NoCode/LowCode Speculation
Attending re:Invent 2018 (my first re:Invent) admittedly left me with a case of bedazzled fanboyism, and some notes on what the future may hold in store for AWS as it continues to create managed, automated infrastructure and enable the pure act of building.
Read Part II, More Like Tron: HyperDiagrams and VR Topology
NoCode/LowCode: AWS for Everyone
The first and most seminal prophecy I noted at re:Invent (it’s in my notes, honest!) is the bridging of the gap between Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS)/Software as a Service(SaaS). I envisioned AWS offering templated (but customizable), autogenerated code with PaaS style configuration and management, beginning with CRM, a simple use case that almost every business requires. So it was no surprise when I heard the first stirrings of AWS for Everyone/”Beehive”, the rumored AWS low-code/no-code project, in January of this year.
The main target, in my mind, is Salesforce, with a massive market share begging for a company like Amazon to take out a bite sized chunk. Salesforce’s purchase of Heroku seemed like a IaaS/PaaS grey area attempt at getting a foothold into the cloud application market, but I don’t think I’ve spun up a dyno since 2010. Given that it runs atop AWS, and bearing in mind advancements in containerization/ECS, Elastic Beanstalk, Fargate, and now Lightsail, it’s difficult to think of a use case for Heroku. But high pricing and lack of server control on Salesforce leaves them ripe for Amazon to make a move in the opposite direction.
I am cannot claim to be a pure algo dev, though I love the opportunity to create something functional and concise. Most of my projects have leaned more towards API/robust business logic, and there have been reluctant points of redundancy. The prospect of an intelligent tool automating much of that work has always been in the background, and rather than putting devs out of a job, such an offering would create an ecosystem around customization which I intend to embrace.