A No-Code Challenge from Microsoft

I was reading an article** about Microsoft's "Power Fx" programming language when I came across this statement:

"The truth is, point-and-click tools are great for quickly assembling experiences and workflows, but many real-world solutions need a layer of logic that goes beyond what is practical to drag and drop, for example:

• Show a list of customers who signed up in the last 7 days within 15 miles of this location.
• Highlight the newest entries in green.
• When a user clicks for more details, if the record has outstanding action items associated with it, pop those to the top of the screen."

This example plays to the strength of Power Fx since it's built on the framework of Microsoft Excel, but the point is well taken. There are situations that strain the boundaries of what no-code platforms can do - but I'm not convinced that this is a fair test of no-code app platforms. I've decided to try creating the above example on different platforms to see if Microsoft is right.

I'll be publishing the results from time to time (with the label "Microsoft Challenge"...

** "Introducing Microsoft Power Fx: the low-code programming language for everyone", Ryan Cunningham, Director PM, Power Apps, March 2, 2021