Being the defiant college student that I am, over the first two months of quarantine, I began to polish up my web development skills. Rather than paying attention in my zoom calls, and staying up to date with my canvas notifications. I touched up on my javascript and jquery skills. I also picked up the basics of VueJs and built a project with it. Overall I became a better front-end developer.
But there's a catch to learning these skills: It takes a significant amount of time to build a foundation. There is also a limit on what can be built with this basic foundation. By myself, I can only build a functional front-end web-app with no real back-end. To build out a proficient product, I would have to outsource the backend work or bring on someone else who can do the work. Coding in the early stages presents key issues to speed and productivity, especially for those like my self who are learning as they go.
What is No Code?
A few weeks back I ran into the term no-code. I initially wrote it off as a trend that would quickly die. But after doing more research, I discovered a new world. A new world of digital paintbrushes. That is used to build software faster, and with less difficulty. A new type of egalitarianism where software no longer is solely built by those that identify as "coders." But with no-code tools software can now be built by a wide variety of people from different backgrounds.
To provide a clear "dictionary" definition of no-code tools, let's define no code like this:
"A no-code tool is a software development environment that allows the average person to become a developer. Drag and drop components, connect them together, and create software systems."
Now let me highlight what I see as the three most important no-code tools. These are the most important tools for any project as they are the most flexible. When you master these tools you can build anything. Be mindful, there is a large amount of no-code tools. So, if I do not highlight the ones you prefer, do not take it as a slight.
Bubble is a visual programming tool that allows its users to build web and mobile apps. Instead of programming manually by writing code. You write your logic by pointing, clicking, and dragging your components to build your apps. In the past other no-code software creation tools, were largely template-based. They provided little flexibility to actually build the unique solution that you envisioned. Bubble is great in that it allows you the freedom to build whatever you want. You can build the most complex applications with Bubble or you can keep it simple. It is whatever you choose. To get the most out of Bubble I would recommend taking a few of the courses on withcopilot.com. Their videos and tutorials explain the vast use cases of what you can build with Bubble.
Airtable is a spreadsheet intertwined with a database. Airtable has the features of an SQL like database applied to spreadsheets, with a beautiful and intuitive user interface. If this were basketball Airtable would be the "glue guy." Airtable holds everything together, its API allows data to be sent, and stored from your databases. It also can easily be connected to Bubble via the Airtable plugin on Bubble. The software also has helpful features to easily view your information. Here's how the information is stored when a user creates an account on our site.
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In addition to being a great database, Airtable also works well as a productivity and management tool. We will explore a bit more about how this can be done using zapier.