To get a sense of best-technique for creating apps, I opened the "Employee Ideas" template in TEAMS Project-Oakdale. Dissecting the App->OnStart property I began scrolling through 295 line of code ...in one PowerApp property ...so much text I had to cut-paste it into VSCODE to read it.  Which prompted the question "what is low-code?"

 

Now granted, the very clever OnStart of this template is doing lots: "building localization collections" and "collections of app file icons" and "studio test settings" but still, what does any of that mean to a citizen "low-coder"?  And if making sense of it requires a professional IDE then by definition it's NOT low-code.

 

Power-MVP's could argue that PowerApps can swing both ways and be highly-developed or low-code, whatever your comfort level.  But the honest truth (as evidenced by any fully-functional pre-built template) is that low-code == low-functionality. The complexity necessary to obtain desired functionality is never-ever-ever going to be low-code and to sell it as such is to sell unrealistic expectations to the business and put IT professionals in a bind when attempting to develop in a clunky web-UI.

 

I'd like to hear other's opinions on the matter.  Thanks, Neville