Low-Code and the Democratization of Programming

In the past decade, the growth in low-code and no-code solutions—promising that anyone can create simple computer programs using templates—has become a multi-billion dollar industry that touches everything from data and business analytics to application building and automation. As more companies look to integrate low-code and no-code solutions into their digital transformation plan, the question emerges again and again: what will happen to programming?

Programmers know their jobs won’t disappear with a broadscale low-code takeover (even low-code is built on code), but undeniably their roles as programmers will shift as more companies adopt low-code solutions. This report is for programmers and software development teams looking to navigate that shift and understand how low-code and no-code solutions will shape their approach to code and coding. It will be fundamental for anyone working in software development—and, indeed, anyone working in any business that is poised to become a digital business—to understand what low-code means, how it will transform their roles, what kinds of issues it creates, why it won’t work for everything, and what new kinds of programmers and programming will emerge as a result.

Everything Is Low-Code

Low-code: what does it even mean? “Low-code” sounds simple: less is more, right? But we’re not talking about modern architecture; we’re talking about telling a computer how to achieve some result. In that context, ...