Should a company use a low code solution or an MDE tool?

• Edmundo Lopez Bobeda, Ph.D.
• Date : March 11, 2022
• Categories : Language engineering
• Tags : Low code ,Mde ,Thinking

When researching low-code and MDE software, I realized that the former is marketing itself as a solution; while the latter as as a tool. Solutions are aimed at business people, who have problem to solve. Tools are marketed to engineers/developers who have a solution to build.

The users of a solution, usually do not care about how it works or is implemented, as long as it solves the problem. However, the those of a tool are interested it maintaining the solutions they built using it.

When is cookie cutter good?

• Edmundo Lopez Bobeda, Ph.D.
• Date : March 10, 2022
• Categories : Language engineering
• Tags : Low code ,Thinking

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.

What is MDE?

• Edmundo Lopez Bobeda, Ph.D.
• Date : February 28, 2022
• Categories : Language engineering
• Tags : Mde ,Low code

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.

Low-code development vs. MDE

• Edmundo Lopez Bobeda, Ph.D.
• Date : February 25, 2022
• Categories : Language engineering
• Tags : Mde ,Paper ,Low code

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!

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

• Edmundo Lopez Bobeda, Ph.D.
• Date : February 23, 2022
• Categories : Language engineering
• Tags : Low code ,Risk

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.