Are Web Dev GUIs Going to Replace Us?

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about web dev GUIs — what are they, are they going to replace developers, are they good or bad, and more!

Hasura is an open source real-time GraphQL engine. It connects to your databases & microservices and instantly gives you a production-ready GraphQL API. Check it out at Hasura.io.

LogRocket lets you replay what users do on your site, helping you reproduce bugs and fix issues faster. It's an exception tracker, a session re-player and a performance monitor. Get 14 days free at logrocket.com/syntax.

Show Notes

1:30 - What is "codeless"?

The codeless movement is coming in with a force. Are they just selling something? Or is it a real concern?
All types of jobs are being replaced by computers
- Truckers
- Cashiers
- Lawn mowers
- Doctors
- Why not web developers?

7:22 - First experience building sites with a GUI?

Dreamweaver

10:18 - Entire website builders:

Wix
Squarespace
Webflow
Modulz
Grid.io
Wordpress Builders

13:17 - When are GUIs useful?

Brochure site
Basic e-commerce

20:26 - Is a GUI/Codeless always better?

It depends what you're capable of doing

25:21 - Levels of hell GUI assistance in builders

CMS - Just modifying content and basic markup
Access to code, drag blocks into place
No or minimal access to code
No modification outside of options

31:36 - Are there GUIs for making applications?

Native Mobile
Zapier

36:54 - Are jobs at risk?

Yes
- I think a lot of WordPress tinkering has already been replaced
- The guy who knows what buttons to push is at risk?
- Webmaster jobs where the roll was just occasionally updating HTML and text
No
- Government
- Educational institutions
- Major corporations that can't have their content stored via a service

39:55 - Our favorite GUIs to help development

Scott:
- Netlify
- Heroku
- Studio 3T
- VS Code
Wes:
- Sketch CSS Export
- Digital Ocean
- Cyberduck
- Transmit
- ZSH
- VS Code

××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ×××

Scott: Baron of Botox
Wes: Owlet Smart Sock

Shameless Plugs

Scott: How To Build A GraphQL API - Sign up for the year and save 25%!
Wes: All Courses - Use the coupon code 'Syntax' for $10 off!

Tweet us your tasty treats!

Scott's Instagram
LevelUpTutorials Instagram
Wes' Instagram
Wes' Twitter
Wes' Facebook
Scott's Twitter
Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

Playing: 222: Are Web Dev GUIs Going to Replace Us?

Reacting to State of CSS Survey

Tauri Vs Electron - Desktop Apps with Web Tech

Anxiety and Uncertainty with Dr. Courtney Tolinski

The Svelte + SvelteKit Show

Hacking the Tonal - Proxying, Intercepting + Debugging Traffic?

Supper Club × How To Get Your First Dev Job With Stuart Bloxham

Hackweek Projects - Realtime Markdown Editor and a Hardware Recording Button

CSS Nesting is Here!

Supper Club × What's New With Astro with Fred Schott

Potluck × Soft Skills × Release Notes × Headless CMS × Organizing Code × Inet CSS?

JavaScript Closures & Scope Explained

Supper Club × Shipping ESM with Mark Erikson

Anything but Coding - Landscaping, Fitness, and more!

OG Image Options

Supper Club × Make React 70% Faster! Million.js with 18 Year Old Aiden Bai

Rust for JS Devs — Part 2

8 Tricks When Using the Fetch() API

Supper Club × How Descript Built A Next Gen Video Editor In The Browser With Andrew Lisowski

6 or so New Approved and Proposed JavaScript APIs

JS Fundamentals - Decorators

Supper Club × Flightcontrol with Brandon Bayer

Potluck × Is TypeScript Fancy Duct Tape × Back Pain × Cloud Service Rate Limits

Why is Facebook’s HTML + CSS Such a Mess?

Supper Club × Ryan Florence of Remix

Standard Server JavaScript - Deno, Workers, Bun and More

Rust for JavaScript Developers - Node vs Rust Concepts

Supper Club × Email Sending, Spam, DMARC, SPF, Styling, and more with Andris Reinman

Polyfills, Transpiling and Monkey Patching

User Feedback UI - Toasts, Flash, Validation

Supper Club × WASM, Fastly Edge, and Polyfill.io with Jake Champion

Potluck × CSS Variables in React × JS Notebooks × Selling a Domain

Help Me Help You - How To Ask For Help

Supper Club × val.town with Steve Krouse

Stump’d × JavaScript × GraphQL × Memory Safety × Web History

Roundup - Sick AI Tools For Developers

Supper Club × Cloudinary with Colby Fayock

What are Headless Components?

Lightning CSS

Supper Club × Messaging Queues and Workers with Armin Ronacher

WTF is an ORM

Where to Register a Domain

Supper Club × Why Netlify bought Gatsby, GraphQL Data Layer, and Headless CMS with Dustin Schau

Potluck × Warp × Skeleton UI × Edge Functions × Donut Scoping

AsyncLocalStorage + AsyncContext API

Supper Club × JavaScript on Hardware, Micro Controllers, ESP32 with Nick Hehr

Electronics for Beginners

GitHub Projects, Milestones, Labels, and Actions

Supper Club × OpenAI, Future of programming, LLMs, and Math with Andrey Mishchenko

Is JSDoc Better than TypeScript?

Nothing in CSS - 0 vs 0px, no, none, hidden, initial and unset

Supper Club × Matt Rothenberg and Idan Gazit on Github Next

The New Syntax Site × Ingest, Stack, AI and more

JavaScript.exe - Standalone Executables

Supper Club × Bramus Van Damme on CSS

Potluck × JR Devs & Copilot × CSS Variable Limitations × SvelteKit

Why Is node_modules So Big?

Supper Club × Adam Argyle on What's New in CSS

Where Should You Host Your App? Hosting Providers Compared

WTF Are Signals And Why Is Everyone So Hot On Them All Of The Sudden?

Supper Club × Dylan Jhaveri - Video for the Web and MUX

UI Elements - Basics, Best Practice, and Built Ins

Bluesky + AT Protocol

Supper Club × Zach Lloyd from Warp

The Syntax Giveaway Site - Codes, Bots, Tech Stack and More!

RPC in JavaScript!

Supper Club × Privacy, Cookie Banners, GDPR with Donata and Hans Skillrud

Potluck × Crypto × SEO × Status Pages × Learning Tools

CSS Color Functions

Supper Club × ESLint with Nicholas Zakas

Can Vanilla CSS Replace Sass Yet?

Modals, Popups, Popovers, Lightboxes

Supper Club × Nate Weinert and Tamagui

600th Episode! Major Announcement and Swag Giveaway!

oAuth APIs Explained

Supper Club × Fabian Kägy - Modern WordPress - Blocks, Page builders, Headless, Custom Fields

Stump’d Gameshow! Answering Coding Interview Questions from AI

The New Import Map Standard

Supper Club × Web Components and Lit with Justin Fagnani of Google

Potluck × Testing Animations × Tools for Learning × Coding Related Injuries