Re:A unified theory of low/no code and middleware
by q-big on Saturday May 08, 2021 @07:15PM
(#27091671)
> The reason these tend to be a 'maintenance nightmare' is that they are typically made in Shadow-IT
Low-code and no-code solutions are often created by shadow-IT.
Re:A unified theory of low/no code and middleware
by dragonwriter on Saturday May 08, 2021 @07:20PM
(#27091706)
> Low-code and no-code solutions are often created by shadow-IT.
Heck, while it is phrased differently, enabling Shadow IT is an explicit selling point of low- and especially “no”-[0] code tools.
Of course, Shadow IT isn’t the tools fault, it is the organization that segregates IT into a separate heirarchy often the whole way up until the C-Suite.
If IT was a function integrated within each business unit empowering it, rather than external silo alternately constraining arbitrarily and granting favors, Shadow IT woudn’t be a thing. Shadow IT is a symptom of a broken relationship between IT and the broader organization.
[0] but often not really “no”, just as Excel isn’t.
They end up being a maintenance nightmare because they are undocumented and flooded with poorly written VBA, which is hardly low-code. A non-VBA Access Database is trivial to maintain, but VBA is a full programming language, so if that's heavily used it's really maintaining a VB6 Winforms application, which isn't what we would now typically call 'low code' in terms of this article.
(As an aside, I would actually personally argue that a completely undocumented MS Access database is actually slightly easier to maintain than an equally undocumented web application anyway. The reason these tend to be a 'maintenance nightmare' is that they are typically made in Shadow-IT rather than the technology itself which is very simple).