The Return of the Luddites...
Matt Thompsett
Privileged to be CEO at Green Lemon Company. Providing super-fast, AI-centric, software. Accessible software to benefit every species on the planet. Love my people and customers, working together for a better world.
This article is written from frustration, it's not a rant but a question, so let me explain by using some facts;
At Green Lemon Company, we build enterprise grade, robust technology solutions for a wide range of commercial and public sector customers. We don't build applications using cohorts of developers . We don't build them using traditional hand-coding methodology. We don't miss deadlines, blow budgets or disappoint users. Equally, we don't park expensive consultants at customers' desks borrowing their watches to tell them what the time is. [Okay, bit of a rant!].
We use Rapid Application Development [RAD] technology to build applications and solutions. RAD means no-code or low-code, RAD means we don't create acres of custom code [a vast technical debt that needs servicing]. RAD means a departure from traditional methods of delivering technology innovation for business change.
So, onto the facts as promised, drawn from our own experience;
- FACT - We take applications from the 'drawing board' to production 5-10x faster than by any traditional methodology.
- FACT - Developers using OutSystems will consistently match or exceed the output of 3-5 traditional developers.
- FACT - We build applications and deploy them faster than traditional teams usually would take to decide on the development framework!
- FACT - We don't need a Dev Ops environment created, we push to multiple environments using one click deployment.
- FACT - From a single code base, we automatically generate versions for any iOS or Android device.
- FACT - We can connect to any legacy system, to all the 'big names' using pre-built connectors, e.g. SAP, Oracle, Sql, etc.
- FACT - The RAD platform we provide makes customers' developers 5-10 times more productive.
- FACT - Our RAD platform makes it simple to consume and publish web services such as Google Maps, Exchange Rates, Travel Data etc.
- FACT - If you're running a development team of 50 you can probably get the same output from 10 by using the OutSystems platform for development.
In summary, OutSystems RAD is five to ten times faster, cheaper and simpler than creating applications by existing traditional means...proven and demonstrable.
So, somebody help me out here. Why is it that, other than an increasing number of enlightened individuals, the UK IT community is so backwards in investing in the capabilities of RAD platforms? You would have thought that a platform that reliably delivers 5-10x more productivity than the alternatives would be treated to a ticker tape parade?
There have to be good reasons why board-level executives are uniformly enthusiastic whereas IT's vox populi is to drag heels [if not knuckles] rather than embracing RAD as the leap-forward that it clearly represents. This creates a roadblock when said executives defer decision-making to their internal 'experts'.
Tell me what you think, which of the following evokes this Luddite mindset?
- IT people tend to see RAD as a threat. Growing product backlog = lots of coding = job security.
- Developers love the artistry of hand-coding so anything that 'takes their brushes' off them or prevents them from experimenting with new languages, frameworks etc is fiercely resisted.
- The size of development teams and magnitude of effort/complexity provides the historical power base for IT management.
- RAD simplifies IT challenges. Thus it weakens the 'black art', taking influence away from IT and transferring power to the Line of Business Owners.
- SIs and consultancies loathe RAD as it's a significant threat to their bodyshop model. Hence they tend to dismiss it as the 'citizen developer' approach.
- RAD is simply far to good to be true, the fabled silver bullet becomes reality?
Happily, there are a growing number of early-adopters in the UK reaping the benefits of RAD via the OutSystems Platform. Our gratitude to this enlightened community is immense...
Personally, I think that RAD is crumbling the dominion that IT has enjoyed over all aspects of technology, very scary for people who are interested in adding to their CVs but invigorating to technologists who genuinely want to deliver business value.
Let me know what you think...I am genuinely intrigued.
Enabling fast growing tech businesses to understand and change their revenue generation through the power of numbers - sales, go to market KPIs and strategy. Have I ever mentioned Rugby to anyone?
7 年Matt, I sympathise. You can lead a horse to water.....etc. You could go to them and say, "I have a gold bar, and it is very goldie and full of goldness - it will transform your world", and the reply will come fiercely, "I don't believe that your bar of gold, with all its goldie goldness is better than the bag of old buttons, fluff, a bicycle tyre, some litter and something which is quite frankly unmentionable that I already have - look, I have a diagram that some bloke I vaguely recollect drew that clearly shows this". Every industry, every project, every established way of doing things generally only changes after the point that it is too late to change things for the better and someone else is already doing it so well that it is driving them out of business. If you find a way to get people to recognise good change in good time, and ignore the diagram which is the source of all truth in their world despite huge amounts of evidence to the contrary, let me know. We will write a book together and you and I can go on the talk circuit. This time next year we'll all be millionaires, unless we have a diagram telling us otherwise.