Gartner predicts that market demand for application development will grow at least five times faster than the available skills and resources to enable IT to deliver it through 2021. Why? Because the complexity of application development is at an all-time high. The sheer number of languages, skillsets and frameworks-of-the month that programmers are expected to know and use is spiraling out of control.
Sticking with the status quo and continuing to learn, implement and support all the latest and greatest development languages and open-source frameworks is no longer viable.
Never before, in the history of IT, have developers been expected to cover such a vast array of areas – cloud, security, performance, different devices and form factors, off-line availability, multiple user interfaces, databases and servers. Consequently, we have segmented development teams with highly specialized programming skills because it’s nearly impossible to find full-stack developers with expertise in a dozen different technologies. As a result, our development time has become excessively long and application backlogs grow longer by the week.
After a decade of IT witnessing application development becoming more and more complicated, a set of fundamental truths about traditional application development have emerged:
- Hand-cranking source code is inefficient and a maintenance burden.
- Locking an application into a specific technology stack is restrictive.
- Most companies don’t have the luxury of starting with a clean slate.
- One user interface style does not suit everyone.
- Source code changes that can’t be tracked becomes impossible to maintain.
- Duplicating business logic across multiple applications is dangerous.
- Developers constantly chasing new languages leave an organization vulnerable.
Not only are these fundamental truths to blame for our current predicament, but they are also why so many of our legacy systems are too rigid to move forward and adapt to modern technology. Because of this, companies are now investigating low-code solutions as a new approach to application development.
Low-Code to the Rescue
Low-code development platforms are designed to break away from the status quo. By minimizing the amount of hand-coding, developers can build applications in days or weeks instead of months or years.
Low-code enables companies to achieve the following:
Faster Development
Writing less code means you can build more apps faster than before. Stop saying “there’s no time” and start attacking the backlog of apps your business needs.
Digital Transformation
Transform your manual and paper-based processes into cloud, desktop, web and mobile applications for better efficiency, productivity and data accuracy.
Going Mobile
Satisfy the demand for mobile applications within your organization. Build mobile apps in-house with your current developers and quickly get them into your users’ hands.
Cloud Computing
Quickly move applications – or parts of applications – to the cloud for better agility and elasticity. Improve availability while cutting operational costs.
Skills Management
Eliminate the need for specialized skills. Allow any developer to work on any part of any application. No more resource shortages or conflicts.
The most effective way to achieve all the promises of low-code is to know what to look for when exploring your options. Since all low-code platforms are different in their depth and capabilities, you’ll have to perform your due diligence and make sure your selected vendor will meet your current and future needs. In my next blog posting, I’ll share some of the most critical considerations when selecting a low-code development platform.
New to low-code? Learn more by accessing my colleague’s white paper or read his blog post.
