In my last video boldly stated that it is time to fire your web developers because Low-Code/No-Code tools are making their jobs obsolete.
It’s only natural that web developers want to keep their jobs, so you can expect some push back on the idea that Low-Code/No-Code tools can replace them. Part of that push back comes in the form of disparaging new technologies which cause disruption to their trade.
One of the ways web developers critique Low-Code/No-Code platforms is their ability to implement truly novel design concepts.
Now let me remind you about the economic principle I mentioned in the last video—trade offs versus solutions. Programmers tend to think in terms of solutions—and ideally as close to perfect solutions as possible. But we as consumers understand that purchasing decisions involve trade-offs. Sometimes it makes perfect sense to forgo a perfect product in order to save money, or gain some other benefit in lieu of perfect code.
So let’s acknowledge that at the very far end of the design possibility spectrum—a hand-coded blank canvas, in the hands of an expert programmer, is only limited by the capabilities of the core technologies themselves. And in contrast, a structured Low-Code/No-Code framework, no matter how flexible, cannot possibly be as open-ended as a blank slate hand-coded site.
But let’s consider the cost of a “pure canvas” website? The more clever and unique a design concept is—the more it shows off some never before seen technique—the more it’s going to cost, both in terms of initial design, and development, and maintaining such a bespoke website over time.
On the other end of the design spectrum we might look at highly structured Low-Code/No-Code platforms like Squarespace or Wix. Those platforms are quite constrained when it comes to serious design customization.
Between these extremes, our chosen framework of WordPress plus Elementor provides an astonishing degree of design flexibility, but without the need for any custom code. This pairing is so flexible it’s difficult to recall any instances where we have not been able to implement a designer’s vision. In theory there are some limits—it’s not a complete blank canvas, but the limits are so rare because its design options are so extremely broad.
So here’s the trade off. Stick with hand-coded blank canvas development with extremely high costs and low flexibility—or utilize a Low-Code/No-Code framework and spend a fraction of the cost while gaining massive flexibility, but recognizing that somewhere out there a designer may come up with a clever concept that might be just slightly out of reach.
Let’s think about this trade off for a minute… I’m going with Low-Code/No-Code.
Until next time,
Viva la Revolución!
