Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. has been recognized as a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Zero Trust Platform Providers, Q3 2023 report.
Low-code development tools change the application development process less than we probably think. Of course they help, but the problems we had before low-code's rise to popularity are still with us — and still unsolved.
Furthermore, I'm hoping that low-code ceases to be a topic of conversation. It won, it's everywhere, and thus it's no longer special. According to a study commissioned by WEBCON, 84% of CIOs expect the importance of low-code to increase in the next 12-14 months. Perhaps we can now regard "low-code" the same way we regard "drag-and-drop," namely, ubiquitous, commonplace, and perhaps even expected.
What we should be talking about is how we're using our development tools and what we're using them to accomplish. You know — methods and results. The stuff that matters.
For example, how about the fact that many problems start well before development even begins. Regardless of tooling, the design phase of most projects is still too often characterized by ideas and requests that aren't fleshed out and understood.
The steps for creating an application haven't changed. There's problem definition, design, construction, deployment, delivery (user assistance, governance, etc.), and continuous improvement. The vast majority of low-code tools have, at best, reduced the time and skills required during construction; they've made a large difference for a small part of the overall solution lifecycle.
I can think of a bunch of topics that are worth more attention than low-code:
Measuring efficacy
How well does an application address the problem it was designed for? It requires us to have defined goals and a way to measure an application's effect on the organization to see if it's meeting those goals.
Subject matter expertise
This is especially true of business intelligence. There's a huge hype machine out there selling business on the idea of data-driven everything. All the beautiful interactive charts in the world won't make a difference if they're based on data that's collected poorly and/or wasn't harvested and staged properly. Moreover, it won't lead to useful insights and good decisions if management doesn't know what data will be of help, and how. Again, we've got tools taking center stage over knowledge, and it's a problem.
Change agency
Can digital transformation be imposed on high? Does it need to happen organically with some coaching and facilitation? How do you combat fiefdoms? Knowledge hoarding? Learned helplessness?
The pursuit of perfection
Too many corporate cultures punish a lack of perfection, and refuse to make a move until perfection is all but assured. But the whole point of agile development (as an idea) and many similar ideas is to start with something good and enter into a continuous cycle of incremental improvements. It's really hard to get organizations to accept that.
Applications as relationships instead of projects
As much as continuous improvement and minimum viable solutions are being touted, most companies want defined scopes, fixed prices, and defined deliverables. How do we get them to accept that solutions are their digital DNA and they ought to be refactored and reworked on an ongoing basis? That vendors and/or staff should be hired on their basis to adapt first and foremost?
Decentralization without chaos
If we want innovation to take place in the trenches, and we don't want that to result in a plethora of incompatible, incoherent one-off silos, what can we do?
Digital curation
It includes libraries of algorithms, code repositories, design patterns, user experience approaches, ready-to-use-and-modify applications, data staging, and more. Are traditional IT practices up to the task of harvesting, cataloging, and promoting everyone's good ideas?
Branding applied to the user experience
When users know what to expect, they need less training. When we define a way for applications to look, feel, behave, and interoperate, introducing something new doesn't slow everything down. It's okay for a company's digital approach to be unique, but probably not for every single application to be unique.
Mind you, each and every one of these topics can apply to low-code creations. They can also apply to traditionally coded creations, too.
Go to: I'm Tired of Talking About Low-Code; Bigger Issues Are at Stake - Part 2
Industry News
Red Hat and Oracle announced the expansion of their alliance to offer customers a greater choice in deploying applications on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). As part of the expanded collaboration, Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes for architecting, building, and deploying cloud-native applications, will be supported and certified to run on OCI.
Harness announced the availability of Gitness™, a freely available, fully open source Git platform that brings a new era of collaboration, speed, security, and intelligence to software development.
Oracle announced new application development capabilities to enable developers to rapidly build and deploy applications on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
Sonar announced zero-configuration, automatic analysis for programming languages C and C++ within SonarCloud.
DataStax announced a new JSON API for Astra DB – the database-as-a-service built on the open source Apache Cassandra® – delivering on one of the most highly requested user features, and providing a seamless experience for Javascript developers building AI applications.
Mirantis launched Lens AppIQ, available directly in Lens Desktop and as (Software as a Service) SaaS.
Buildkite announced the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Packagecloud, a cloud-based software package management platform, in an all stock deal.
CrowdStrike has agreed to acquire Bionic, a provider of Application Security Posture Management (ASPM).
Perforce Software announces BlazeMeter's Test Data Pro, the latest addition to its continuous testing platform.
CloudBees announced a new cloud native DevSecOps platform that places platform engineers and developer experience front and center.
Akuity announced a new open source tool, Kargo, to implement change promotions across many application life cycle stages using GitOps principles.
Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. announced that it has been recognized on Newsweek’s inaugural list of the World’s Most Trustworthy Companies 2023.
CloudBees announced significant performance and scalability breakthroughs for Jenkins® with new updates to its CloudBees Continuous Integration (CI) software.