Between no-code and low-code, my mouse swings!

No-code and low-code share many common points, including visual programming. You may have already practiced visual programming without realizing it. If you have moved blocks, widgets for example, still called active thumbnails, if you have had fun on Scratch or more seriously on Celestory, if you have moved graphical elements which, once connected to each other according to their capacities, gave a graphical rendering or even executed a logic, well you have done visual programming.

And yes, by lining up a series of blocks, you were doing visual programming. It's less striking, and less visible with a few widgets to move around to customize your Wordpress blog, but it's already more meaningful if you've worked hard to understand the action of each element and how they interact with each other. Without writing a line of code, you have programmed a change, an action, a logic, even a whole interactive scenario.

The mouse, the no-coder's best friend

This is the strength of visual programming, its accessibility, each element being a brick of code capable of this or that. And as everything depends on these famous capacities, you are obliged to adopt a logical reasoning, adapted to the possibilities offered to you. We understand that this requires a learning phase, but that this is, basically, much more fun than having to learn a computer language.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that after the first "Wow!" effect thanks to a nice little combination that gives the impression of having become the queen or king of the Web, you have to roll up your sleeves and dive into the logic of the tool to learn what it does well and easily, what it will do well but with a complex logic, and what will become a gas factory that is not very productive, or even what is impossible for this tool.

Indeed, you have already understood if you are reading these lines, a no-code tool cannot do everything, and only a developer mastering several languages can probably do everything, but either you are struggling to recruit one, and this is quite normal, or you have decided to do otherwise, hence your interest in no-code and low-code. And those who make these no-code and low-code tools, in other words the developers, think as much about simplifying your life as theirs: they think about mice.

Because if visual programming was ever possible, it's thanks to this little animal that is so familiar to our offices. And even if the famous "digital", deployed on all touch screens, can now replace our dear mouse, we must admit that the difference between pointing with the finger or with the mouse pointer is only ergonomic. Not that this last point is negligible, but when it comes to moving blocks to program, it's all the same.

Simplifying without restricting, the art of dealing with complexity

This visual programming has the declared objective of making you use your keyboard as little as possible. You have to understand that everything that is coded, and therefore your block, your widget, your no-code or low-code tool, in short, everything that you use, someone or several people had to lean on their keyboard and type lines and lines of code. In front of the tediousness that one can imagine at certain times in the accomplishment of this task, one can understand that beyond even trying to simplify programming, visual programming with the help of the mouse, well it is still more fun!

Therefore, the world of no-code and low-code is a world where the mouse becomes a tool of choice for programming rather than the keyboard. Obviously, the level of complexity of your projects will probably make you use the keyboard more or less often between two drag-and-drops. It is true that this manipulation of the mouse, or of your index finger, is the most characteristic of visual programming, thus of no-code and low-code.

So, has the keyboard been banished? If you just move a few widgets, you probably won't need it. Afterwards, you can program particularly complex logic systems, think of Voltapp, with "simple" visual programming. In the end, the keyboard is mostly used to enter content. So yes, in low-code, in essence, you'll often come back to your keyboard because you'll probably need some bits of code. But in the end, if you could do without it for a mouse that brings you the right block, like the magic piece of cheese that will debug your problem, you would gladly put your keyboard back in its drawer.

Freedom at the end of the click

Of course, you can do as you like, because if there is one area in computing, and therefore in digital technology, where the user's freedom to act is a reality, it is in no-code and low-code. It's not just a sales argument, there is a real will to offer you as much freedom as possible, since the more freedom you are given, the more your programming capacity can be deployed. You will play with the mouse like no other, and learn to recognize a graphic element of your visual programming at a glance. And if you don't like it, if it doesn't work, if it doesn't fit anymore, you just click on it with a graceful gesture.

Of course, low-code enthusiasts, who may not have known they were in this more complex branch of no-code, having perhaps crossed the line one day by looking for a few pieces of java to add, will always tap on a keyboard. But even this aspect tends to disappear, since at your web solution provider or on the community of your no-code tool, by asking ChatGPT, you'll find the piece of code you're missing, and you'll just have to copy and paste it, in a couple of clicks. Never forget to thank the tooth fairy!