factors, offline, etc. So both no-code and low-code are attractive approaches for mobile apps

I'm eWEEK editor Chris Preimesberger, moderating on a blue-sky all morning from Silicon Valley, Calif. Thank you for joining us.

We're doing a 45-minute chat interview with our experts: Jason Bloomberg, President, Intellyx; Mike Hughes, Chief Evangelist, Outsystems; Praveen Seshadri, founder of AppSheet; Kobie Botha, Chief Product Officer, JourneyApps.

Hi Chris, good to be here

Each of these invited professionals is expert in today's topic. eWEEK thanks them for offering their availability today.

I will ask some seed questions, and our guests can answer as they see fit. Others following the conversation also may participate.
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Sound good? Let's get to it ...

Oh, please preface your answers to questions by noting Q1/A1, Q2/A2, etc.

All of these are tossup questions for our guest experts: Answer when ready to do so.

Q1: At a high level, how do you define no- and low-code development?

A1: pretty simple really. No-code means "NO" procedural code. No scripts. No event handlers. It is meant for business users typically (though a savvy dev should see value in it too). Low-code is for developers, but there's less of it to write.

A1: Praveen summed it up well. With no-code you can build custom software without writing a single line of code, whereas low-code platforms support the ability to write some custom code.

A1: @editingwhiz sometimes it is about evolution and low-code feels that way. Sometimes it is about revolution and no-code feels that way :]

A2: mobile apps are particularly difficult to write with traditional code. Differences between iOS and Android, device form factors, offline, etc. So both no-code and low-code are attractive approaches for mobile apps

That is correct.

The question remains - how does this impact professional developers that are accustomed to traditional programming tools and environments?

Good one. ANybody?

Thanks for hosting! It was fun. I suspect we'll look back on this in a few years and find that things moved much faster than we thought.

And thanks to the other participants. A great set of perspectives. Look forward to meeting in person at some event soon.

Thanks for arranging this, Chris! Low code will power the digital transformation for many more companies, even in industries that are still hold-outs.

fair point - value delivered needs to be compelling for the transition to happen

agree, devs want ultimate flexibility, standardization and visibility

Can you offer a use-case example of this? Helpful to some followers.

A4: let's say a business user has a fleet of trucks that need to be inspected by the drivers every day. And if there's damage a report with photo needs to be sent to the manager. She wants an app for this. That's the high-level intent. It is no-code. Little else should be needed

So no inputting of any info at all. Correct?

@editingwhiz well that's the info. One way or the other, that's what the app creator inputs into a no-code system. The question I ask is --- how little translation should they need to do. Can the platform understand their intent the way they think of it?

Agree. AI evaluates the app, recognizes the development environment used to build the app, the frameworks, and methods inside the app, the resources available to the app and more.

I couldn't agree more.

Agree. At the moment, consumer-facing apps need custom experiences that are difficult to standardize

my rule of thumb is: if you need to leverage the mobile device's GPU (as is often the case with consumer-facing apps), low-code and no-code are probably not a good fit XD