No code mo problems - 123dev #31

Posted on October 6, 2021  •  3 minutes  • 583 words

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Cher Ami

Cher Ami was a messenger pigeon used by the American army in France during WWI. A battalion of 550 troops was surrounded by the German army and the allies thought they were in a different location. The Major was trying to send out messages for help, but the messengers he sent (humans and pigeons) kept getting killed.

The allies began to drop artillery fire onto their location not knowing it was them. The Major sent out another pigeon, Cher Ami, with the message

…For heavens sake stop it.

Cher Ami was shot down with a bullet in his chest and another almost severing his right leg. Even though he had been blinded in one eye he got back up and flew almost 60 mph (96 km/h) to his destination and delivered the message that saved 194 soldiers.

The pigeon in the gif is a jerk.

No code

I’m a huge fan of no code solutions because they open the door to a lot of non-developers and make prototyping easier. I’ve made lots of fun apps and websites with them but always for personal projects.

When I think about using these tools in a professional setting I realize there’s a lot missing. Without code you can’t have version control. Without version control you can’t have code reviews. Without code reviews you can’t bikeshed about text formatting. Without bikeshedding about text formatting you’re going to probably ship value to customers faster.

I guess it’s not all bad. Have i mentioned I’m a huge fan?

Links

I’ve used Glide the most out of any no code app creator. I like some of the features it has over other options and how simple it is to integrate with Google sheets. I’ve built random apps for myself and others and even though it’s limiting in what you can do it’s great to see how easy you can do it.

Powerful apps from spreadsheets. — www.glideapps.com Glide turns spreadsheets into powerful apps for work, without writing any code. Pick a spreadsheet or start with a template, customize your app, then share it instantly with anyone. Start today for free!

Voiceflow creates voice assistant apps for a variety of platforms and I really like their UI for designing conversation flows. Conversational apps have a lot more to think about because you need to always be ready to catch unknown input. I’ve built chat bots for my kids stuffed animals and flows to set my Slack status. The flexibility of running custom commands easily while driving was a killer feature for me.

Voiceflow | Design, prototype & launch voice & chat apps — www.voiceflow.com Visually design, prototype and publish voice and chat apps across channels like Alexa, Google or any custom channel/modality. Get started today, with no code.

Bubble made a big splash recently with a round of VC funding. I had never tried it before but now have gone through a few of their tutorials and I like how powerful it is to build apps compared to something that is more design focused like webflow.

The Bubble UI would take a bit to get used to, but I can understand why something so flexible also has a lot of buttons and knobs.

The best way to build web apps without code | Bubble — bubble.io Bubble introduces a new way to build software. It’s a no-code tool that lets you build SaaS platforms, marketplaces and CRMs without code. Bubble hosts all web apps on its cloud platform.