Back to Threads
With the advent of software like Power Apps, organizations believe they can develop software and web applications to automate their processes without a software developer and at a lower cost with quicker turnarounds.
Although some of this is true, and companies can hire low-code developers at a lower rate, these developers are still just another group of people who have, by mistake, entered the world of programming, often without proper knowledge.
These low-code developers actually take more time to develop the same app, which could be developed much quicker using conventional software.
Plus, the cost of these low-code softwares are way too high.
Companies like Microsoft even provide automations to different companies for free of cost on their platforms like Power Apps so that they feel the efficiency of the same, and for that, they even hire external developers or companies that are interested in using Power Apps. This actually creates a false sense of need for these applications in the market. Still, many people and companies fall for it and start encouraging their teams to use it.
Low-code apps like Power Apps tend to show that they are user-friendly and that even an untrained person can develop an app and deploy it. When they first introduce this software, they will show how easy it is to create simple apps and how it makes the life of the employer easier because they don't have to hire a software engineer. Instead, they say your current staff can perform all the tasks and can even deploy these apps after a small training program.
This creates a false sense of independence in companies, especially the BODs and the management that is working on implementing policies. They feel that they will get rid of software engineers and can streamline manual processes, but they don't know that they will get sucked into a wormhole of issues after this.
Although these low-code platforms have some ttraining most of these are paid. Like Microsoft has PL-900, etc. This is again a honeytrap. First, they want companies to use their software, and then they charge fortrainings and certifications from employees, which even complicates the life of the employee, as now they have to learn a new skill and even end up paying for the same.
This results in untrained staff, because most employees just want to pass the certificates, and they basically have nohands-onn experience of the software that they are working on. When they start working on the software, they are asked to upskill as they will get more insights about the software, which is actually a vicious loop, as employee has to pay for these courses and certificates, and in only some of the cases,s these get reimbursed.
Now these employees end up working on automation processes with terminologies that they have heard for the first time in their lives, which creates new issues while working on these platforms, and they end up taking more time to develop the same automation that could have been developed by a software engineer within a few days. And if they built something, it will most of the timebe filled with bugs.
I have an example. A self-taught UI designer was asked to work on a Power Apps project for a leading company. He worked on the UI, which had several issues,s and went on a 1-month leave, and all the work ended up being thrown on me because the client needed work done, and they won't understand that a person has gone home. If theyhade engaged me or some other software guy from the beginning, then we would have worked accordingly, and we wouldn't have to clear the mess.
Right now, with Power Apps is connected to unlimited SharePoint lists, while the same work could have been done using one Dataverse table. Plus Power Atomate flows, these are to be discussed further. A havoc in itself.
When we talk about conventional programming languages, most of them can be coded by Gen AI tools as there are unlimited knowledge base about the same. We can just ask ChatGPT to create a login page, and it will write a PHP and HTML code or whatever language you want to use, but we cannot ask ChatGPT to create a Power Automate flow.
Low-Code softwares make it deliberate for users to do everything manually. You cannot write a prompt to AI and get everything developed. We have to wait for the user to read the output from AI and then follow the steps, which is inefficient in using AI Tools as a whole.
Now they have created Copilot, which is again a mess creator in Power Automate and nothing else.
Low-code platforms like Power Apps are way too expensive. Something that could be built for almost free of cost using a conventional programming language takes thousands of dollars to just develop, and then to deploy, there are additional costs. That too requires a proper environment setup.
A normal code can just be copied to a server, and it will start working, but these low code softwares need additional premium licenses. The software engineer cost that companies save gets reflected in these software premium licenses, which actually doesnt makes sense. Rarely makes sense.
This is way too disturbing for companies. Even though they would have trained their staff to develop some basic applications, they still end up taking help from software engineers for resolving basic issues. Plus,s to keep an idea about what is happening and if security is always taken care of, you need experts. Please,u clear the mess created by untrained professionals who think they are software developers. They have just vomited what they would have normally learned in an online class on that Power Apps dashboard.
Then software developers are required to clean up that mess up.
No comments yet.
You must be logged in to leave a comment. Login here