The Role of Code in Low-Code: Key Takeaways

Low-code platforms are renowned for accelerating enterprise application creation through agile design methodologies that require little to no coding. However, the role and importance of code in these platforms vary and are not always well understood, impacting their evolution, maintenance, and overall user experience.

Let’s explore how code in a low-code environment can help you execute and optimize your digital transformation projects.

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Unlock The Power of Code in Low-Code: A Strategy for Greater Innovation

While it may seem counterintuitive, many modern, innovative low-code platforms do allow the use of code as an optional feature. Key benefits (simplicity, creation speed, hyper-agile processes, etc.) are mainly based on codeless design properties which, contrary to some misconceptions, are quite powerful and limitless.

The ability to use code as needed is completely complementary, leading to significant additional benefits. Application creation can be enhanced by:

• Extending your platform’s functionality (toolbox)

• Personalizing your enterprise applications with infinitely flexible approaches.

Extend and optimize your low-code platform by supporting your professional developers with widely used programming languages. This allows developers to add custom code when their ideas exceed the platform's codeless capabilities.

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Low-Code Platforms: Finding the Right Balance

Powerful and effective low-code platforms recognize that sometimes writing code is necessary to meet the specific needs of a project. However, the use of code remains minimal, such that both your professional developers and citizen developers can create almost all of their applications without code.

Other platform categories that claim to be low-code force creators to use complex programming to complete the simplest tasks. The more your creations use code, the more you expose yourself to the challenges and constraints of traditional development – lengthy creation, complexities in managing and evolving applications, technical debt, etc.

These two platform groups are prominent within the low-code landscape, so it’s therefore wise to evaluate the amount of coding each platform requires to better estimate long-term risks.

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Key Features to Ensure Low-Code Platform Success

Ideally, a codeless platform is most effective when:

1. The ability to use code in a codeless environment does not cause complications or bugs.

2. Your hybrid creations (combining code and no-code) are readable, logical, and transparent. Every creator, regardless of their level of expertise, should be able to interpret them easily, to manipulate or evolve them without any roadblocks.

3. It only requires a few lines of code, with most customizations requiring no code to maintain speed and process agility, in line with the low-code model. Continually creating large modules over multiple pages can be a negative performance indicator.

In summary, to fully exploit the potential of a low-code platform, your users should execute projects comfortably with a balanced ratio of:

• 90% no-code, and  

• 10% code.

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Bonus: Features That Impact The Importance of Your Low-Code Platform

Low-code platforms also rely on technical components that must be expertly managed to ensure a superior user experience, such as databases, APIs, and servers. The technical management of these complex elements can impact costs and ease of operation, in two ways:

• Modern, innovative low-code platforms eliminate issues as they are automatically managed. No effort is required, and users will never have to worry about them.

• Less well-designed platforms can be challenging. Managing these elements requires time and resources with in-depth technical knowledge.

Therefore, it’s important to pay close attention to a platform’s somewhat “less visible” characteristics before substantiating its promise of ease of use and accessibility. Only evaluating visibly obvious elements, such as powerful low-code design features, is not enough to measure their impact and relevance on your operations.

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Finding the Right Low-Code Hybrid Solution: A Rare Gem That Dazzles

Although low-code platforms can help improve outcomes, they aren't all equally effective.

Some may seem functional and even enticing but fail to deliver optimal codeless creation processes. This can lead to critical pitfalls that result in significant losses in productivity and profitability across your organization.

But now you have a greater understanding and perspective to help you evaluate the relevance of various low-code solutions and/or your existing tools. This should help you make the decisions and adjustments required to turn your (future) platform into your best digital transformation ally.

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