The paradox of the happy no-code-developer

A presentation about the Automation Tools: Airtable and Zapier and how I created the seecfp.com tool. I also spoke about the future of such development tools on the programming landscape and problem-solving vs coding.

Transcript

1. THE PARADOX OF THE
   HAPPY NO-CODE-DEVELOPER
   DWX 2021 – TIMOTHÉE BOURGUIGNON
   @TIMOTHEP – TIMBOURGUIGNON.FR – MATHEMA.DE
   

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2. The story of
   an itch that
   needed
   scratching
   CHAPTER 1/6
   

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3. View Slide

4. @timothep
   

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5. 1. Gather CFPs
   2. Publish them on a website
   3. Send a weekly newsletter
   4. Tweet at regular interval
   

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6. ▪Submit CFPs via a public form
   ▪Persist the CFPs with a few attributes
   ▪Validate each CFP manually
   ▪Administer the data
   ▪Subscribe to the newsletter
   ▪Create and send a weekly newsletter
   ▪Tweet about the CFPs
   ▪Parse Tweets and RSS-Feeds to
   automatically add new CFPs
   

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7. WHICH TOOLS WOULD YOU USE?
   

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9. (Antwort von 2019)
   ▪ Azure Table Storage
   ▪ Vue.Js lightweight frontends
   ▪ REST Backend & Table Bindings
   ▪ Serverless Functions
   ▪ Time Triggered Function
   ▪ Azure SendMail
   ▪ Logic Apps for the Bots?
   

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10. JUST BEAR-LY EASIER…
    

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11. WHAT WE WANT
    TO DO IS SIMPLE
    ...WHY IS IT SO
    COMPLICATED TO BUILD?
    

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13. ARNAUD PORTERIE
    FOUNDER “ECHOES HQ”
    EX-DOCKER SENIOR ENG-MGR
    AIRTABLE & ZAPIER
    

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14. AIRTABLE
    

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15. AIRTABLE EXAMPLE
    

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16. ZAPIER
    

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17. ZAPIER EXAMPLE
    

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18. AIRTABLE + ZAPIER
    

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19. I’M HAVING
    A BAD IDEA
    

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20. without writing any
    line of code?
    using only existing
    services?
    binding them with
    an orchestrating
    service?
    

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21. CRAZY…
    

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22. WWW.SEECFP.COM
    

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23. The story of
    an itch that
    needed
    scratching
    PART 1 How I built
    SeeCfP.com
    CHAPTER 2/6
    

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24. AIRTABLE
    ZAPIER
    MSFLOW
    MAILCHIMP
    GMAIL
    DATABASE, UI & FORMS
    MAILING
    ORCHESTRATION,
    VALIDATION & BOTS
    (+STATIC GITHUB PAGES WEBSITE)
    

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25. CFPs
    Table
    @itcfplist
    @cfp_exchange
    @cloc_wise
    @confstech
    RSS
    Admin
    review
    Admin notification
    Submission form
    Add CFPs to weekly
    email digest
    Weekly Newsletter
    User
    Airtable
    Zapier
    Gmail
    Mailchimp
    Flow
    Self-hosted static-
    website with the CFP
    DB as an iFrame
    Consults
    CFPs
    Parsing &
    insertion
    @timothep
    

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26. CFPs
    Table
    @itcfplist
    @cfp_exchange
    @cloc_wise
    @confstech
    RSS
    Admin
    review
    Admin notification
    Submission form
    Add CFPs to weekly
    email digest
    Weekly Newsletter
    User
    Airtable
    Zapier
    Gmail
    Mailchimp
    Flow
    Self-hosted static-
    website with the CFP
    DB as an iFrame
    Consults
    CFPs
    Parsing &
    insertion
    @timothep
    

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27. CFPs
    Table
    @itcfplist
    @cfp_exchange
    @cloc_wise
    @confstech
    RSS
    Admin
    review
    Admin notification
    Submission form
    Add CFPs to weekly
    email digest
    Weekly Newsletter
    User
    Airtable
    Zapier
    Gmail
    Mailchimp
    Flow
    Self-hosted static-
    website with the CFP
    DB as an iFrame
    Consults
    CFPs
    Parsing &
    insertion
    @timothep
    

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28. CFPs
    Table
    @itcfplist
    @cfp_exchange
    @cloc_wise
    @confstech
    RSS
    Admin
    review
    Admin notification
    Submission form
    Add CFPs to weekly
    email digest
    Weekly Newsletter
    User
    Airtable
    Zapier
    Gmail
    Mailchimp
    Flow
    Self-hosted static-
    website with the CFP
    DB as an iFrame
    Consults
    CFPs
    Parsing &
    insertion
    @timothep
    

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29. CFPs
    Table
    @itcfplist
    @cfp_exchange
    @cloc_wise
    @confstech
    RSS
    Admin
    review
    Admin notification
    Submission form
    Add CFPs to weekly
    email digest
    Weekly Newsletter
    User
    Airtable
    Zapier
    Gmail
    Mailchimp
    Flow
    Self-hosted static-
    website with the CFP
    DB as an iFrame
    Consults
    CFPs
    Parsing &
    insertion
    @timothep
    

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30. CFPs
    Table
    @itcfplist
    @cfp_exchange
    @cloc_wise
    @confstech
    RSS
    Admin
    review
    Admin notification
    Submission form
    Add CFPs to weekly
    email digest
    Weekly Newsletter
    User
    Airtable
    Zapier
    Gmail
    Mailchimp
    Flow
    Self-hosted static-
    website with the CFP
    DB as an iFrame
    Consults
    CFPs
    Parsing &
    insertion
    @timothep
    

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31. CFPs
    Table
    @itcfplist
    @cfp_exchange
    @cloc_wise
    @confstech
    RSS
    Admin
    review
    Admin notification
    Submission form
    Add CFPs to weekly
    email digest
    Weekly Newsletter
    User
    Airtable
    Zapier
    Gmail
    Mailchimp
    Flow
    Self-hosted static-
    website with the CFP
    DB as an iFrame
    Consults
    CFPs
    Parsing &
    insertion
    @timothep
    

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32. CFPs
    Table
    @itcfplist
    @cfp_exchange
    @cloc_wise
    @confstech
    RSS
    Admin
    review
    Admin notification
    Submission form
    Add CFPs to weekly
    email digest
    Weekly Newsletter
    User
    Airtable
    Zapier
    Gmail
    Mailchimp
    Flow
    Self-hosted static-
    website with the CFP
    DB as an iFrame
    Consults
    CFPs
    Parsing &
    insertion
    @timothep
    

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33. 0%
    10%
    20%
    30%
    40%
    50%
    60%
    70%
    80%
    0
    100
    200
    300
    400
    500
    600
    700
    800
    900
    2018 2019 2020 2021
    Entries on SeeCFP Sessionize Entries Marketshare for Sessionize
    

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34. FROM NO-CODE TO LOW-CODE
    

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35. CFPs
    Table
    @itcfplist
    @cfp_exchange
    @cloc_wise
    @confstech
    RSS
    Admin
    review
    Admin notification
    Submission form
    Add CFPs to weekly
    email digest
    Weekly Newsletter
    User
    Airtable
    Zapier
    Gmail
    Mailchimp
    Flow
    Self-hosted static-
    website with the CFP
    DB as an iFrame
    Consults
    CFPs
    Parsing &
    insertion
    Sessionize Data Extraction
    with „Zapier Code“ & Python
    @timothep
    

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37. ▪ All requirements met?
    ▪ Without writing any line of code?
    ▪ Using only existing services?
    ▪ Binding them with an orchestrating
    service?
    ▪ Mandatory cat picture?
    

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38. The story of
    an itch that
    needed
    scratching
    PART 1 “Just for fun”
    CHAPTER 3/6
    

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39. Company Focus Financial No-Code Tools used
    Lambda School Learning Platform $122M Funding
    Typeform, Airtable, Retool, Webflow, Salesforce,
    Calendly and Zapier
    Comet.co Online Job Board $13M Funding Bubble
    Kollecto Art Marketplace $30K/Monthly Revenue
    Strikingly, Typeform, Plasso, Stripe, Paypal and
    Bubble
    Dividend Finance Green Energy Funding $380M Funding Bubble
    Makerpad No-Code Learning Platform $4.4M Funding Webflow, Stripe, Zapier, Airtable and Convertkit
    Plato Mentorship Platform $3.3M Funding Bubble
    Qoins Finance Coaching $750K Funding Bubble
    Followup Edge Sales Funneling $30K/Monthly Revenue Bubble and Zapier
    Sources:
    Stories | Makerpad.co
    The 10 Most impressive startups built with no-code | no-code.ch
    

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40. The story of
    an itch that
    needed
    scratching
    PART 1 Microservices²
    CHAPTER 4/6
    

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41. “REMEMBER HOW FUN IT WAS TO CREATE OUR OWN
    STRING-MANIPULATION AND XML-PARSING LIBRARIES?”
    

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42. ▪ OS
    ▪ SourceControl
    ▪ CloudHosting
    ▪ Browsers
    ▪ Databases
    ▪ OR-Mappers
    ▪ UI Frameworks
    ▪ …
    

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43. ▪Give me a good
    reason why
    Wordpress isn’t
    “good-enough”
    Source: Joost.blog & W3Techs
    

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44. “Reinventing
    the wheel”
    APIs
    Time
    Libraries
    

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45. „The microservice architectural style is an approach to
    developing a single application as a suite of small
    services, each running in its own process and
    communicating with lightweight mechanisms, often
    an HTTP resource API. These services are built around
    business capabilities and independently deployable
    by fully automated deployment machinery. There is a
    bare minimum of centralized management of these
    services, which may be written in different
    programming languages and use different data
    storage technologies.“
    Martin Fowler
    @timothep
    

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46. The Rapidly Expanding No-Code Landscape (Nasscom 2021)
    

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47. The story of
    an itch that
    needed
    scratching
    PART 1
    Problem
    Solver
    or
    Software
    Developer?
    CHAPTER 5/6
    

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48. LOVE CODE OR CREATIVITY?
    

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50. ▪ Less technical knowledge required
    CODE IS RARELY THE PROBLEM
    

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51. START SIMPLE & ITERATE
    

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52. 1. RAD, Prototyping &
    Market-Fit Research
    2. Automation, Interna-
    facing systems &
    process streamlining
    3. When you don’t want to
    deal with infrastructure!
    

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53. NO-CODE ≠ NO-KNOWLEDGE
    

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54. The story of
    an itch that
    needed
    scratching
    PART 1 Let’s wrap up!
    CHAPTER 6/6
    

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55. LOW/NO-CODE IS HERE TO STAY, ACCEPT IT!
    

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57. ▪Code is not always the
    solution
    ▪We are problem solvers
    first, software engineers
    second
    

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58. https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-best-code-is-no-code-at-all
    

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59. TIMOTHÉE BOURGUIGNON
    ▪ Chief-Learning-Officer, Head-of-
    Agile, Team-Coach and Mentoring-
    Evangelist at MATHEMA GmbH
    ▪ Podcast Host:
    https://devjourney.info
    ▪ Contact: @timothep,
    https://timbourguignon.fr
    „DAS PARADOX DES
    GLÜCKLICHEN OHNE-CODE-
    ENTWICKLERS“
    

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