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A case for a No-Code solution

New Here ,
Jul 15, 2023 Jul 15, 2023

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There is an issue I just came across; I want to move my design from Adobe XD to a HTML format for my developers on a small project and I simply can’t do this directly through any Adobe products. Why not?
I don’t mean why not as in there is no path to do this, I mean why not as in why isn’t this a click-click-click solution like every other Adobe product out there?
Hear me out, I can take an Illustrator file into Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere, and InDesign, and sometimes vice versa. But I can’t export my XD project to Dreamweaver or another Adobe application. I can view that same XD project in my browser working somewhat in the HTML DOM. Something ain’t right about that.

 

The Problem
I’ve used Adobe products for over 20+ years now and I’ve been seeing a trend now, wait let me finish. In the ’00s there was Macromedia and the products it had were Freehand, Flash, and Dreamweaver. I still have a Macromedia Studio 8 box here the blue one. Adobe bought them out. It took 10 years to incorporate everything from Freehand 9 or 10 (I can’t remember) into Illustrator and we all know what happened to Flash, but Dreamweaver limbered on for a while and died the slowest death. Dreamweaver currently has no replacement in the Adobe family.

 

The Cause
Why does it seem that Adobe is where some beloved applications go to die sometimes? Dreamweaver used to be the best WYSIWYG and semi-serious coding application out there, which it wasn’t. The only logical answer for this is it couldn’t keep up. It lost its stride. How? Or better yet, why? You don’t lead the industry and then fall off a cliff.


OK back to my original issue I want to take this XD project and make it responsive enough that I save a little money before I give it to another Frontend Developer (I’m one by the way), I pop open Dreamweaver fire up a blank Bootstrap page and I’m like why does this feel like work? I’m puzzled for a bit I can just drag and drop the elements I want and move them around the way I want and it just feels like work. I hate work. I know how to code, but I’ve been coding for nearly 3 decades and don’t want to relearn CSS, HTML, or JS just to code this thing in Bootstrap. I mean I know the commands but I was having fun in XD and now I’m working. NO.
So, I go looking around for a No-Code solution out there and I come across Webflow and an old name CoffeeCup SiteBuilder or whatever they call it now. CoffeeCup has crappy UI out of the box and some bad implementations of the accessibility and toggle handles etc. but I can live with it. Webflow however is much better but all the while I’m using Webflow in my head I’m going. Why does this feel like I’m using Dreamweaver 2023 or what should be Dreamweaver 2023?

 

The Solution
What do I want. I want a solution that makes creating applications fun again.
Bear with me here, we’re all still at the core using a C-based language or script language (PHP, JS, RUST, RUBY, JAVA, CSS, GO, etc.) to be output to a compiled library of software (WordPress, Drupal, Magento, Laravel, Typescript, NodeJS, React, etc.) all of which do that same thing. They all create applications based on user input, process that information, and then output information based on the calculation.
Now tell me why is it that we can’t have an application that, is TLA+ or Node-based that you create your flow chart of information or schema of algorithms and logic and have that work within a proprietary format and then (wait for it) once that structure and its logic works, have a Large Learned Language model compute that schema and output that structure to whatever end language or library you desire?

Why is it that if I want to build something even if it is small that I have to go learn a new library or some other new-fangled structure to do what I can do in the Vanilla version of that language to be current?
There are like 50 new libraries coming out every month that all work with the same core languages and I as well as a lot of you am tired of going. “OH, Gawd what now!”  Aren’t we done with these “new” things doing exactly what the other thing does but slightly better or in a longer convoluted way?
I don’t have time in the middle of a project or at the beginning to try to keep up with this stupid development cycle that some of these libraries have. Especially if you are on a long project that takes 4 months or more.


This is ADOBE I buy your applications to make my life easier not harder, I want a solution that is fully fledged for my development team I want something that can take me from conception to inception and not drop me off at a random bus stop when it feels like. You guys are the best at this I don’t want to take my Adobe XD design and then have to port it to Webflow or CoffeeCup or some other software and feel like if my client has a change or I want to interoperate with my application that I have a missing link somewhere.


I want to stop working so hard and have fun again.


Nothing is ever perfect and nothing should. But ADOBE used to be a leader, not a follower. What is wrong with you all?

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