[Low-code] What is low-code development? What are the advantages of low-code platforms?

1. What is low-code development?

Low-code is a visual approach to software development that delivers applications faster with minimal coding. The graphical user interface and drag-and-drop capabilities automate every aspect of the development process, eliminating reliance on traditional computer programming methods. Low-code platforms make application development more autonomous, especially for business users with no coding experience, such as business analysts or project managers. These tools enable less technical staff to have greater business impact in a variety of ways, such as reducing IT department backlogs and reducing business process management. Still, low-code development platforms can also help experienced programmers. Since they require little to no coding experience, they allow more flexibility for developers with coding backgrounds. For example, some business applications require knowledge of specific programming languages, further narrowing the developer's options. By removing this bottleneck, low-code platforms shorten the development lifecycle of applications, allowing them to do more in less time.

Low-code platforms provide proven solutions to this need, helping to streamline workflows and accelerate automation projects. According to Gartner, the global market for low-code development technologies is expected to grow 22.6% (according to IBM) to $13.8 billion by 2021. Then, by 2023, they expect more than 50 percent of midsize to large companies to adopt low-code application platforms, according to their latest Magic Quadrant report.

The low-code model facilitates rapid application development by making the user experience more accessible. Both salespeople and professional developers benefit from features such as a visual integrated development environment (IDE), built-in data connectors, APIs, and code templates. These capabilities of low-code tools improve the DevOps process, leaving more time for innovation.

2. The benefits of low-code development

It is estimated that by 2023, more than half of large and medium-sized enterprises will use low-code application development platforms as one of their strategic application platforms. This is because low-code development has many advantages:

2.1. R&D efficiency

The accelerated development and delivery of new applications is perhaps the most well-known benefit of low-code development. An intuitive user interface, drag-and-drop functionality, easy integration of supporting tools, and one-click delivery options all help ensure faster development cycles for projects. In fact, low-code solutions can reduce development time by as much as 90%.

2.2. Productivity

Low-code application development simplifies the development process. This means developers can build more applications in less time—focusing on innovating and meeting needs, rather than tiny technical details.

2.3. Agile development

Reduce Deployment Time: Business Agility. As markets change and new opportunities emerge, teams can quickly create and release new business offerings to meet the changing needs of employees and customers.

2.4. Labor cost

Hiring, training a large number of developers is an expensive human expenditure cost, and the potential cost of developing a single mobile application ranges from 3600,000 to 18000,000. Low-code solutions allow more work to be done with fewer developers, even enabling non-developers to build applications. That means lower costs and a greater return on investment.

2.5. Operation and maintenance costs

Maintaining multiple applications and deployments is a huge challenge. The low-code development platform provides a monitoring management, and the IT team can monitor and control each development project from the monitoring management method.

2.6. Team assistance

Low-code platforms can also foster better collaboration among developers. Multiple individuals or groups can see exactly what is being done and who is responsible for it, allowing them to collaborate together on the same modules.

2.7. Expansion capability

If you rely solely on a professional development team to build your application, you risk leaving out tons of untapped functionality. Low-code development provides development modules for those with limited technical backgrounds. These business people can use the low-code platform's pre-built capabilities to further innovate and grow your business.

3. Low-code vs. no-code: What’s the difference?

Low-code and no-code definitions can often displace concepts, but they're not quite the same. While both low-code and no-code solutions are meant to simplify application development, there are differences worth considering:

3.1, low code

Low-code platforms are designed for professional developers and non-technical business users. They require little technical training or development experience and use visual-based modeling to simplify the development process. They also allow those with coding experience to delve deeper, coding themselves if needed.

3.2, no code

No-code platforms require no development experience and are designed for average developers and business users. No-code solutions essentially open up app development to everyone, but can lead to *shadow functionality – unapproved app development within the team.

4. Principles of low-code application development

To improve the way organizations develop applications, low-code platforms need to meet certain criteria. The following are the basic principles of low-code development:

4.1. Fast delivery

Modular, reusable building blocks and pre-built functional components remove the friction of complexity and the need to build everything from scratch.

4.2. Collaboration

A multi-role environment with tools to accommodate varying skill and experience levels across the team. This allows different stakeholders to work together to quickly deliver the best applications and experiences. Less experienced builders can directly use features built by professional developers, resulting in a faster and more agile development process.

4.3. Business Expansion

As the foundation of the application development environment, low-code enables users to quickly expand from simple to complex business experience, and solve cross-business silos from end to end.

4.4. Avoid repeated research and development

Average developers are happy to build applications quickly and avoid project delays. Low-code enforces policies and technical constraints to limit and manage application development cycles, while also avoiding data duplication, inconsistency, and insecurity.

4.5. Strategic objectives

Application development must be aligned with the team's strategic goals. Strategic low-code development Establishing and monitoring Alignment with business value is the measure of a successful team. Establishing application development standards can monitor team budgets and resource allocation.

4.6 Under the unification of technology

The low-code development plan must establish technical standards and best implementation routes, formulate development processes, formulate testing plans and deployment plans, and formulate technical training requirements for team members.

4.7. Operational principles

The operational principles of low-code development define and manage the requirements reception process. There is also a need to establish standard requirements for technical support, program maintenance, and updates, while defining rationalized and non-rationalized requirements management.

4.8. User experience

Low-code development must consistently create a positive user experience. This guarantees user acceptance. New apps don't disrupt user behavior or reduce new user acceptance.

4.9, function integration

Low-code integration is critical to ensure rapid integration between processes and resources. The platform must be able to quickly integrate the data required by the business or the systems it depends on, without the need for specialized integration tools. Pre-built, end-to-end integration solutions reduce integration time to business value.

4.10. Security

Security is a fundamental tenet of a successful low-code platform. Mitigate risks related to data, operational impact, business continuity, operational performance, and more.

5. Who Can Use Low-Code/No-Code Builds?

Yesterday we also mentioned the users without code, but it was not comprehensive. Today we will refine these groups again.

Between no-code and low-code options, almost anyone on the team can participate in the development process. That said, not every app your team rolls out is a great fit for no-code development.

Low-code solutions can effectively build the full range of applications, including those running complex, vital processes that are a core part of the business. No-code solutions lack some oversight, which can lead to issues with security, integration, compliance, and more. Prudent teams limit no-code development to front-end, low-risk applications.

With this in mind, it's worth noting that different users may benefit from different encodings.

5.1. Developers

Between the two, developers and IT professionals tend to prefer low-code platforms. The tools of an effective low-code platform are designed to assist the coding process without limiting the resulting application functionality. Professional developers will find No Code too limited for their needs.

5.2. Ordinary business personnel

Ordinary businesses can also use low-code. However, they require the assistance of a more experienced developer. No-code solutions are more suitable for developers who have no coding experience and do not have the resources to ensure an effective low-code development process.

6. How to get started with low-code/no-code

Perhaps the biggest advantage of low-code and no-code development is its accessibility. Low-code requires limited coding experience, No-code is designed for those who have no coding experience at all. Getting started with low-code and no-code is as easy as finding the right platform with the right tools. With an effective platform, built-in tutorials, intuitive controls, and occasional customer support are enough to start creating the business functionality you need.

7. How does the low-code development platform work?

The tools listed above provide a premise where developers can bypass much of the application and software development process. These platforms provide visual programming and code generation capabilities, reducing the need for manual coding. At the same time, the low-code platform automatically connects the backend and manages data storage and usage without the involvement of developers.

Once the application is complete, the relevant teams are responsible for bringing it to market.

8. What are the basic advantages of an excellent low-code platform

A good low-code platform empowers both developers and ordinary business people. Therefore, excellent low-code is concentrated in the following aspects:

• Intelligent orchestration
  Built-in intelligent orchestration function can provide orchestration suggestions when you are confused, and promote better business decisions.
• Development Tools
  A comprehensive suite of application development tools helps developers of all levels create powerful applications quickly and at scale.
• Integration services
  include pre-built integrations for popular business applications, as well as the ability to create custom integrations, making it easy for you to effectively connect your platform to any system and link the data your business needs.
• Cross-platform user experience
  aims to provide a friendly user experience on both PC and mobile devices.
• Notification Services
  To alert users when important events occur, top low-code platforms use a variety of built-in notification services to ensure that relevant personnel are notified in a timely manner.
• Robust Security Mechanisms
  Business applications may contain potentially sensitive data. An excellent low-code platform needs to provide reliable data security and system security.

9. The value of low code/no code

From the above, it is not difficult to see the benefits of low-code development; extending development capabilities beyond experienced development teams, providing time-saving tools and automation tools, means faster development cycles, stronger productivity, higher Agility and more. But what about value? Through the example of APP Engine in the iResearch report, let’s take a look at the data:

• End users are 50% to 75% more efficient when performing workflow tasks thanks to applications built with App Engine.

• App Engine developers are four times more productive than full-stack developers.

• The legacy platform saved a total of $2.1 million (and possibly more) over three years by decommissioning legacy software and applications.

• It only takes a quarter of the time for new developers to get into development.

• Junior developers can perform core development of core business functions.
  As a result, the business sees the following average cost benefits:

• Average ROI 230%

• Net present value of $7.06 million

• Benefits are currently worth $10.13 million

• Return the entire investment within nine months

10. How do low-code and agile development work together?

Low-code solutions are designed to provide a faster and more efficient path to software development. Therefore, low-code and agile methods merge with each other.

Agile methodology is a way of thinking that integrates multiple software development methodologies together. At its most basic, agile focuses on the rapid delivery of customer requirements through collaboration between developers and decision makers, while adapting to changing requirements throughout the development cycle. This enables the organization to better manage continuous change and continuously improve.

An effective low-code platform provides a single management solution for software development, facilitates collaboration, enforces best practices, and automates the testing and feedback process. It makes low code naturally match with agile development.

11. What is visual development? Is it the same as low code?

Visual Development is a graphical interface with simple logic and drag-and-drop tools for a more natural development process. Although these definitions are not exactly the same, visual development is an important characteristic of basically all low-code and no-code platforms.

12. Is RPA low code?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is used to automate essential business needs across applications. In other words, RPA is a program capable of running and operating software. Although RPA is more than just low-code, it can be incorporated into effective low-code solutions.