The Impacts of Low/No-Code Development on Digital Transformation and Software Development

Sadia Afroz T. Haider Gias Uddin + 3 lainnya

21 Maret 2021

Low-code software development (LCSD) is an emerging paradigm that combines minimal source code with interactive graphical interfaces to promote rapid application development. LCSD aims to democratize application development to software practitioners with diverse backgrounds. Given that LCSD is relatively a new paradigm, it is vital to learn about the challenges developers face during their adoption of LCSD platforms. The online developer forum, Stack Overflow (SO), is popular among software developers to ask for solutions to their technical problems. We observe a growing body of posts in SO with discussions of LCSD platforms. In this paper, we present an empirical study of around 5K SO posts (questions + accepted answers) that contain discussions of nine popular LCSD platforms. We apply topic modeling on the posts to determine the types of topics discussed. We find 13 topics related to LCSD in SO. The 13 topics are grouped into four categories: Customization, Platform Adoption, Database Management, and Third-Party Integration. More than 40% of the questions are about customization, i.e., developers frequently face challenges with customizing user interfaces or services offered by LCSD platforms. The topic "Dynamic Event Handling" under the "Customization" category is the most popular (in terms of average view counts per question of the topic) as well as the most difficult. It means that developers frequently search for customization solutions such as how to attach dynamic events to a form in low-code UI, yet most (75.9%) of their questions remain without an accepted answer. We manually label 900 questions from the posts to determine the prevalence of the topics’ challenges across LCSD phases. We find that most of the questions are related to the development phase, and low-code developers also face challenges with automated testing. Our study findings offer implications for low-code practitioners, platform providers, educators, and researchers.

Mary Lebens R. Finnegan

2021

The Agile development methodology is soaring in popularity in the business world. Companies are turning to Agile to develop products quickly and to achieve digital transformation of their organization. Because of this push, companies need employees who understand Agile. Therefore, higher education is obligated to provide an understanding of Agile to students as they enter the workplace. Providing Agile experience to students who are new to programming is difficult because they are so worried about the coding aspects of the assignment, they cannot take time to think about the methodology they are using. The coding crowds out the time needed to get an understanding of how Agile actually works. One remedy for this is to use a low or no-code development platform. With this type of platform students spend less time learning to create apps, freeing them to experience the rituals and roles of Agile. This study examines using the Agile methodology along with the Microsoft Power Apps platform to provide an Agile experience to students. Two course sections were surveyed to learn if students perceived that they acquired a better understanding of Agile and to learn their perceptions of a no-code platform experience. The students completed surveys to ascertain their comfort with the Agile methodology and whether the no-code environment increased their comfort level. The results showed students perceived the no-code platform increased their comfort with using the Agile methodology. The implication is that no-code platforms can be used broadly to help students to gain experience with Agile.

T. Menzies Jordi Cabot R. Clarisó

1 Januari 2023

The more we know about patterns in code, the better we can support those patterns. In this article, Jordi Cabot and Robert Claris ´o discuss the promise and perils of AI enhanced low-code environments that allow programmers and non=programmers alike to quickly deliver software solutions. They offer a “wish list” that outlines what developers need to watch for in low-code tools for smart software. Got anything else you want to say about SE+AI? For SE+AI applications, you have a surprising result or industrial experience? Something that challenges decades of conventional thinking in software engineering? If so, email a one paragraph synopsis to tim@menzies.us (use the subject line “SE for AI: Idea: [your idea]”). If that looks interesting, I’ll ask you to submit a 1,000- to 2,400-word article (where each graph, table, or figure is worth 250 words) for review for IEEE Software. Note: Heresies are more than welcome (if supported by well-reasoned industrial experiences, case studies, or other empirical results).—Tim Menzies

Sadia Afroz Md. Abdullah Al Alamin Anindya Iqbal + 3 lainnya

2 September 2022

Low-code software development (LCSD) is an emerging approach to democratize application development for software practitioners from diverse backgrounds. LCSD platforms promote rapid application development with a drag-and-drop interface and minimal programming by hand. As it is a relatively new paradigm, it is vital to study developers’ difficulties when adopting LCSD platforms. Software engineers frequently use the online developer forum Stack Overflow (SO) to seek assistance with technical issues. We observe a growing body of LCSD-related posts in SO. This paper presents an empirical study of around 33K SO posts (questions + accepted answers) containing discussions of 38 popular LCSD platforms. We use Topic Modeling to determine the topics discussed in those posts. Additionally, we examine how these topics are spread across the various phases of the agile software development life cycle (SDLC) and which part of LCSD is the most popular and challenging. Our study offers several interesting findings. First, we find 40 LCSD topics that we group into five categories: Application Customization, Database and File Management, Platform Adoption, Platform Maintenance, and Third-party API Integration. Second, while the Application Customization (30%) and Data Storage (25%) topic categories are the most common, inquiries relating to several other categories (e.g., the Platform Adoption topic category) have gained considerable attention in recent years. Third, all topic categories are evolving rapidly, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Fourth, the How-type questions are prevalent in all topics, but the What-type and Why-type (i.e., detail information for clarification) questions are more prevalent in the Platform Adoption and Platform Maintenance category. Fifth, LCSD practitioners find topics related to Platform Query the most popular, while topics related to Message Queue and Library Dependency Management as the most difficult to get accepted answers to. Sixth, the Why-type and What-type questions and Agile Maintenance and Deployment phase are the most challenging among practitioners. The findings of this study have implications for all three LCSD stakeholders: LCSD platform vendors, LCSD developers/practitioners, Researchers, and Educators. Researchers and LCSD platform vendors can collaborate to improve different aspects of LCSD, such as better tutorial-based documentation, testing, and DevOps support.

Ricardo Colomo Palacios Saima Rafi Mary-Luz Sánchez-Gordón + 1 lainnya

19 September 2022

Background: DevOps is currently one of the main trends in software development. Low-Code is also an emerging tendency that, combined with DevOps, may offer significant value to software businesses by improving the process. However, how DevOps practices and low-code are combined is little known. Aim: This study aims to understand the practitioner's perspectives on low-code trends. Method: Twelve interviews with IT professionals who deal with low-code in the context of DevOps were conducted. Then, a grounded theory approach was used to theme the interview quotes into emergent categories. Results: The main result of this exploratory study reveals that such an approach is the most common response to the skill shortages of software professionals. Conclusion: This study suggests the emergence of DevOps and low-code could significantly contribute to the development of quality products with low-cost and time.