No Code and Low Code: The End of Programming?

Writing computer code is the closest a person can come to modern magic. A few words and numbers go into the computer, and somehow the computer knows that the code is supposed to be a website, and everything works. It is often difficult to get into coding on a more professional level. A simple Google search for “how to write computer code” returns over 1.6 Billion results, all from different websites. This has meant that coding is mostly done by a group of people with prior experience with coding.

But recently, a new type of computer code has seen a rise in popularity: so-called “no code” or “low code” programs are programs that allow a user to design a system using a simple and often intuitive user interface, and then have the program generate the actual code for the system. No understanding of programming required. One of the most popular examples of this is WordPress, a product that allows users to create a website in the same kind of way as a PowerPoint presentation, and then have the actual website generated. In more recent years, WordPress has reported that 43% of new websites are created using WordPress.This opens the door to a new future possibility: no code programs could replace ICT professionals in being the go to solution when a company needs new software. Much the same way as robots have replaced 23% of German manufacturing jobs since 1994, and predictions estimate another 8.5% of worldwide manufacturing jobs replaced by 2030. It is therefore good to investigate what happened with manufacturing jobs, because If we view the rise of no code and low code programs as a parallel to the rise of robots in factories, they could be a good way to predict what will happen to ICT jobs.

Manufacturing jobs

When we think of robots being used in factories, the first thing that comes to mind is often the increased efficiency and longer work hours, which make robots better workers as opposed to humans. Every robot in a manufacturing job replaces roughly 2 humans doing the same job. This means that robots can replace a large amount of humans in these types of ‘vulnerable’ jobs. But what does this mean for the humans who lose their jobs?

Counter intuitively, we find that robots taking over low quality jobs like manufacturing jobs results in better lives for the people that used to hold these jobs. The total quantity of work remains about the same but the composition of this work changes when robots replace lower paying jobs. In Australia, the introduction of machinery and robots has replaced a lot of jobs like crop and livestock farmers, secretaries and product assemblers, but these jobs have been replaced by jobs in sales, home care (both child and elderly) and manager positions. Which are often less physically hard and better paying jobs than the jobs they held before. However, there has been an increase in unemployment for the population aged 15 to 64 but this is more due to the increase in labor supply by the steadily growing population than the loss of total jobs. A division of hours into jobs shows that job opportunities remain the same or even grow.

What does this mean for computer scientists?

Although predicting the future is impossible, the comparison to the manufacturing jobs can help make an educated guess towards what this means for computer scientists. Some programming jobs will be lost because they are replaced, but new jobs will come to replace them. An obvious one is of course the job of maintaining the no code programs, as the programs still rely on code to function. But another less obvious example is to help compare the programs and tell the clients which one would suit their needs best, as an understanding of code and system design is very much still needed to design good systems. But the most important lesson learned is that jobs will always change and evolve, and therefore, it is good to stay flexible and never stop learning new skills.

References

https://google.com
https://wordpress.com
https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3039031
https://resources.oxfordeconomics.com/how-robots-change-the-world
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-8462.12245