In the mid-1990s, the demand for business automation began to grow exponentially. Therefore, many rapid application development platform came into being, which provides a fast path for developing LOB applications. At present, yeeflow is the new RAD tools. The RAD platform combines an easy-to-learn programming language with efficient tools, so almost anyone can create basic LOB applications in a short time.
Basic principles of rapid application development platform
First, let’s focus on the main principles of the RAD platform. In other words, let’s see why it is more efficient than the traditional development technology.
General basic functions
The rapid application development platform is mainly used for the development of LOB applications. This type of application has some common requirements, such as user authentication, data access restrictions, auditing, file storage, business process management, etc. This solution is widely used on modern RAD platforms.
Development tools
The development tool is the most important part. It not only ensures efficient development, but also provides a lower barrier to entry, easier learning channels and comfortable development experience. It turns out that this is feasible, since these tools only focus on the architecture of the platform such as programming language, underlying framework and structure of the application. In fact, RAD tools can provide developers with ultimate convenience. What kind of convenience they bring? the most common functions are as follows.
Low code development platform
If you are concerned about the modern RAD market and its development, you must have heard a lot of slogans about the so-called Low Code Development Platform (LCDP). The philosophy of the low-code platform expressed by various slogans is: No longer need professional software developers in the future. If we talk about RAD, it is impossible to ignore LCDP, because these platforms create a very interesting phenomenon-making development tools competitors to developers.
Before selling software to enterprises, the main business value they emphasized was cheaper, faster, and higher quality. Also, since there is no need for professional developers or maintenance, you will eventually achieve the desired benefits
Principles of using LCDP and RAD
From a technical point of view, LCDP uses the same principles as RAD: pre-defined architecture and high-level API, ready-to-use typical functions, and development tools. The biggest difference is the scope of application of such platforms. To enable non-professionals to create enterprise-level software, LCDP vendors reduced the development process to only need to draw flowcharts. But this approach sacrifices many other capabilities including familiar collaborative development process, source code control, customizability, scalability, interoperability, compatibility, performance, and automated testing. As a result, LCDP is only suitable for building very basic business systems.
Choose Yeeflow as you RAD tool
No one can give definite suggestions or some quantifiable methods on how to choose RAD tools. It depends largely on the functional and non-functional requirements of the project. However, I would like to remind you to pay attention to the pricing and license agreement of the RAD tools. For some software, you need to pay a huge sum of money, especially when using a low-code platform. However, Yeeflow is different from other platforms, you can enjoy all the functions and services for only six dollars per month.
In conclusion
There are many products in the market for modern RAD frameworks, tools, and platforms, and most can quickly develop Web applications. These products can be divided into two categories: one for professional developers and following the traditional development model, and the other for non-professional developers, pioneers in low-code technology.
The first one is to increase the speed of software development mainly by providing higher-level APIs and code generation functions so that developers can avoid writing boilerplate code. The second provides a powerful runtime environment and visualization tools. Most people like this way, since it provides some business functions that can be realized by drawing without coding.
