Low-code bashing on Reddit

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Lately, I stumbled upon this thread on Reddit: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/18uj3id/why_im_skeptical_of_lowcode/

There are so many misunderstandings of "low-code" in this thread, that I tried to comment it, but it seems like this isn’t appreciated by the moderator. Maybe because there is a link in it, maybe because I am mentioning a product, I don’t know and I don’t have the time to “battle” the policy of Reddit, so I decided to post my thoughts in this blog post instead. 

Being a professional low-code programmer, I use Oracle APEX and LLMs to speed up my development process. Does this mean that everything can be done using out-of-the-box components? Of course not. The last 20% is done by using traditional programming languages, but if you look at the total time required, it is dramatically reduced. When working with metadata (the 80% that makes up a low-code app) and not on a programmatic level, you gain several advantages. One is that the underlying technologies might change and the low-code platform ensures that all your apps keep running without having to change anything. Another advantage is the possibility to change all your apps at once. For instance, a field name has to be updated in 1000 screens scattered over 200 apps. No problem for a low-code platform like Oracle APEX, especially with the upcoming "APEX Lang" feature in 25.1.

Is low-code also for business developers (aka citizen developers)? Yes, but these developers do need some IT passion, otherwise I would suggest looking for no-code platforms. That said, be aware that no-code platforms mostly do have limitations. I consider low-code platforms more "best of breed" across all types of developers.

Do I still need traditional programmers after introducing low-code? Yes, of course! Low-code platforms are for building individual, datacentric (web) apps. There are plenty of use cases that don't comply with this, like embedded software, games, etc. In most companies, there is a traditional dev team using either C# or Java and one that does low-code development. The low-code team is usually a lot smaller as they can make apps much faster. Also, smaller teams have less communication overhead.

What about using Git? Sure, you can export the app definition (in a readable format) including DDL and business logic (program code) and check it in Git. This is what we do by default for all projects.

What about vendor lock-in? Yes, when using Oracle APEX, you are using the Oracle Database, so there is definitely a dependency, so there are some things like cost and strategic risk to consider. On the other hand, when using C# or JavaScript, you also have a dependency and risk. Will JavaScript be around in 20 years from now? I don't know and with the low-code platform taking care of the tech stack, I frankly don't care. The Oracle Database will be around for some years to come and with the current cost of 120 USD/month for a productive database with unlimited users and apps, I don't think that pricing is an issue. By the way, for dev and test, you can use Oracle APEX completely free, either with the Free edition of the database on-premises or in the Free Cloud (fully managed).

Hopefully, this will give you some insight in what low-code can do for you. It worked for my team since 2004 with hundreds of APEX apps running in companies across all industries, so why wouldn't this work for you?

Interested to learn more about what Oracle APEX can do for you? Within 2 minutes, you can start developing your first app at https://apex.oracle.com.

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