Why Code Flexibility is Crucial in Modern Low-Code Development?

Code flexibility is not just a technical feature. It’s a business growth enabler that supports faster time to market, better digital-driven strategies, sustainable innovation, and more productive and efficient teams. So, it’s not just developers that should focus on the code.

These days, every company leader should be concerned with coding. If you don’t consider the code, it may lead to customer churn, decreased engagement, and bad UX. However, you might not understand how to think about code if you are a CTO or high-level corporate leader. You might think of software code and code flexibility as a “black box” that you cannot access. Yet, understanding it and prioritizing flexibility ensures business agility, stability, and growth.

Let’s dive deeper and see why code flexibility is crucial in modern low-code development contexts.

Understanding Code Flexibility

In low-code development, flexible code allows for scalability, adding new features, seamless integration, and product updates without disrupting or breaking current functionalities. It is an extension of the component reusability that low-code tools promote. Platforms like App Builder enable companies to create apps by simply dragging and dropping pre-built modules or components.

The underlying code is still flexible enough to permit changes without requiring time-consuming, manual code rewriting. Instead of starting everything from scratch every time your team needs to update the app with new functionality, they can essentially take advantage of the code flexibility and reuse the underlying code, adapting it to suit the new business needs and app requirements.

Unfortunately, there are companies with development processes that still prioritize rigid codebases over code flexibility, facing:

• Longer development cycles
• Higher maintenance costs
• Scalability roadblocks
• Disrupted system stability
• Inability to adapt to market changes
• Compromized feature expansion

In 2022, Southwest Airlines experienced a major scheduling crisis, known across the media as “Southwest Airlines holiday travel meltdown” because it spanned December 21–30^th. Thousands of flights were canceled or delayed, leaving travelers stuck. The software couldn’t thrive in agile scenarios and failed to adapt to unexpected circumstances like severe weather conditions and staff relocations. The cause of this crisis was a well-known vulnerability – the reliance on legacy infrastructure and an inflexible system that lacked real-time automation capabilities.

Another example of the importance of flexible code is when you have to build a CRM app. Typically, these platforms are built with huge data in mind because they manage and analyze customer interactions and information. A rigid CRM system will not be able to accommodate new features, scale to meet new user demands or integrate new tools. As a result, it will quickly become outdated. Contrary to this, having an app with flexible code provides considerable development freedom where your teams can ensure adaptability. Hence, the CRM evolves quickly and remains efficient without breaking critical existing features.

Benefits of Code Flexibility in Low-Code Platforms

Some low-code tools deliver feature-richness and framework-agnostic, drag-and-drop UI components that can be easily reused across apps and technologies. However, every business has unique requirements and projects. While development approaches support some common development techniques, applications often need custom logic and functionalities.

That’s why your low-code platform must provide code flexibility so your company can build tailored solutions that go beyond basic features. With flexible code, like the one provided by App Builder, you can achieve business agility and empower teams to integrate third-party services, ensuring interoperability and consistent data, make adjustments without disruptions, and accelerate time to market with faster deployment.

For C-level executives (CTOs, CIOs), code flexibility equals optimized ROI on tech investments, a better way to quickly pivot to market dynamics, gain a competitive edge, strategic innovation where projects can scale alongside the business, and more.

For dev team leaders, code flexibility means empowering teams (experienced developers and citizen developers), no operational delays, faster deployment and iteration with agile workflows, development freedom, and increased developer productivity without overburdening the team. In a market where speed can determine the success or failure of a product, ensuring code flexibility is a way to achieve even faster time to market.

For enterprise architects, it comes down to standardized processes, establishing a more modular architecture that promotes component usability, structured flexibility that ensures compliance and better governance, and seamless integration with other platforms.

For developers, flexibility in code allows them to respond to changing requirements, update existing apps, fix bugs faster, and extend functionalities on the go with new behaviors without causing delays. They benefit from enhanced customization and the ability to tailor apps to specific needs and requirements within various scenarios. Implementing measures to guarantee regulatory compliance, encryption and security controls, is also possible with code flexibility, especially when the low-code platform doesn’t provide all these by default.

Challenges to Achieving Low-Code Flexibility

Low-code flexibility ensures extended code modifications and development freedom. Instead of restricting the capabilities, the low-code platform doesn’t keep the code locked in its ecosystem, thus allowing for code export and customization beyond the built-in features. Yet, there are certain challenges that companies may face when trying to achieve it.

Establishing a new low-code paradigm

Achieving low-code flexibility may require switching to more scalable solutions and changing how your business builds and maintains software. This paradigm means switching from traditional development to low-code development. Teams accustomed to traditional development techniques and more rigid code may find it difficult to adjust to this new model, with the need to reassess their priorities and skills. To avoid inefficiencies and establish the new paradigm successfully, you may have to invest in retraining your development team before making the move.

Vendor lock-In

Some low-code platforms have proprietary code and features that limit the development capabilities and project scalability. This is because of the vendor lock-in. Businesses may find switching to a different system expensive and time-consuming after developing apps on a specific platform to ensure bigger code flexibility. Reliance on the ecosystem of a single vendor also restricts flexibility. It hinders expansion opportunities in the future if the vendor fails to adapt to the demands of your company or new market events.

Mitigating compliance risks and governance

Although flexible code allows for quick development and agility, when not adequately governed, it leads to compliance issues. The main reasons are the lack of standardization, security flaws, and the challenge of testing frequent changes in the code. With tools like App Builder, though, you can easily inspect the flexibility of your code side by side with the running app.

Resource constraints

If you have an X number of developers who can cope with X number of projects within a specific timeframe, developing and managing low-code flexibility will become more difficult. Flexible code is often accompanied by constant updates and the need for customization, resulting in resource constraints, especially for small teams.

Fear of dramatic overhaul

One reason people may not quickly achieve low-code flexibility is the concern of altering current workflows, systems, and procedures. Concerns about expenses, disruptions, or possible adverse effects on current projects may exist. This often leads to the question, “Is it better to postpone and avoid code flexibility right now?” Yet, postponing isn’t a very strategic move with the over-demanding industry and market that seeks solutions built more rapidly.

Strategies to Enhance Low-Code Flexibility

Sometimes, there might be a thin line between costly customizations and code flexibility. That’s why you must establish strategies to enhance low-code flexibility using a scalable low-code tool like App Builder.

For C-Level Executives and PMs

The development-business goals alignment

Make sure that development is closely linked to business goals so teams can swiftly adjust to evolving requirements. Prioritize developing a well-defined product roadmap that enables teams to respond to different business goals while building scalable apps that can grow with end-users’ needs.

Invest in training

Ensure ongoing training is in place so teams can get used to the low-code platform. You can opt for a trial version first to see how the platform will fit current workflows, how flexible the code is, what features it provides, what integration scenarios are available, etc. The more intuitive the tool, the quicker it will fit the company and teams.

Implement governance

Keep your procedures standardized to strike a balance between flexibility, compliance, and quality.  Teams should follow security procedures and conventional coding practices to produce high-quality deliverables and standardized code optimized for flexibility and easily reused across other projects.

Define the right resource allocation

To support flexible development and code flexibility, you must allocate resources wisely. Overburdening teams will only decrease developer productivity. If necessary, rely on citizen developers, too. With scalable, low-code solutions that don’t require extensive technical know-how, even less experienced developers or people outside the dev team can handle simpler tasks with the necessary flexibility.

For Developers

Working with modular code

Break down the code into smaller chunks to increase scalability and maintenance. This will allow seamless reusability for different scenarios and applications. Abstract code also makes it easier to incorporate new requirements and technologies.

Adhering to the DRY principle

With the “Don’t Repeat Yourself” principle, teams can remove redundant code to facilitate system scalability and maintenance. Repetitive code makes maintenance more difficult and increases the chance of errors. Whenever feasible, developers should create reusable functions or modules to increase flexibility.

Putting error handling and validation into practice

By including strong input validation and error management, teams guarantee system stability. Flexible code can handle changing requirements, more functionalities, high-performance data grids, and heavy data. However, developers need to implement input validation. This way, they make sure the application won’t fail.

Documentation and writing down potential use cases

Being one step ahead is critical. That’s why developers should anticipate how the code may break or change in response to various inputs or upcoming adjustments. For this reason, it’s a good idea to record scenarios that are likely to happen to avoid costly customizations. Considering writing and sharing general purposes ‘tool’ code for someone who can eventually run into the same problem is useful too and can spare extra effort later on.

Wrap Up

Low-code tools deliver drag-and-drop functionalities and pre-built UI components that can be easily reused across apps and frameworks. However, every business has specific requirements and projects. Additionally, apps may require unique logic and functions, even though development approaches support some standardized development strategies like event-driven workflows, modular programming, and API interfaces.

This is when code flexibility becomes essential and comprehensive platforms like App Builder prioritize it. This way, your company and teams will have all the tools and capabilities they need to craft tailored solutions that are easy to scale when requirements change. Providing flexible code, App Builder ensures you can achieve business agility and empowers teams to integrate third-party services, make adjustments without disruptions, and accelerate time to market with faster deployment.