Okay so this is an \"interesting\" video...First: I have heard some users who argue like her. I think what he says is true in the beginning as for: no code does not mean you should not know what code is or does. There is a reason code is still in the name cause...it basically means: do things without code. But code is still what does things! a machine does NOT understand natural language and it never will. And it never SHOULD!!! I mean imagine the \"computer\" would be a person. You are talking to it like you are talking to a person. Explaining in your normal everyday language what your app should do. And the other person \"the comupter\" is the one who actually will do all this – cause you miss the skills to do so. It will be like in real life: you will find people that 1) understand what you say 2) understand what you want and 3) be able to actually make that happen!
But a \"computer\" is not like that and OH MY GOD PLEASE it should never be like that. It should not have opportunities of misunderstanding. Thats why high level programming languages have evolved. They abstract the machine code to human understandable but still not human like language. If you have a
if ( something == 1 ) { then do something; } there is absolutely NO way of misunderstanding this. If you tell your \"person computer\" (which could be called PC as \"personal computer\") you would open up spaces of misunderstanding because you will not normally be talking \"precise\" in your natural language. Most people are not capable of being precise and concise in their language at all...sorry I am saying this with my students in the back of my head and they are supposed to be very good at this actually – which they are only in very few cases.
So first thing is understanding: it is still code that does things cause on the other side there is a computer. a machine. NOT a person. And that is super important.
Thats why I was brabbling that FF is not no code but its low code and since the new philosophy of FF being a Visual Dev Platform (which I like because it basically means the same thing and is not saying no code) this is more adapted. So learning the basics of programming and languages and concepts and structures, terms and procedures is still important and required. There is no wondermachine anywhere out there nor will there ever be one! Realism, proper self-judgment and rationality are required to keep from frustrating hard (I believe she was very frustrated).
If you LACK these things you will start mixing up because frustration is close to emotional overreaction which is close to irrational thinking which is close to wrong conclusions...

So next is the CEO of toddler (Andreas). He perfectly points that out: please you have to learn the basics of how things are done especially if you have no clue at all! So he points it out: no code does not mean : you dont have to know about code. Then she keeps going on with her story and that someone made a reddit. At this point Andreas gets out of touch because although he is correct on a meta level he is incorrect in the concrete case! That is about the meaningfulness of code export, the quality of FF exported code and also about the case because...well...yes: you dont need to export code. But 1) code will still be exported! And if its only unseen but unseen does not mean non existent. This is a basic epistemeological and ontological misunderstanding. Humans are super perception driven. Things we dont percieve dont exist right? Have fun with that! Radiation: cant see and percieve that. Covid? Cant see or percieve that. But the exist! So that is a basic but also 2) being able to export code is NOT a fail of a platform but a benefit. It gives the user more control, more possibilites and safety. Its opening the blackbox of nocode tools and produce more transparency.

So here he starts accepting the story without knowing about FF while almost all of the critique the user is bringing up is not valid in the FF case. On a general meta level some things remain true (like rework or rebuild) but...its unfortunately no longer true to the case if the point of departure for the argumentation was a different one. Non sequitur as philosophers say: that does not (necessarily) follow from this. The conclusion can be the same and true again...still the argument will be faulty. FF Code exported is almost super readable! And what she says is plain wrong at that point sadly. And Andreas statements are also not good at this point because what I said before.

Also this scalability thing...my oh my...please she does clearly not understand what she talks about in that case. Of course you cannot compare bubble.io to FF! If you want to scale ad infinitum: what more scalable would there be than Firebase? Seriously? Want to build a serverfarm of 30 square km on the moon just to be able to scale for an app someone came up with? Not very reasonable. No one can ever exhaust firestore in any of his apps. Full stop. Whether you can afford it: different question. But your moon base will not be cheaper!

After that Andreas gets back in line 🙂 He is completely right about how builders work. You have many things that are sweet and work with the \"normal widgets\". Thats for 80% of users. But if you want something highly customizable: you can do that. Really. FF excels at that! FF is a super way of having speed and flexibility, premade and customizability.

As I am commenting this video chronologically I now get to the point where she is talking about a trap. And boy: its not a trap at all. Its not the fault of the platform, but its your delusion and misunderstanding. So you know nothing about design but you \"have an idea\" and you are now complaining you cant do perfect design. wow.
And Andreas says it: Dont promote this idea. there is no wondermachine. But on the other hand: I am a fan of commonsense: this should be commonsense. Not anyone can be the best. The very concept of the best is that there are others who are not.
You cant build customized apps with FlutterFlow? No comment...Andreas is right here. Trade offs are the consequence of the non existence of wondermachines. But you can perfectly customize your apps in FF! If she means that \"apps\" have certain standard elements like buttons or forms: well...yes? And if companies make promises...I think that is because most of people including her want to hear that? If people were interested in truth, facts and realizing that they cant build apps without knowing the least about how to and be experts without even engaging with a topic: we would not have that discussion.

The rest is just plain wrong. I am super sorry but she has some points maybe even...but she does not reflect who is to blame. The thing is: she probably misunderstood and misconceptualized many things...frustration is close to emotional overreaction which is close to irrational thinking which is close to wrong conclusions... 😉

Discuss on the "no-code trap"