To code or not to code: A developer's point of view on Low Code/No Code

Low Code/No Code (LCNC) is gaining a lot of visibility and attracting a lot of customer attention. In this post, I will try to provide information on:

• What is LCNC and what are its benefits?
• How and whom, does it help?
• What does it mean for developers? Are they getting replaced?

What is LCNC and what are its benefits?

First, LCNC is not a new concept. It is as old as programming itself. We all have come across LCNC in one form or another. For eg. - writing a macro in excel or creating a form layout using Adobe forms instead of SAPScript. Developers have been making programming simpler and faster by creating - functions, routines, integrated development environment, shortcuts, and visual drag and drop interfaces. The aim is to make programming possible for a wider set of professionals who don't know the coding syntaxes.

LCNC tools provide blocks - which can be dragged and dropped and connected to simulate an actual process. Kind of like creating a flow diagram. Programming is often considered pure logic - so you do need analytical reasoning and a good understanding of the process. Integration and testing are made easy to facilitate deployment of the "developed solution". That means LCNC tools will have a preview and simulate options, API support and easy troubleshooting options. A complete package. Because if it cannot help business experts to create the complete solution, deploy, use and maintain it - all by themselves, then it is of no use.

There is also a worldwide shortage of developers at the moment. Due to this, many companies prioritize mission-critical developments in their IT projects. Nice to have features or features helping a smaller group of people generally gets ignored or has a long wait time. Such improvements won't take much effort - nonetheless backlog lists keep getting longer. LCNC tools can help manage these backlogs by providing non-programmers to build their own simple apps and thus reducing the burden on pro-programmers.

How and whom does it help?

It helps both non-programmers and pro-programmers. We discussed, how it can help non-programmers to create their own apps/programs themselves in the previous section. Let's see how it helps pro-programmers.

It can help pro-programmers code faster. What you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) tools are already extremely popular among programmers. I would even argue that LCNC tools started as making developers' life easier and at some point in time (at its advanced stage) - it was realized now it can help non-programmers as well. Non-programmers will always need the complete package to work with LCNC, but developers can just part which improves their productivity.

Are developers getting replaced?

No. As described LCNC helps both non-programmers and pro-programmers. Everyone can be a developer - #citizendeveloper.

Theoretically, it is possible to build extremely complex apps/programs using LCNC - it is not far fetched to assume that the scope will be limited to building simpler apps for non-programmers. Complex developments will still need pro-programmers and in these cases, LCNC can help in getting the job done faster.

SAP Angle

Some LCNC options in SAP:

For non-programmers: SAP Appgyver, SAP Process Automation, SAP Work Zone, In app extensions in Fiori apps

For pro-programmers: All the items from the non-programmers list plus Restful ABAP programming, Integrated development environment like Business Application studio, WYSIWYG options, drag and drop options in Data modelling, pre-built content and packages in BTP, Predictive Analytics content, Integrations packages etc.

As you can see, the list is much longer for pro-programmers. To conclude now everyone can be a developer and the world really needs it. To give an analogy, programming is like using Mathematics - it can be used to ease if the situation demands or permits. LCNC is no threat to developers - that will be bots and they are coming. :)