Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’ was released only a few weeks ago, but already it is garnering unmatched praise for the album’s cohesive storytelling technique and subtle electro-indie rhythms. For the longest time, people have resonated with artists who perfectly capture the human emotion through relatable musicality. But prior to the arrival and domination of mainstream geniuses like Swift, The Weekend, and Billie Eilish, the world first enjoyed exceptional melodic masterworks by The Beatles.
With timeless bangers like Hey Jude and Come Together, it’s understandable why even teens today still “jam” to their songs. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were natural songwriting forces, and up to this very day, scholars still study the politics of their lyricism. In his 2008-published memoir, sound engineer, Geoff Emerick, narrates how the duo had such a distinct way of producing music.
“Paul was meticulous and organized: he always carried a notebook around with him, in which he methodically wrote down lyrics and chord changes in his neat handwriting. In contrast, John seemed to live in chaos: he was constantly searching for scraps of paper that he’d hurriedly scribbled ideas on.”
Emerick shares that between the two, McCartney had a higher tendency to focus on the overall piece. In contrast, Lennon had an affinity with expressing his ideas to the best of his abilities in immediacy. “Paul was willing to put in long hours to get a part right; John was impatient, always ready to move on to the next thing. Paul usually knew exactly what he wanted and would often take offense at criticism; John was much more thick-skinned and was open to hearing what others had to say. In fact, unless he felt especially strongly about something, he was usually amenable to change.”
Despite their songwriting differences, the pair complemented each other and consistently moved forward in impeccable sonic motion.
What can app developers learn from this?
In many, many ways, building an app is similar to how The Beatles went about music production. John Lennon was more concerned about the lyrics, while Paul McCartney focused heavily on the music itself. Very much so, app development is the same. Where some founders feel the look and feel of the app are the most critical elements, others would debate that an app’s functionality is more important than an aesthetic user interface.
So who’s right here? Both parties are.
A web and native application can pack all the bells and whistles to outperform all the leading lifestyle, enterprise, and business apps. But if it doesn’t sport a desirable UI, consider this project terminal. Similarly, what is the point of a snazzy-looking app if it can barely survive a scroll? Whereas Lennon was primarily the front-end developer to their songs, McCartney took care of the back-end initiatives that coherently tied their music.
No one developer is more important than the other. In a time where we put an irreplaceable premium on how things look and feel, it is equally important to make sure our products have the internal goods to back it up. Otherwise, there is no winning.
The No-Code movement is building citizen developers, not just apps.
Several years ago, only the elite had access to website development and application-building. The pursuit of technology wasn’t just limited; it was expensive, too. The same thing can no longer be argued today. Although there are software that will remain expensive for a lot more years, commercial technology has been kinder. For example, present times now allow anyone to create an app even without prior coding knowledge. Low-code and no-code platforms have pushed for the expansion of app builders in that even those who’ve never traditionally written one line of code can now build dynamic, engaging, and money-generating applications.
This is all thanks to visual programming.
Providers like bubble.io allow users to create software using drag-and-drop tools. Because software engineers have already built predefined functionalities, all citizen developers have to do is establish their logic and stitch plugins together, among other easily learnable steps.
The no-code platform is advantageous for multiple reasons, but mainly because it encourages a lot more people to try their hand at optimizing technology, solving problems digitally, and drastically reducing the time and costs it takes to launch an app.
However, let it be clear that no-code-and low-code providers do not intend to replace coding as we know it. Frankly speaking, coding will exist for as long as time does. What once was exclusive to engineers and reputable experts, no-code democratizes the privilege and access to application development. Today, virtually anyone can simply sign up with their no-code provider of choice, and start creating the application they want to. Launching their products isn’t even difficult anymore, too. With competent tech startups and a whole lot of resources available online, we have more than the help we need to get started on our tech projects.
If there’s anything citizen developers should learn from The Beatles, it’s that functionality and design should be unified and that both elements are easily achieved through No-Code.
With Bubble, “there’s nothing you can make that can’t be made.” Have an exciting app idea? Let’s talk, and we’ll make it happen!
