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How to choose the right low-code platform?

A low-code tool can bring revolution to IT landscape of your company. It can boost development and prototyping of business applications if you suffer from lack of experienced programmers. In my personal opinion, it has tremendous value and you should at least consider it. But decision to use low-code is just the first step. There are many platforms available, and they differ from each other. To choose the one that is right for your needs, you need to answer yourself several questions. In the following article I’ll try to ask such questions and suggest possible answers. What exactly are your business needs? As many other things in IT, low-code is just a tool. It’s pointless to implement low-code just to “implement cool low-code”. Such approach may solve some of your challenges by accident, but at the same time it may generate many problems. To avoid that, firstly, you need to realize your business needs and determine deeper purpose for the tools you are going to implement. Here are sev...

Jaka jest różnica między low-code i no-code?

What is the difference between low-code and no-code?

The term “low-code” is not new. It has been coined by Forrester in 2014 to classify “development platforms that focused on development simplicity and ease of use. These platforms allowed developers and users of all skill levels to code applications, without having the outright need to know coding.” The trend caught on like wildfire. But in the meantime - frankly, I could not determine when exactly – the “no-code” term appeared. And it caused lot of confusion to determine what is what. In the following paragraphs I’ll try to show my point of view and clear it up. The low-code / no-code definition The trick is that at the first glance both terms seem to be self-explanatory. And many sources just define them as: Low-code – platforms that speed up development by allowing to build rough applications graphically for further customization. They limit demand for coding, but still require such to build final product. No-code – platforms that allow to buil...

What is the role of low-code in an organization

There are some producers of low code platforms promising that with their tool you can build almost everything in nearly every situation. That’s an overpromise. And it’s toxic. I spoke to many CIO’s who had believed in such a message and were disappointed by reality they experienced afterwards. My experience is that low code is not going to flood the entire IT market. It has its own role, hand in hand with bespoke software and out-of-the-box products. Large organizations Formerly, there was a golden rule for the IT landscape of large organizations to implement fully tailored solutions to support core business and to rely on out-of-the-box products in all areas of support. In effect, an organization could fully invest in custom development within the area that would differentiate it from the competition and bring the greatest added value. At the same time the company benefited from more affordable prices and business knowledge embedded in out-of-the-box products. Sounds perfect, ...

Rozwiązanie low-code dla złożonych, wysokowydajnych systemów? Brzmi nieprawdopodobnie. A może jednak nie?

Low-code solution for complex, high-performance systems? Sounds impossible. Or is it?

There is a stereotype that low-code platforms create software that is slow and limited in functionality. As with any stereotype, there is some truth to that, but not much. To find out what the reality is, at first, we need to start with how high-performance systems are built using general-purpose programming languages. Let’s get to the bottom of this and then confront it with what low-code has to offer. Is custom programming really such a great advantage compared to low-code solutions? Or is it a drawback? What makes software “slow”? What does "slow" really mean in terms of a typical enterprise application? By "typical" I mean a 3-layer classic: Web UI + service backend + databases. "Slow" can come from: Database queries being far from optimal - missing indexes, outdated statistics, bad join strategies etc. Unnecessary queries - missing caches or “chatty” algorithms assuming that fetching more data from database or external services is free and i...

Who is a Citizen Developer?

The "Citizen Developer" term seems to be almost as popular as low-code/no-code platforms themselves. At the first sight, its definition is quite simple: The person from business department (not IT) who has basic IT knowledge and develops business applications But it is a very broad description. Let’s go deeper and wonder: Who exactly are such people? Where do they come from? What is their background? I had a lot of discussions with my mates and clients about that. Here are the insights. The most obvious candidates to become Citizen Developers are business owners of IT systems within the organization. They are responsible for implemented solutions. Regardless of whether the apps are out-of-the-box or custom implementations, the owners are forced to understand - on general technical level - what is "under the hood". Such experience gives them perfect background to get familiar with low-code tools and build software solutions ...

What is low-code?

If you are drawn to this article, you are probably trying to find out what hides behind "low-code" phrase. I’ll try to provide you with an explanation. According to wikipedia: "A low-code development platform (LCDP) provides a development environment used to create application software through a graphical user interface instead of traditional hand-coded computer programming. A low-coded platform may produce entirely operational applications or require additional coding for specific situations." So, what does it really mean? From my perspective the actual meaning of this definition is not focused on the way you use a tool to build an IT solution, but the competences you need to have to do so. "Traditional" approach to software creation requires knowledge of one (or more) programming languages as well as complex development frameworks. With LCDP you just need general competence in IT. It’s enough to build a complete system, in most of the cases: without writing ev...