A Salesforce survey of 100 U.S. information technology (IT) leaders responsible for application development found that low-code development has become popular over the past year as application process development trends and developers recognize new needs.
Why are low-code tools becoming popular?
1. The epidemic has increased IT workload
Sixty percent of leaders said their workload had increased by more than half. The pandemic has facilitated the transformation of digital commerce for 5-10 years, and the need for accelerated innovation in IT may now be greater than ever. The best possible solution to extend application development and process transformation is to adopt smoother processes and tools. As telecommuting replaces the office, business demands on IT increase and most IT teams are unable to deliver all projects on time.
2. IT demand rises, innovation is at risk
Ninety-six percent said there was increasing demand for new applications and processes, and 70 percent were concerned that excessive workloads would inhibit developers’ ability to innovate. As customers look to companies to accelerate their digital transformation, this will be the new format where digital first is here to stay. It also requires digitization of operations to enable multi-channel, high-touch interaction, which relies heavily on the use of personal information, as well as transparency and management. Eighty-eight percent want to accelerate digital transformation.
3. Tool proliferation and data silos make development difficult
72% of IT leaders say the number of tools needed to build applications/processes slows production. The median number of tools/programs used to build a single application or process in 2021 was five, while data silos and traditional IT infrastructures (including point-to-point integration) make IT difficult to be agile.
4. Application redeployment and low code development may be a new direction for the future
Ninety-five percent of IT leaders are interested in technologies that help build applications/processes that can be reused many times over. Another 83% of IT leaders plan to increase their use of low-code development tools, and a growing number of organizations are deploying self-service tools to enable their business teams to integrate applications and data sources. Approximately 36% of enterprises have a mature API-led integration approach for non-technical business users, and 44% of organizations are developing strategies.
Low code development platforms have become a tool to accelerate application development, Gartner says 75% of large enterprises will use at least four low code development platforms by 2024, and low code will account for more than 65% of application development activities.
What is a low code development platform?
Low Code Development Platform (LCDP) is a type of software that provides an environment for programmers to create applications through a graphical user interface and configuration, unlike traditional computer programming. Back in 1982, James Martin published a similar concept in his book Application Development without Programmers. In 2014, Forrester formally coined the term “low code”, while focusing on the classification of development platforms for simplicity and ease of use. These platforms help developers write application code without a complete understanding of the code.
The low-code development platform has the capabilities needed to build business processes, logical and data models, and add your own code when necessary. After the business logic and function construction is completed, the application can be delivered and updated with one click, and all changes can be automatically tracked and database scripts and deployment processes can be processed to achieve deployment on IOS, Android, Web and other platforms.
Low code development platform advantages:
1, fast operation, reduce the difficulty of learning programming language;
2. Fast development, use a large number of components and encapsulated interfaces for development, and integrate IaaS and PaaS capabilities of cloud computing to improve development efficiency and reduce development costs;
3. Fast operation and maintenance. In general, the low code development platform adopts component form and object-oriented development mode, which makes the code more structured and easier to maintain.
It should be noted that the low code development platform has low requirements for programming language mastery, but it does not mean that non-developers can operate easily. The low code development platform aims to lower the development threshold, reduce unnecessary repetitive work of developers, and thus improve development efficiency.
3. Problems with low code development platforms
The low code development market is not mature enough. Although some big companies have started to use it, most people are still suspicious of low code platforms. Second, the current low code platform capacity is limited, temporarily suitable for relatively simple applications; In addition, low code also provides more opportunities for hackers, and as security vulnerabilities continue to crop up, the security of code continues to be a problem. Although some low-code platforms provide built-in security for all aspects of an application, some safeguards need to be implemented to secure low-code built applications.
It is important to check code security and API security through static code inspection and penetration testing before application integration with low code. Web and mobile applications built using low-code apis can be vulnerable if the underlying code and apis are flawed.
In addition, the low code platform has code and open source code base based on open standards. Known and unknown vulnerabilities can be detected and repaired in time through static code detection tools. In addition, it is recommended that developers run dynamic analysis of applications to identify possible vulnerabilities during runtime.
Reference link:
www.woocoom.com/b021.html?i…
www.zdnet.com/article/92-…