Bit of a general question here. As a developer yourself, what do you think of the no-code movement and the rise of development software for people with no coding experience? What would you think are the pros and cons of going with "no-code" tools? And do you think there's a future for them?
Visual scripting tools like Blueprints and DOTS built into off-the-shelf engines like Unreal and Unity are definitely helpful in lowering the bar for non-programmers to start developing games. However, there’s a lot more to programming than just learning the syntax of how to do what you want to do. Beyond the basic rules of how things work, programmers also need a strong understanding of how to organize and utilize data efficiently. The best way I can try to explain this is by using an analogy.
Let’s say that you wanted to craft a great story, but you don’t know the language you want to tell the story in. Instead of writing the story in that language, suppose you’re given a pretty broad library of images that you can use to tell the story instead. You can begin putting things together with that image library and it will certainly be something. However, bypassing the need for vocabulary and grammar aren’t all that’s needed to tell the story. Writing a good story also requires understanding of story structure, character development, pacing, and a variety of other invisible skills that typically require careful study and experience. None of these skills are inherently granted by the image library, no matter how extensive it is. The library just lets you bypass the language barrier.
Similarly, the visual scripting tools allow developers to bypass the programming language syntax barrier. This removes one barrier from the path but not all. There are other conceptual challenges that trained programmers are usually taught to circumvent that cannot be automatically bypassed or granted with a visual scripting language. They still need to learn those rules and best practices, be it with a visual scripting system or writing code. The initial barrier to entry is lowered but the general requirements of being a programmer (even one who only uses visual scripting tools) will remain. Those skills are not inherent to the act of coding but earned through the process of learning how to code.
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