Understanding Low Code in One Article

Part 01

Low-Code Overview

In 2014, Forrester proposed the concept of low-code. Low-code is a software development technology derived from high-level languages ​​for software development, which allows users to build and deliver application software more quickly with less coding in a visual way, thus reducing the cost of software development, configuration, deployment and training in all aspects.

Part 02

  Low-code composition

1️⃣Visual Designer: A designer that can visually define UI, workflow, and data models, and can support handwritten code when necessary.

2️⃣Server program: carries the application built by the visual designer for end users to access through multiple terminals. Specific forms include privately deployed service programs, containers or services running in the cloud, etc.

3️⃣ Connectors for various backends or services: Able to automatically handle data structure, storage, and retrieval. Some low-code development platforms integrate this into the visual designer.

4️⃣ Application Lifecycle Manager: An automated tool for testing, staging, building, debugging, deploying, and maintaining applications.

Part 03

Low-code developer  

CPE low-code developers can be divided into two categories: IT technicians serving corporate IT departments or software companies; and business developers from business departments whose jobs are not related to IT but are involved in software development.

- Low-code empowers IT technicians--Low-code

The IT technicians here are a concept opposite to "business developers", specifically referring to technical personnel who work in enterprises or information providers and are related to enterprise informatization. Typical positions include project managers, architects, programmers, testers, implementation and operation and maintenance personnel, DevOps, etc.

- Low-code empowers business personnel -- zero code

Before low-code technology was named, research institutions proposed the concept of "business developers, civilian developers". In the traditional coding development era, business developers were relatively rare, and business personnel capable of engaging in auxiliary software development were mainly concentrated in data analysts, programmers in software companies and other people with programming skills. The emergence of low-code technology has enabled more business personnel to become business developers, such as sales supervisors who build order management applications, HRs for personnel file systems, and warehouse managers for inventory counting apps.

Part 04

Low-code core technology concepts  

Data Structure

The data structure here refers to data tables and data fields, which are similar to the concepts of tables and fields in databases and Excel. The data structure of low-code programming is fully managed, and users can create any data table and select various types of fields.

Data Association

The core value of relational databases lies in the relationship between multiple business tables, which reflects the connection between business objects. In comprehensive applications, the relationship between tables is often multi-level and complex. Through code templates, most usable codes can be generated.

Enumeration Items

In general, it is also called a drop-down item. There are many changes in actual business. The front end can be expressed as a radio button, a multiple-choice box, or a cascading selection box. For example, city, position, status, process, etc. The enumeration type of low-code programming also follows the principle of universal coding. The defined enumeration items can be bound to different fields, so that different fields use the same enumeration item and the internal coding is consistent.

Users and roles

Users refer to the users of software or platforms. They can be roughly divided into anonymous users, registered users, internal users, etc. Roles are a collection of functions available to users. In many cases, a user has multiple role permissions. For example, the common roles of e-commerce platforms include ordinary users, customer service, warehouses, administrators, etc. Most permission controls are completed through roles. Low-code programming generally has a complete personnel role system built in, and different applications only need to make corresponding configurations.

Configuration Page

The configuration page is a feature that distinguishes low-code programming from traditional programming. Through a series of configurations such as page types, components, elements, attributes, parameters, etc., functions that can be used by end users are directly formed. Take the common form page as an example. The front and back ends can be written using common coding techniques, and the reference to existing encapsulation greatly improves efficiency and saves a lot of development time. Configuration-type forms can realize very complex functions in a short period of time. Very feature-rich ERP software is also implemented in this way. The addition of front-end and back-end events makes the page more flexible.

routing

In the engineered front-end project, it refers to the path of page navigation, which replaces the original pure link approach. Different routes are bound to the menu to achieve the purpose of accessing different pages. Low-code programming, by rewriting the route, can achieve complete front-end and back-end customization functions.

Functions and Events

It is mainly divided into two categories: global events and page events. At present, there is a popular service serverless in the cloud market, which implements backend functions by writing functions. The backend events of low-code programming are basically equivalent to the serverless server. Low-code programming has more complete context references, making the cross-reference of functions and events more flexible, and at the same time provides a large number of encapsulations, and the amount of code is much less than general programming.

menu

Low-code programming allows for fully customized multi-level menus. The menus access different functional pages of the system through route binding, and can be flexibly authorized. The menus displayed based on different roles may be completely different.

Permission system

The permission system includes various authorization settings, which can be configured in most cases. For flexibility, the ability to set permissions in code is retained. It mainly includes module permissions, menu permissions, page permissions, data row permissions, routing permissions, process permissions, etc.

Part 05

Low-code capabilities  

➪ Full-stack visual programming: Visualization has two meanings. One is the support of point-and-click, drag-and-drop and configuration operations during editing, and the other is the WYSIWYG preview effect after editing is completed. Traditional code IDEs also support some visualization capabilities, but low-code emphasizes full-stack, end-to-end visual programming, covering all technical aspects involved in a complete application development.

➪ Full life cycle management: As a one-stop application development platform, low-code supports the complete life cycle management of applications, starting from the design stage, through development, construction, testing and deployment, to various operations and operations after going online.

➪ Low-code expansion capability: When using low-code development, code is still indispensable in most cases, so the platform must be able to support flexible expansion of various levels of the application through a small amount of code when necessary, such as adding custom components, modifying theme CSS styles, customizing logical flow actions, etc. Some possible demand scenarios include: UI style customization, legacy code reuse, dedicated encryption algorithms, and non-standard system integration.

Part 06

Application value and trend of low-code technology  

In this era where the elderly are talking about "Internet+" and "digital transformation", enterprises are increasingly in need of applications to improve internal information flow and strengthen touchpoints with customers. Low-code development platforms can significantly improve the efficiency of software development, build personalized applications more simply and quickly, and create digital platforms that can be widely used in the digital transformation and upgrading of various industries. China's low-code industry entered a stage of rapid development in 2019. Currently, nearly 100 low-code manufacturers have launched different types of low-code platform products, forming a variety of business models and channel models. Both enterprise information departments and software companies can find solutions that match their own demands and conditions.