Is Low Code the Future?

Low-Code is a pretty popular topic in IT discussion today. The concept has been around for a long time. When I was a young developer, 4GL (Fourth Generation Language) was the dream. Every large company had their solution to remove the complexity of writing software and allow them to focus on building the solution. Not much has changed since then. Business leaders have dreams of empowering their employees to make changes quickly without IT involvement. CIOs dream of lowering their costs of developing, testing, deploying, and maintaining. And developers are freaked because they know the promises of Low-Code are not achievable. So, what is the truth? How can there be so many opinions? Who is wrong? And most of all, how do I leverage Low-Code in my enterprise.

The previous Low-Code platforms have all disappeared. They never met quite met the needs of enterprise. And when they tried to meet all the needs, they became so complicated that they lost sight of low code. And as a result, they fell out of favor with both the business and IT. So what has changed to make Low-Code the golden technology again? I think there are two key factors.

First, the idea of a monolithic application to meet all needs of users is dead. Between integration platforms and data warehouses, applications can focus on meeting the immediate need of the business rather than fitting into some five-year program that will never meet the needs of the business. This change in thinking allows Low-Code platforms to remain useful and meet the specific needs of the business quickly. It solves the immediate need of the business and if the needs of the business changes, then the application can either be modified or retired.

The second reason is the complexity of the computing environment. Technology does not seem to get any simpler. Timelines are tighter than ever before and expectations are high. And to top it off, there is this thing called security. So a proven platform is an awesome choice that minimizes work on infrastructure, deployments, and built-in security.

When I think about Low-Code platforms, my first thought of a use case is to use a Low-Code platform for an application for small group of users (like a team or department of 5-15 users.) It is usually tracking something or managing a really simple workflow. Typically, the team is using Excel, Access database, or sticky notes to manage the work. I don’t think I am alone because just about every vendor demo is this style of an application. It is a great way to help teams improve their productivity and visibility of their work. It also helps teams when they are forced to work from home or just reside in different parts of the country.

So why a Low-Code platform? The benefits are really simple:

• Rapidly prototype and evolve them into a deployable solution (configure vs code)

• Security, infrastructure, and deployments are built into the platform

• Maintenance can be done without creating a massive project

• Testing complexity is minimized because the platform does the tough stuff

The reality is the current state of Low-Code is not going to replace all of your enterprise applications. The tool will not replace complex logic that have been built up in your administrative, accounting, workflow, and CRM systems. There has been years of specialization in these platforms. Low-Code platforms will never replace the years of investment or manage the complexity of the logic. But Low-Code platforms can be used to help those systems and give them flexibility in solving new problems.

There are many Low-Code platforms that can be incorporated into your enterprise applications. With some minor integration, they can help alleviate some of the challenges that you are facing with your enterprise applications. I want to quickly look at 3 areas that Low-Code can help you support your enterprise applications.

• Data Collection—One of the biggest challenges in most application is building screens to collect data from people. There are a variety of platforms that allow you to rapidly build complex screens to collect data and feed it back to the enterprise system.

• Workflow—Some enterprise applications are lacking the ability to manage tasks for users outside of the application. There are platforms out that a series of task can be initiated, managed, and completed with the final result being passed back.

• Rules Engine/Calculation Engine—These are not the traditional use case for Low-Code but are critical for the enterprise. These solutions make it easy to create, maintain, and deploy complex logic. They also have the added benefit of being business readable (everyone can understand)

The promises of Low-Code might finally be here. It has really been evolving. The key to being successful is to use the technology for the right purposes. Low-Code is not just to build a new application, but it can be used to improve the agility of large systems. The technology allows business and IT to work together to build the right solution.