BrainBlog for Krista Software by Jason Bloomberg
Part 2 of the Intellyx Intelligent Automation Series
Low-code tools and platforms have taken the enterprise application development community by storm. They promise a simpler, more stakeholder-focused approach to building applications that free developers from routine plumbing work so they can focus on delivering business value.
Low-code platforms allow for hand-coding when absolutely necessary – while simultaneously doing what they can to limit the situations were a low-code developer would ever have to code anything by hand.
Hand-coding, after all, is an important part of the low-code way of building applications – but the hand-coding option in low-code is not necessarily an improvement. In fact, adding even a few lines of code to a low-code application can cause all manner of problems – a situation we call the low-code ‘hole.’
It doesn’t matter how smooth the low-code path is everywhere else if you fall into the hole. Here’s how to avoid this risky pitfall.
Why Hand-Code at All?
There are three primary reasons why a low-code developer might want to customize a low-code application by writing code: in order to build a custom user interface widget, to deal with a complex algorithm beyond the capabilities of the low-code business logic tooling, or to create a custom integration to an application or data source when there’s no existing connector that would do the job.
Regardless of its purpose, adding these additional lines of code opens the Pandora’s box of custom application development, releasing all manner of ills into the world, including security vulnerabilities, testing issues, and increased technical debt.
Following the guardrails that any low-code platform provides to developers mitigates these demons, but also constrains developers who require the freedom that hand-coding can offer.
By jumping into the low-code hole, developers are freed from such constraints. They can take all manner of shortcuts, writing code that may meet the requirements of the moment, but with hidden flaws or limitations that will lead to greater quality and flexibility problems down the road.
