Comment by cjonas
1 day ago
How is the "code" represented in the backend? Can it be exported, checked into source control and deployed via CI/CD?
With the advances we are seeing in AI coding workspaces, "visual programming" seems like a dead end if the code isn't optimized for machine comprehension. I do think visual representation of code will become important to be able to more easily understand the AI generated systems, but it's just not an inefficient way to encode logic for AI (turns of code is a very effective at this).
IMO, for these low code runtimes to survive, they need to be "transpilable" to a simple DSL (or subset of a popular language) and have an LSP for agents to interact with.
I take the opposite view. The semantics of visual programming are very simple compared to text-based programming. This makes it more amenable to AI autocomplete, not less. A visual IDE could just convert the blocks to text, then prompt the LLM API with "here are the current blocks, and here are the blocks available to you. Suggest some more blocks." and then insert the response.
I agree the abstraction level is perfect for AI, but not having it accessible (or even just in a format that is well represented in the training data) is a problem. From a CTO's perspective, encoding our processes in something like this removes my ability to leverage the general AI programming capabilities of the future that billions of dollars are currently being invested in.
It's a technical debt dead end.
Checks out, that’s definitely a CTO’s perspective.
This is a very interesting take. It currently cannot be exported but It sure can be achieved. Wow i think this is something i'll prioritise to implement. Thank you so much for the insight, it can be a good differentiator too.
I really wouldn't bother if you're targetting non-tech users.
I disagree...
What's the SDLC story? How do I move between environments, roll back, manage hotfixes alongside feature development, etc?
It's these "non-functional" feature that end up being the downfall of many of the integration projects I've been brought in to save.
John in accounting sets up a Salesforce to Netsuite integration that becomes mission critical and it works... Until it doesn't.
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