Difference between low code and rapid application development

Lounge (Discussions)
1

How do you distinguish between low code and rapid application development (RAD)?

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Low code: the solution does a lot for the the developer behind the scene, thus requires less code from him.

RAD: the solution requires less from the developer who can concentrate on the essential. For example look at the pseudo code:

function foo (arg1 as integer, arg 2 as integer)

    // this is a comment
   bla
   bla

end function

The IDE adds itself the first and last line of code, and shows only what is behind these lines.

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I don't think the IDE helping is "RAD". In fact, most IDEs do this kind of help. Intellij, for Java, for example, has so many powerful tools built in (source code analyzers, auto-generation for all kinds of setters/getters, (RegEx) search of entire project or "structural search" (by class, or other element), Find all occurrences, design patterns implementation, data tabs, auto-generation for ORM classes, to name just a few, it's just mind boggling).

To me, RAD is more like this: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/software-engineering-rapid-application-development-model-rad/

Low-code means, to me, higher cost of development (tool-wise) since you're paying someone else to have the code written for you. This is a good approach for junior coders.

The more code you write yourself, the lower the cost, and in my experience with n-tier projects, it doesn't take that much longer to just write the code yourself, assuming you have the skills or have developers with those skills. Plus, when you write the code yourself, you don't have any company or companies with their hands in your pocket reaching for your wallet every year with huge software costs and severe limitations on users, installations, and the like.

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We got a quite big FileMaker project that 'goes sql', means the customer is about to transform the application(s) from FM to MS SQL/.Net

We are working together with the new developers to get that thing airborn.. while working on the exports, one of the new developer asked for one additional field, that exists (doesn't matter...) but is not visible on any layout.
I switched to layout mode, added that field, went back to browse mode - and voila, leaving the new devs with open mouth... they need to compile their solution to get this - and distribute.

This is kind of RAD (even on my xojo projects, it takes some time to add anything,), ok - a very simple example

FM can be taken as low-code or no-code, but sooner or later, it might getting more complex (cf, 'set', use of some plugins, JS, etc.)

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