The Rise of Low-Code Development

Low-code allows fewer developers to accomplish more, relieving IT as the bottleneck in business workflows, and freeing up more time for them to focus on more impactful and interesting work.

Business technologists and citizen developers alike can use it to quickly create customer experience apps. Furthermore, teams can build, test, and deploy Applications more easily.

Software creation

IT leaders anticipate an increasing shift of application development responsibility towards business users despite a shortage of professional coders. Their aim is to give these employees access to secure tools so they can develop apps themselves – provided these processes and governance provide assurances against Data duplication, inconsistent application creation and breaches in security.

Low-code approaches hold great promise for app creation, enabling non-programmers to assemble pre-coded blocks of software to craft customized applications at much reduced costs compared with hiring professional programmers.

As well as speeding time to market and reducing costs, an effective low-code platform can also facilitate collaboration among IT and business stakeholders, bridge the gap between requirements and technical execution, and enable IT to focus on more complex, value-added projects. Furthermore, low-code platforms support workflows for automating business processes, delivering applications to the cloud, testing quality automation for DevOps-based application delivery pipelines as well as quality automation testing procedures.

Rapid application development

Low-code development is becoming an increasingly popular way for businesses to build applications without needing technical coding expertise. Low-code development reduces specialized programming resource requirements and automates processes, saving both time and money for organizations. Before adopting low-code development techniques however, it’s essential to identify appropriate use cases; some organizations may need more advanced systems with greater degrees of customization or integration requirements than low-code.

RAD can also improve application quality by reducing bugs and logic flaws in code. By gathering feedback from stakeholders and end-users, developers can ensure that the final product exceeds customer expectations.

RAD can be an invaluable way to empower citizen developers while eliminating IT bottlenecks that cause delays in app delivery. Furthermore, low-code development can create more streamlined workflows and provide improved user experiences. However, before you implement low-code development on your team make sure they’re prepared by identifying key performance indicators (KPIs). Also make sure they’ve put together an adequate training plan and governance framework.

Visual programming

Visual programming tools enable developers to build application software through graphical user interfaces. As visual programming tools have become more prevalent and accessible to developers with limited or no coding knowledge at all, their popularity has skyrocketed.

Visual Programming was first pioneered by industrial engineers Frank and Lillian Gilbreth during the 1920s when their flow process charts were introduced as a means to streamline work processes at major corporations such as Procter & Gamble. These charts allowed for the creation of computer programs which simplified complex workflows while increasing productivity.

Visual Programming Languages (VPLs) gained in popularity as computers became more powerful; eventually being overtaken by advances in hardware and the emergence of more versatile programming languages – though VPLs remain useful for creating simple applications.

While VPLs hold great promise, their solutions may not replace conventional programming languages due to real-world problems requiring greater flexibility than they provide. To meet this need, low-code development platforms were developed as solutions.

No-code development

451 Research and Filemaker, Inc released a joint report projecting that over 450 million apps will be developed on low-code platforms this year, fuelled primarily by employee empowerment needs or citizen development initiatives.

Citizen development is an emerging business practice where users create software applications without assistance from IT staff. Commonly referred to as “citizen developers,” these users have been equipped with platforms which enable business application creation without programming knowledge being required. While this might pose as a threat for IT, it also expands the number of people within an organization who can build applications.

Note, however, that these platforms require coding. Even so, the best ones hide this aspect by offering visual mechanisms that enable citizens to point-and-click and drag-and-drop. This enables citizens to build functional apps quickly while saving IT time.