From 3GL Programming to Low Code Development Platform

The heading of this article is a bit tricky. Why start from the 3rd generation? There are multiple answers to this question. I will get into those answers in the coming paragraphs. This article is to give some light into the revolutions of programming languages over the decades as I experienced it, and the current buzzword of LCDP – Low Code Development Platforms.

I started my programming career towards the end of 80s or early 90s on Intel 8086 PC with two 5?-inch FDD (Floppy Disk Drives), one for the program and the other for data. We used to put DOS in A drive and after loading the OS (Operating System), DOS floppy to be removed and the BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) program floppy will be inserted into the A drive while B drive was used for data. In those days data were saved on a normal text file. This experience continued on COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language), Pascal, C, C++, FoxPro, Clipper, Delphi, etc.

Even though Microsoft Windows was introduced in the year 1985, it became famous only in 1990 with Windows 3.0, which was a commercial success for Microsoft, selling 2 million copies in the first six months. The popularization of Windows forced programmers to build commercial applications as well with Graphical User Interface. Prior to that most of the business applications were just character-oriented, often referred to as green screen, courtesy to IBM 3270 monitors.

During the nineties, many programmers moved from character-oriented programming languages to GUI-based tools. Microsoft Visual Basic (now referred to as Classic Visual Basic, after the introduction of .NET) was the choice of many developers as it worked well with Windows. Many Pascal developers opted for Delphi, originally developed by Borland, one of the developer-friendly companies in those days. Oracle Forms (popularly known as Oracle D2K, referring to Oracle Developer/2000 as it was marketed) also was used for the development of many business applications considering its tight integration with databases in a client/server environment. I experienced most of these tools during 1990-95. One of the largest projects on Oracle Forms was the Hospital Information Management Systems (HIMS) developed for the hospitals in Oman during my era at the Ministry of Health, Oman. Surprisingly, some of the codes written in those days are still running in client-server environment even after 25 years, credits to the robust data integrity Oracle Forms provides with the backend Oracle database. Many of the modules were migrated to Java, however, it is not that easy to achieve the same functionality as in Oracle Forms in any web application.

During 1990-2000 several standards have emerged which have laid down the foundation for the business application developments as we experience now. Initially, the web was used to share static information. Gradually the interactive and dynamic web applications evolved over the years. Many programmers took the initiative of learning new technologies and others remained with legacy client/server tools. HTML (1993), XML (1996), MVC (though it was introduced in 1970s into Smalltalk programming language, use of MVC pattern grew along with Java), JavaScript (1995), JPEG (1992), PNG (1996), are a few standards introduced during 1990-2000.??????????

In 1995, the introduction of Java by Sun microsystems started a new era for all developers in programming language experience.

Java became famous within a few years. J2EE, as it was known at that time, referring to Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition, introduced enterprise web applications development practices within the IT and business community. By 2001 Microsoft introduced .NET framework and the following year they launched Visual Studio .NET, ASP.NET and related products. This also initiated a big debate among the developers as pro-Java and pro .NET. Many considered Java as a community initiative in comparison to Microsoft. Over the years multiple changes happened. In 2010 Oracle acquired Sun and thus Oracle had more control over Java strategy. On the other hand, by 2014, Microsoft announced ‘.NET Core’, to include cross-platform support, which was later renamed as just .NET, and now it is a ‘free open-source’ framework.

?In 1999 I joined Oman Air and started developing enterprise airline applications. One of them is known as PaxPlus, which is a repository of all pre and post-flight data as well as airport process automation. Initially, it was developed on Oracle Forms (D2K) with ASP pages for web access. Soon the Java vs .NET discussions were hot among our team members as well and we were more inclined towards Java for several reasons. In 2003 we recruited two J2EE experts (Sajith and Sujith) and strengthened our 20-member team and started redeveloping the PaxPlus on J2EE. This application is still running on the same environment of ‘Oracle DB-J2EE’ platform.

Now let me come back to the first tricky question, why start from the 3rd generation? As I said in the first paragraph, there are multiple answers. First of all, there was no generation segregation until the introduction of 3GL languages. Once COBOL, Fortran, and Pascal become popular among the developers, these languages were called high-level programming languages with strong abstraction from the details of the computer, distinguishing them from the low-level programming languages, which are structurally similar to processor’s instructions. Machine languages were considered as 1GL, and assembly languages were considered as 2GL. Secondly, my experience in programming started with 3GL on COBOL. Lastly, only 3GL and 4GL were popular among the developers as programming language generations. Soon the generation segregations become irrelevant or abandoned and more classifications were introduced like object-oriented, structural, functional, domain-specific, etc.

Recently a new term is getting popular as ‘Citizen Developer’ along with the Low Code Development Platforms (LCDP), referring to end-users who develop applications for their corporate use, using LCDP. Initially, the big players like Microsoft or Oracle were not in the leader’s quadrant. In 2018, Outsystems, Mendix, Salesforce, and ServiceNow were in Gartner’s magic quadrant. By 2021, the Microsoft Power platform reached within the Gartner’s magic quadrant for LCDP, and Oracle Apex is in the challenger’s quadrant.