A frog leap is when something or somebody skips over a step in their expected evolutionary path. It is the equivalent of skipping a class in elementary school, going straight from 4th grade to 6th grade, due to learning so fast, that 5th grade is not relevant anymore.
When a frog leap occurs in innovation, it changes how we must use historical data to predict the trajectory of the future. When frog leaps are due, existing survival mechanisms are typically counter productive, and often causes more harm than good. The best analogy and example of this is paradoxically the Dodo.
The Dodo was a bird in Mauritius that had grown huge in size as a part of its survival mechanism. As a consequence of its growth, it lost the ability to fly. For millions of years this was the best strategy for the Dodo, and it grew larger and larger due to evolutionary advantages that resulted in larger size improving its ability to survive and spread its genes. Since it had no natural enemies, it did not need to fly, and also lost its fear of other animals.
For millions of years, the Dodo lived in happiness on Mauritius, and prospered as a specie, until one day humans settled the island. A couple of decades later, humans had feasted on every single Dodo in existence, and the Dodo went extinct.
When outer evolutionary storms and intrusive species such as Homo Sapiens enters an eco system, everything changes. Biological evolution is no different here than meme evolution. Memes ("ideas") lives within the same rulesets that biological evolution does. One example of this is how the camera changed art. 300 years ago we had painters like Rembrandt and Leonardo DaVinci. After the camera was invented, everybody could create their own "Rembrandt" in seconds - And as a consequence we got Picasso and Salvador Dali, whom instead of trying their best to portrait reality, had to create absurd art, not possible to reproduce using the camera. An entire generation of naturalistic artists "went extinct" because of photography, and today naturalistic artists barely exists.
So what does this have to do with low-code and software development? It's quite simple in fact, low-code is a frog leap of innovation, similar to the camera - And the effects on our eco system will be similar to the effects the camera had on art 120 years ago, and the effect homo sapiens had on the Dodo in Mauritius.
If you want to "survive" as a software developer in the future, you have to do something completely different than what you're used to doing - Or you'll "go extinct" - You have to "find your Picasso"
In the video below I am walking you through the arguments, by using analogies I think are fitting, in addition to historical examples of frog leaps. Let me know what you think in the comments.
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