'No Code' is bad

By Samantha Xavia

Have you ever wanted to build a website? Did you know how to 'code' that website? No, well there's sites like Wix, Wordpress and Square out there that allows you to just drag-and-drop your whole website or simply add plugins. These systems are plainly not terrible if you are making a dynamic website with logins and things, especially if you want to join the fediverse as said in our Decentralised Social Media article through a Wordpress Plugin.

But, most of these systems are not the best for customisability, apart from Wix, what is quite a pricy website drag-and-drop system. Really if you want to have a fully customised website the best thing you can do is rather learn to build it yourself (like we have lately) or send it off to someone that could build it for you, the sad reality is that the latter option can be unrealistic for some people or companies.

Why is no-code a thing? -- No Code, even know can be a pricy service gives a general user the ability to create a website, app or other helpful things without learning the code themselves, often enough these services may charge a monthly subscription. There is a few issues with using No Code;

1. You can't 100% come up with a new website or concept

2. You are paying monthly fees that are high compaired to what it would actually cost with your own code

3. If you are making a basic 'infomation' website such as for your small business or portfolio, you are better off learning the basic HTML, CSS and copy some JavaScript for the site itself

4. You are trapped to the 'No Code' website or application to not change there side of the deal, as often enough you can't take your website or application and go to another place, you are trapped.

Have I ever used no code builders? -- Yes I've used many no code builders and after giving up on them due to price, I started to learn my own way of building websites through HTML, CSS and JS but this takes time and you need the will to mess up and have to fix what you changed to your code. At this stage I have broken the VEX.blue website a number of times and luckily now use Git to make sure I don't always push to main, as well as can go back versions if I break something.

So to Conclude -- No Code isn't all bad and can be a really accessible way for someone to learn what they could build with there website but if you code it yourself not only will you feel more proud of yourself, as I do when I see what i've done so far for VEX.blue but it can cost less and transplate to other websites in the future if you ever needed to build something new.