In the programming world, all that no-code and low-code “programming” garbage has a well deserved shorthand term, C4D (coding for dummies). Some companies have managed to convince simpletons that you can actually create an app without knowing a single bit of code. People who actually believe this garbage are actually complete fools because it’s not programming, that’s called configuration. It’s no more actual programming than what people used to do when they programmed their VCR. Setting your clock on your car radio also doesn’t make you a programmer.
Microsoft sure has plowed headlong into this arena by creating a bunch of crAPPs with the word “Power” as the first word in their name. Powershell has existed for years, and it at least deserves that name. But all of these Power Apps that have recently surfaced are an absolute joke and the only thing that’s generating an audience for them is the use of the word Power at the beginning of their names. They need to publish a book on this laughable heap of crAPPs called Power Limitations because you can’t do any low-level coding work in them, not even Powershell scripting.
I was recently sent down a rabbit hole with these crAPPs last month to help tie them in with the APIs from various third party companies. The P-word in API is programming, but these crAPPs don’t provide any programming platform. They try to convince people that their Power Fx is a programming language, but it’s nothing but a simple spreadsheet math formula processor. What good is that if you need to do something that involves text rather than numbers and math? What about arrays and reusable functions? Fat chance! That’s what us actual programmers call a critical Power Limitation.
It’s all about the optics, just put the word Power in the name of a product and people will fall for it. Kind of reminds me how everything in the early 2000’s had XP in the name and people bought it just for that reason. If there’s one thing that Microsoft has always been good at, that would be fooling people into buying their second-rate shit and convincing them that every bug and limitation is a “feature”. I can point out bugs and limitations to Microsoft fans all day long and they will convince themselves that I’m just an anti-Windows cynic, thanks to good old cognitive dissonance.
I don’t care if somebody wants to be a Microsoft fanboy, I have no desire to change their mind. If they’re happy with and easily impressed by the mediocre, good for them, that probably saves them a lot of grief in life. But Microsoft fans do tend to have unrealistic expectations. I know better than to attempt to make a person’s computer do something that I know it can’t do because there’s no logical starting point for an impossible task. Begging me to “just try” won’t get people anywhere either, I have other things to do that are actually possible. Polishing a turd isn’t one of those things.
If all a person has is a vague description of a grand final result and has decided that Microsoft Power Apps is all I can use to achieve that final result, they’re going to be so disappointed once the actual facts start working their way into the picture. They’re either going to have to lower their expectations, choose a new platform, or accept the fact that a whole lot of other things need to be added to the picture. In every case that I’ve ever seen, there is never a single monolithic solution, it always takes a combination of things. Good luck with that Microsoft Power assimilation, suckahs!
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