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Tag: OutSystems

  • OutSystems Embraces Generative AI to Speed App Dev

    OutSystems Embraces Generative AI to Speed App Dev

    OutSystems, via a Project Morpheus initiative, intends to leverage generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to make it possible to automatically generate an application that developers will then use low-code tools to customize for specific use cases.

    In the meantime, the company is extending an existing alliance with Microsoft to provide a connector that integrates its namesake low-code platform with instances of ChatGPT. These instances are made available via Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI cloud service to make it possible to build a low-code application in a matter of minutes.

    Rodrigo Coutinho, director of data science for OutSystems, said that as generative AI continues to evolve, it will become possible for developers to use a natural language interface to create an application. However, there will also be plenty of instances where end users still prefer to access applications via a graphical user interface that developers build using low-code platforms, he noted.

    An application editor will also provide ongoing suggestions for everything from how the user interface is designed to the way data is managed.

    Developers will also be able to verify how code functions using the OutSystems visual language. In addition, The OutSystem compiler will be able to deterministically detect threats and code patterns produced by generative AI platforms that will include Google, Amazon and others alongside Microsoft.

    Ultimately, citizen and junior developers will be able to build sophisticated applications that previously would have required the skills of a professional developer, noted Coutinho.

    It’s not clear how much developers will embrace a low-code platform to build software. However, the one thing that is certain is the whole process of defining requirements before an application can be built will soon become obsolete as the building of an application becomes more iterative and involves developers working alongside subject matter experts, added Coutinho.

    It may awhile before that vision of application development is realized, but the pace at which applications are built and deployed is clearly about to accelerate. The impact of all that code will naturally vary, but it’s already apparent that the cost of building many applications may soon drop to almost zero. Developers will soon be spending more time on making sure workflows are logical than writing actual code, noted Coutinho.

    In addition to relying more on AI to build software, organizations should also rely more on AI to deploy it at unprecedented levels of scale. The days when application development projects were measured in months, sometimes years, is coming to an end. AI platforms will enable organizations to experiment at will because the time and effort required to build and deploy a new iteration of an application will be virtually nil.

    Of course, no one can predict what impact all that code will have on society as we know it. But the only limit going forward may soon be what our collective imaginations can conceive than the level of developer expertise that can be marshalled at any given time.

  • OutSystems Acquires Ionic to Further Automate App Development

    OutSystems Acquires Ionic to Further Automate App Development

    OutSystems this week revealed it has acquired Ionic, a provider of an open source framework that provides developers with a higher level of abstraction for building and deploying mobile and desktop applications.

    OutSystems CTO Patrick Jean said Ionic will accelerate the company’s ongoing efforts to extend the reach of its platform for building low-code applications without developers having to worry about, for example, the screen size of the device an application is deployed on it because the framework automatically right-sizes it. Ionic, in effect, will provide an extension to the platform that OutSystems already uses to automate the building and deployment of low-code applications, he added.

    In addition to its namesake user interface (UI) framework for building mobile applications that can run on multiple platforms, the Ionic portfolio also includes a tool for natively deploying web applications, dubbed Capacitor, and a toolchain for building web component-based design systems, dubbed Stencil. Collectively, these tools are used today by more than five million developers.
    OutSystems plans to extend the capabilities of these tools to make it simpler to deploy applications on both mobile devices and desktop systems, said Jean. The overall goal is to reduce the cognitive load that developers currently carry when they need to build and deploy applications that run on multiple platforms, he added.

    That capability will prove critical as more individuals beyond professional developers become involved in building, deploying and updating applications, noted Jean. In fact, many of those developers are likely to be business people that only develop applications on a part-time basis, he added.

    The percentage of applications being built using low-code tools has increased dramatically. Professional developers have embraced these tools and platforms alongside so-called citizen developers that are using them to build applications, as well. As the backlog of applications that needs to be built steadily increases, low-code platforms have played a crucial role in enabling developers to keep pace with the demand for new applications.

    Less clear is the impact these low-code applications are having on DevOps workflows. On one hand, there are clearly more applications that need to be deployed than ever. At the same time, many of the DevOps and data modeling processes that once required, for example, a dedicated continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform are being embedded in the platforms provided by the vendors that create low-code tools.

    Regardless of how low-code applications are deployed, the one thing that is certain is the pace of digital business transformation is being greatly accelerated by these tools and platforms. DevOps teams will soon need to put guardrails in place that enable developers with a wide range of experience and skillsets to securely deploy and update applications.

    On the plus side, DevOps teams should also expect it to become easier to automate the delivery of low-code applications at levels of unprecedented scale. In fact, the issue going forward may not be whether IT can keep up with the needs of the business but whether the business can keep pace with the rate of innovation now being enabled.

  • OutSystems: Low-Code Apps Require Sound DevOps Processes

    OutSystems: Low-Code Apps Require Sound DevOps Processes

    As more IT organizations embrace low-code application development platforms, many of them are discovering that accelerating the rate at which they develop applications can be too much of a good thing.

    António Barros, product manager for OutSystems, says most of the organizations that have adopted the company’s namesake low-code platform are just now coming up to speed on automated testing. Barros estimates that only 20 percent of the organizations using the OutSystems platform are also employing automated testing tools. The majority of OutSystems customers continue to rely on manual testing even though it’s apparent low-code platforms will produce applications much faster than manual testing can keep pace with. OutSystems has identified five stage of DevOps maturity, he notes, but none of its customers has achieved that level of DevOps maturity.

    To help them get a little further down the DevOps path, OutSystems, at its recent NextStep 2017 conference, announced an extension of its partnership with Indigo to provide tighter integration with the OutSystems platform. In addition, OutSystems plans to make available digital transformation playbooks, including one for DevOps, beginning in 2018. Outsystems has already integrated its platform with the Jenkins automated server to provide continuous integration and continuous development (CI/CD) capabilities.

    Barros says it’s not only critical to engage in continuous testing, but the application needs to be designed to make it easier to isolate user interface, application programming interface (API) and unit testing. Otherwise, automating the testing process becomes more difficult than it should be, says Barros.

    Developers for years have resisted low-code platforms, which automatically generate much of the code that needs to be written for an application. Some fear the platforms can’t build applications that scale. Others have simply decided they prefer to write code themselves. But these days, organizations are under more pressure than ever to deliver applications faster, which has led many organizations to rely more on low-code platforms such as OutSystems.

    It’s not clear just how popular low-code platforms will become. OutSystems revealed at its conference it has signed up 122 new customers in the last quarter alone. On average, it now takes organizations eight weeks to build and deploy an application on the OutSystems platform, with new release cycle updates occurring every 48 hours, says OutSystems CEO Paulo Rosado.

    Michael Facemire, an industry analyst with Forrester Research, told conference attendees that adoption of low-code platforms is now a matter of economics. The starting salary for a developer in the San Francisco Bay area is $145,000, says Facemire. As the salary of a developer with a few years of experience now reaches more than $200,000 in the Bay area, companies in that geography will have no other option but to employ low-code platforms, he says.

    Obviously, developers might be less expensive in other regions. But Facemire notes that no matter what the region, developers are in short supply. That need for speed, he adds, is also why organizations are rapidly adopting containers and serverless computing framework. The challenge IT organizations will face is finding a way to put quality control processes in place to don’t compromise either the speed of the development process or the quality of the end user experience, he says.

    By the same token, however, no one really appreciates code that arrives late, no matter how great it might be.

    — Mike Vizard