Low Code Guide

The Ultimate Low-Code Development Platform Guide

Enter “low-code” platforms, which promise to bring projects to fruition more quickly and incorporate client feedback into the agile software development from the get-go. But what is low code, and is it all that it’s cracked up to be?

If you’re asking yourself these or related questions and want the lowdown on low code, you’ve come to the right place. This article will provide you with everything you need to know – and maybe even a little more.

Definition: What is Low Code and What Does it Mean?

Low-code platforms are still a fairly new phenomenon. The term itself dates to 2014, when Forrester Research coined it to describe this particular form of software development. 

In a nutshell, low-code development platforms (LCDPs) are alternatives to traditional, object-oriented computer programming that enable application software to be created through graphical user interfaces and configuration.

The benefits should be obvious: low-code platforms allow developers to create applications at more or less lightning speed. At the same time, they require significantly less source code than old-school software development techniques.

The creation of the user interface, the data model, and the business logic all happen via visual design tools, i.e. an interface. Software developers also have the ability to supplement business logic with hand-written code. With the mere click of a button, applications can be deployed into a public or private cloud environment.

Although, as already mentioned, the term “low-code app development” is a recent coinage, the concept behind it is not new.

There’s long been a notion in companies of the “power user” or “citizen developer.” These sobriquets denote business users who see an opportunity to optimize a process and take it upon themselves to create their own apps.

To do so, they used technologies such as Microsoft Access, Excel, and/or Visual Basic. Low-code tools are inspired by, and build on, such users’ intentions. The philosophy behind them predicates a world in which everyone – from the most proficient of programmers to a tech-savvy employee who sees a business problem that a simple app could optimize and solve, can set out to build an app themselves.

Does that sound like the kind of world you want to live in? If so, keep reading and watch this world take form.