Low-code provider Appian recently released a survey conducted among IT developers to gauge their satisfaction at work. According to the survey, the three worst aspects of IT jobs are time spent troubleshooting application issues, pressure due to time constraints and deadlines, and time wasted on repetitive coding task.
Appian's survey also gives a rough idea of the kind of applications IT developers are increasingly asked for, namely those aiming to integrate emerging technologies with legacy systems. This effort is often aimed to improve customer experience and engagements, to optimize internal processes, and to enable innovation.
Being Appian itself a provider of low-code development solutions, it's no surprise that, among respondents to the survey, 80% stated that low-code can help improve their satisfaction at work by automating repetitive tasks and freeing up time to work on higher-level projects. InfoQ has spoken with Malcolm Ross, vice president of product at Appian, to learn more about how low-code can help accomplish that.
InfoQ: According to your survey, a large portion of surveyed IT developers think that a low-code platform can positively impact their work. Would you please summarize what the benefits of low-code are and how it can be used by IT developers?
Malcolm Ross: Appian’s recent survey shows that nearly 80% of IT developers say low-code can improve key aspects of their job satisfaction and it’s with good reason. Often times, the development of applications required in today’s competitive business climate calls for extensive coding knowledge and effort, meaning organizations must invest far more time and resources than they can manage. That’s why low-code platforms are becoming so important in the developer world; low-code is essential for removing the barriers that stand in the way.
By lowering the requirement of extensive coding and replacing it with visual, drag-and-drop tools, low-code simplifies the development process and strengthens the connection between IT and meeting business needs. With traditional, code-intensive processes gone, developers are freed up to focus on more innovative and forward-thinking projects. In fact, Appian’s survey found that nearly 80% of developers believe that using low-code can free up time to work on higher-level projects. And 80% agree that low-code is useful for automation of repetitive development tasks, such as coding forms and business rules. Ultimately, this means faster development, more powerful and intelligent applications, and a lower cost.
InfoQ;: The promise behind low-code platforms seems high-valued. Yet, some people think low-code cannot scale within large organizations, and others even go so far as to say low-code platforms' promise cannot be actually fulfilled. How would you frame those claims? Have you got any significant use case to disprove them?
Ross: While it may be the opposite of what many think when they consider low-code, enterprise-grade low-code is what empowers an IT organization to fully meet the growing and complex needs of a business at scale while fostering widespread innovation. That may not be the case for every platform, but today leading enterprise-grade low-code platforms can manage complex processes and large data sets with high security, scalability and reliability. In fact, what we’ve seen recently with the rapid rise of widespread access to new applications, software and services in the digital marketplace is evidence of the scalability and impact that low-code is having on the industry.
Thanks to enterprise low-code offering faster and simplified development at a lower cost, organizations can scale applications for any project, program, or business, no matter how large, without sacrificing security, quality and reliability.
InfoQ: The IT world has been recently revolutionized by DevOps and containerization. How do you see the two trends coexisting? Are there any synergies or leverage between them?
Ross: Containerization is the modern way to deploy applications while low-code is the modern way to create applications. The two co-exist perfectly. In fact, Appian makes it easy to run its platform in Docker containers, allowing Appian servers to be easily scaled to accommodate higher load. Pairing low-code with containers amplifies the benefits and allows for streamlined and cost-effective development processes, which ultimately equates to more powerful applications that meet growing business needs. Low-code is a technology that helps promote a DevOps approach to development. Once the “building blocks” are in place, developers can create apps rapidly and also make changes across all platforms simultaneously much more easily than with custom coded applications.
Conducted by IDG, Appian "Impact of Low-code on IT Satisfaction" survey can be downloaded from Appian website.