The rise of no-code and low-code solutions over the past decade has brought significant changes to how technology is accessed and used. By making development accessible to people with minimal technical skills, these solutions have opened doors for a larger audience to achieve more than they could before, without needing to engage with complex programming or system-level thinking. However, it’s important to understand not only the benefits but also the limitations inherent in no-code and low-code tools.
Understanding the Layers of Technology.
To grasp how no-code and low-code platforms are designed, let’s think of technology in layers, with the base level comprising raw code–1s and 0s–translated through increasingly user-friendly layers. Software engineers, over decades, have layered new functionality on top of raw code, creating operating systems and applications like Excel, Word, and Outlook. No-code and low-code solutions are built on top of these, enabling people to use checkboxes, dropdowns, and input fields to perform tasks that would once have required coding.
These tools are designed for ease of use, encapsulating complex tasks within simple interfaces. But while this opens up technology to more users, it also means that these solutions are bounded by their design constraints. Engineers have chosen what features to include or exclude based on the most common needs, but real-world demands often extend beyond these boundaries.
The Real-World Complexity Beyond Low-Code Solutions.
The needs of businesses are often more complex and varied than what can be imagined in the controlled environment of a design studio. No-code and low-code tools, while popular and accessible, can only address a subset of real-world demands. When requirements go beyond the capabilities of these tools–say, in complex business scenarios where dynamic data flow, sophisticated calculations, or multi-dimensional data connections are needed–there comes a point where low-code alone may no longer suffice.
The Power of Low-Level Access: Excel’s Hidden Capabilities.
Many people may not realize that Excel, as far back as 1993 with the release of Excel 5, has offered deeper capabilities than its surface-level features suggest. With Excel’s Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), users have access to the entire object model, allowing them to directly manipulate almost every aspect of Excel, from simple formatting to external data connections. This kind of low-level access opens up Excel to functionalities beyond the typical formula and cell-based constraints of no-code tools.
This advanced manipulation allows Excel to integrate with databases, retrieve data dynamically, and even allow bi-directional data flow–features that many popular no-code solutions simply cannot achieve. These capabilities require understanding Excel’s object model and thinking at a level beyond point-and-click operations.
Choosing the Right Approach: Boundaries and the Pivotal Decision.
Every time you set out to create a solution, there’s a decision to make: can this be achieved with a no-code approach, or will you need to go deeper? This choice defines the boundaries of your solution and, ultimately, its flexibility and scalability. The real world often demands solutions that go beyond preset boundaries, requiring custom thinking and approaches that low-code tools can’t always accommodate.
In my own career, this distinction became apparent early on, back in 1997. Realizing the boundaries of no-code solutions led me to explore Excel’s full potential, discovering that going beyond those boundaries didn’t make things more difficult–in fact, it made them easier. By embracing a lower-level approach, solutions became more adaptable, powerful, and easier to implement in complex business environments.
The Hidden Simplicity of Excel’s Full Power.
This discovery is what I hope to pass on: by adopting a mindset that looks beyond popular trends and restrictions, you unlock a simpler, more powerful approach to Excel. Low-code and no-code solutions serve a purpose and will continue to trend, but they are only part of the picture. By understanding the boundaries and recognizing when it’s time to move beyond them, you’ll find that what appears complex often becomes surprisingly simple.
This is what led me to create the *Excel Mission Impossible* series, where I take popular Excel challenges framed for single users and reframe them within larger organizational contexts. The solutions reveal that the limitations often stem not from Excel itself but from our reliance on surface-level tools.
So, I leave you with this thought: low-code and no-code solutions offer convenience and accessibility, but true capability–and ease–often lies in embracing the deeper potential of tools like Excel. By recognizing the boundaries and daring to step beyond them, you open up a world of possibilities.
Thank you for reading.
This is a podcast by Hiran de Silva. Narrated by Bill.
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