OutSystems: Go Faster In The Cloud Angus Kennedy 30 October 2023

OutSystems: Go Faster In The Cloud

Low-code development platforms like OutSystems are transforming the way we create software.

OutSystems is a low-code development platform that allows you to build applications up to 5x faster than traditional coding. It does this by providing many features that make the development process more efficient, including taking care of many underlying aspects of the platform, accelerating development through scaffolding, and enabling developers to operate at a higher level of abstraction.

Cloud-Native


OutSystems Developer Cloud (ODC) is the latest OutSystems release, and it offers a variety of new features that make it even more powerful and versatile for users. One of the most essential features of ODC is its cloud-native architecture. This means that applications built on ODC are automatically scalable and resilient and can be deployed via containers. This makes it easy for businesses to develop and deploy applications quickly and easily without worrying about infrastructure.A diagram showing that OutSystems Cloud-Native works out of the boxIn addition, ODC provides an operational framework ‘out of the box’ so you don’t have to invest in a skilled DevOps team to set up containers and pipelines, establish security baselines or create and administer databases. It comes with full CI/CD push button deployment functionality, user management, monitoring and governance models saving you spending many months of set up time before you even start development.


Scaffolding

OutSystems scaffolding enables the swift creation of an application’s fundamental structure. OutSystems has the ability to generate the necessary UI and logic based on the selected database tables. This can save you a lot of time and effort, and it can help you to create applications that are more consistent and structured.

For example, if you want to create an application that allows users to create and manage employee information, simply drag and drop your tables into the UI flow section. The tables, lists and business logic you need will be automatically generated for both the Employee List and Detail screens, greatly speeding up the development process.

A screenshot of a data table showing a list of employees and their info

Along with scaffolding, OutSystems has an extensive library of templates to assist with accelerated development of commonly required functionality such as orders management or employee onboarding.

A Higher Level of Abstraction

OutSystems operates at a higher level of abstraction than traditional coding languages, meaning you worry less about how things work and can focus more on what you want to achieve. For example, if you create a function that sorts a list of items, you don’t have to write the code for the sorting algorithm yourself. You can use the built-in sorting functionality.

OutSystems includes a visual code builder that makes creating and editing code easy. The visual code builder is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, even for people with limited coding experience.

A screenshot of a suggestion shown in Service Studio
 

The visual code builder also includes several features that can help you improve the quality of your code, such as code linting and code analysis. This can help you to avoid errors and to create more maintainable code.

The evolution of programming languages has always been in the direction of greater abstraction, removing the developer from the complexity of the underlying implementation and runtime. The principles of low-code are automatic code-generation, model-driven design, and visual programming. This high level of abstraction massively increases developer productivity because they are freed up from the low-level procedural aspects by OutSystems and can concentrate on the visual modelling of logic, screens, and data-flows.

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