Comment by elviejo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by elviejo | Hacker News Reader

Some feedback: * "low code" is confusing When I started reading I thought low code, meant low "level" code, something like assembly or rust. After reading a lot in the page I saw it meant not writing imperative code. I think the term Model Driven Engineering would be more appropriate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-driven_engineering

* How do I model business rules? How do I model a State machine?

  I want to specify that once an order has been created I want to send it to the procurement department.

* How do I connect with external APIs systems?

* You mention that you have an ERP system based on this platform. Can we look at that code? Can we have some testimonials?

Kudos: * It's good that you are doing a declarative approach to business software... this is still most of the software we use and I don't think it's a solved problem.

* On using a Graph database I think this is better to model complex domains. However which graph database are you using? Neo4j, Dgraph, OrientDB or is an inhouse graph database?

* On the name

Thanks for the feedback and kudos!

Alan is definitely related to model driven engineering. It's a different take on what a model can specify, and models drive everything we do.

https://www.m-industries.com has some testimonials. We can't share those particular data models, but if you're really interested get on the forum and we can dig into some of those areas.

External systems can be interfaced with using our bridge application that can work with relational databases. We have tooling to rapidly build custom connectors using our interface specification language. One area that Alan shows it's still early days is that we don't have a shelf full of ready made connectors.

Our stack is all home grown. We run on a tiny custom built Linux distro. The graph database is also in house. There wasn't anything out there that fit our needs (like being 100% push/subscription based). Luckily Alan also helps keep our line count pretty low throughout the stack.

> "low code" is confusing When I started reading I thought low code, meant low "level" code, something like assembly or rust.

I expected that as well from the title but at the very start they link the meaning of the term so that those of us that don’t know what it means can quickly find out on Wikipedia.

I think it’s best to do like they are doing and link the Wikipedia article.

It would also be helpful to use the spelling from Wikipedia: "low-code" vs. "low code" are very different in my mind.

Agreed, to me "low-code" is a lot more clear.

instead of "low-code" maybe "meta-level" or "super-level" programming ... :)

or just go with "declarative" programming, since that's kind of a term of art? or "intent-driven"?

Why not just explain it in plain English right on the page? Expecting potential users to read a wiki article just to understand what your product is seems like unnecessary friction.

Just read it as "4GL" and pretend it's the mid-80s again. Then it will all make sense.

Low-code is a pretty standard industry term, though. Maybe not for the HN crowd but Gsuite has a low-code tool now and the likes of OutSystems have been doing it for years.

I’m more curious as to the name Alan.

I understood what they meant by "low-code" before I clicked the article, but I'm just one person.

Was the HN title fixed after your post? It's now "low-code" which I think is pretty understandable.

Yes, we updated the title to try to clarify.

Only the people who use the term "low code" seem to think its a term in widespread use.

No one else has heard of it.

I'd be curious to know more about this: are there specific industries or settings where it's used and valued?

That's probably the intention. You either get the term and find it self-evident (win), or you ask what that means or click so you can find out what low code means. Either way they win.

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