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Paul Nashawaty
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Paul Nashawaty, Senior PaaS Strategist, Progress Pacific and Modulus
I’ve been talking about low-code application development a lot recently. However, despite all my explanations and descriptions of the benefits and value low-code platforms like Progress® Rollbase™ bring to the cloud, I’m sure there are plenty of people who remain unconvinced.
I don’t blame you—sometimes you need to see something to believe it. That’s why I was so pleased to see this article on ITProPortal that lets two application developers speak for themselves about low-code, how it impacts their work, and why they never want to be without it again. There is a perception that developers love to code and that the ability to program defines the barrier between operations and IT. As low-code platforms become more readily available, however, many developers are starting to show their true colors—they don’t like coding, either.
#App #devs don’t like coding either! #Lowcode is on the rise: http://ow.ly/DWbt8After reading these testimonies, it seems clear that low-code is the future of application development.
Learning to Love Low-Code
The idea that having access to the raw code of an application is better for development makes sense. Because programmers work on a level that is very close to the way a computer will ultimately interpret their instructions, developers have very fine control over the way their applications work. They know exactly what they are putting into their applications, so they know exactly what will come out. Unfortunately, this also means that a stray semi-colon or a missing bracket can break an app or leave it vulnerable to serious security threats, and debugging can mean combing through hundreds of lines of code to find the problem.
The truth is, a lot of the code your developers are producing isn’t original and could be easily abstracted in a visual programming environment. Basic functionality like a login system or data connectivity doesn’t need to be rewritten for every app. By moving to a low-code environment, developers can simply drag and drop modular code snippets into place, reducing time-to-market and errors that can occur when programming by hand.
Business Benefits
Low-code also helps to refocus apps on their ultimate goal: business solutions. When working with code, it’s easy to get bogged down just trying to get things to work properly. Sometimes the technical problems of application development can overshadow the business problems they are supposed to solve. On the other hand, a low-code environment removes many of those technical problems so all you are left with is the big picture. This was huge for the two developers in the ITProPortal story because it made development fun again.
Refocusing on the big picture also opens up development to the people who might know that picture better. The organizational-leveling opportunities are huge. Low-code development platforms offer an opportunity for developers to learn a bit more about operations and for operations teams to learn a little more about development. Employing this kind of DevOps strategy through a low-code development platform will enable your organization to be the well-oiled machine it deserves to be.
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