Showing items from Language Engineering

When is cookie cutter good?

One of the complaints I read the most about low-code tools or code generators in general is that they are too “cookie cutter”. I just made a google search to find the advantages and disadvantages of actual cookie cutters and I think they share some with low-code tools. Let us look at some desirable characteristics of cookie cutters:

  • They easily cut complex details
  • They are flexible enough to allow easy cleaning

Of course, the main attractive of cookie cutters is that they allow to make a certain cookie design in a very predictable, easy and reproducible way.

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What is MDE?

In a previous post I presented what low-code is, and also pointed to a paper explaning the difference between low-code and MDE (Model-Driven Engineering). However, I have not presented what is MDE. In this post I want to correct that.

MDE is a well-studied subject, and there are definitions in academia. I will follow the definition given by David Ameller1 and others. There is also the excellent site by Jordi Cabot that also gives a definition for these terms, you can find the relevant posts here and here.

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Low-code development vs. MDE

Today I want to share with you this excellent article about MDE (Model-Driven Engineering) and low-code platforms that I found through Twitter. The article is titled Low-code development and model-driven engineering: Two sides of the same coin?.

The paper explores the commonalities and differences of the two approaches and throws very good insights on the different concepts. I let you read it by yourself.

Let me know what you think!

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The main problem you will face when choosing a low-code platform

Today I found thread on reddit about a programmer being put on a no-code project and having a very bad time with it. The complaint from the OP was that PMs/managers promised things that are not deliverable with the low-code tools. The comments were very interesting and there was some discussion that not all low-code platform are made equal, some are very extensible while other are useful only for a set of use cases.

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What is low-code?

I’ve been working with DSLs since 2009, but I’ve recently become aware of the term low code. Looking at Wikipedia, it seems the term first appears in a Forrester report from 2014. Prior to that there were application development (RAP) and fourth-generation programming languages. The idea was always the same: improve the development speed by having more high level tools. So, what are these platforms and what do they do? First, I would like two consider two things: the abstract view and the commercial view of these platforms.

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