Heyo!

Earlier this week, the CEO of Webflow called out a developer who tweeted

Ugh. Now I feel like I have to write 10,000 words on why “no code” isn’t actually a thing - David Byttow

David followed up with this piece about how developers (and learning to code) will continue to grow. He meant no code isn't a new thing.

I agree with him no code is not new and we still need developers! They're actually two sides of the same coin. Let me explain.

When we zoom out, all software is no code. Think of the billions of line of code that weren't written because of Mailchimp. I'm sure writing HTML emails and configuring email servers was in high demand earlier this decade but no more (unless you work at Mailchimp).

The bar for custom development just keeps going up and up. There's enough software out there that unless something is crucial to differentiating your business, you can outsource it. Which is great! You can focus your resources on building something unique and outsource the undifferentiated heavy lifting.

Now the difference today -- and why we're calling it a no code movement -- is that you can get pretty close to a custom build using only third party tools. Forcing us to ask much more often, should we truly build this in house (do we need a dev team at all)?

To answer that question requires understanding what tools are out there. What can we build without code? What trade-offs are we making in opting for a build without code? Knowing that has become a skill. That's also an argument to learn to code!

Development and the no-code movement should be not mutually exclusive. They are -- and have always been -- a trade-off. It's just that going down the no code route is more enticing than it's ever been.

This monologue can also be read in tweet storm format here