A decade ago or so I signed that manifesto, Software Craftmanship. The very basic one. Read it first.

https://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org

One may argue, what is in this manifesto? We in IT are building our software to satisfy the requirements of the customer, functional or non-functional, using modern tools and techniques, it is obvious!! We are here to solve business problems!!

However, the steady line of signatures under this manifesto tells us that even now things may be not so obvious.

Why I am starting my article about no-code tools from this? It is very tight related to Software Craftmanship. You may not face with it in big Software Houses or Companies, with strong Software Engineering Cultures. However, by working on small projects, and automating routine processes, you will be a part of this movement, because otherwise, you have no chance to provide reliable solutions, that work.

And here no-code tools will help you a lot, because:

1. you will have no chance to develop really poor code with no architecture at all; your solution will consist of a set of well-done bricks, understandable by other developers;
2. the less “glue” you use to tight them together, in the form of JavaScript or Python, the better quality, maintainability, and scalability;
3. it will be 100% craftsmanship, tailored to solve an exact probably unique business case, but built on well-known technologies.

I will not be doing an overview of all numerous no-code or low-code tools. I will ever NOT provide a sample of no-code solution here, you can find plenty of them at https://n8n.io/workflows/. Just have a look there.

E.g. if your kid wants to listen a new story every nigth, why not?

https://n8n.io/workflows/2233-ai-powered-childrens-english-storytelling-on-telegram-with-openai

If you want an image generated to you only in Telegram – with ease!

https://n8n.io/workflows/2216-image-creation-with-openai-and-telegram

(this and previous images are taken from the n8n site, you can register there and run these scenarious on your own cloud instance in literally a minute, only provide your credentials for Telegram and OpenAI)

Obviously, no-code may not work well at a high-load enterprise level because of the limitations of underlying technologies. However, as a tool for rapid prototyping or automating small businesses, I believe this is an almost ideal way.

Why, you may ask. Because (I will answer by keeping n8n as an example):

1. the amount of connectors out-of-the-box is overwhelming, and you can add your own if you need to (by the way, this is my next goal in learning about n8n)
2. the runtime environment tracks the execution of all your scenarios, so you can visually identify where the error is
3. to solve trivial business tasks, there is a huge amount of template scenarios, that you can apply
4. finally, if you think your scenario is good, you are welcome to share it with others, applying Software Craftmanship in practice 🙂

What is especially interesting in the case of n8n is that you can self-host it on your own server with a free development license, and the installation takes literally a minute. I have something to compare in my practice, where I was leading a team of researchers of more “ancient” low-code solutions, called Robotic Process Automation at that time, as UIPath and Workfusion. We were not happy because of the complexity, and quite steady learning curve if you are moving there from traditional software development tools such as C++ or Java; I had an impression that these tools were designed to pull money from the big corporate customers, but not solve the business case.

That’s all I wanted to tell you about no-code technologies. If you have your kid wants to learn programming, and he/she plays with Scratch, you may suggest trying n8n or airtables or whatever you will find to automate checking if your fridge has no milk or you drink too much beer (I am sure your smart kid will find a Raspberry Pi with a webcam, mount it nearby, run AI to check what are you putting into!) and to remind you in Slack or Telegram about that.

The Internet is full of videos and info about no-code tools. I would recommend considering n8n as one of the best for your back-end.

https://n8n.io

Take care, and have a joy!