What is Outsystems? – Overview [ Low code platform ]

Outsystems is a low code technology that lets us build great and secure (cross platforms) web and mobile applications. OutSystems is used for building cross-platform applications in a minimum time. so before we can go into the OutSystems topic first we need to understand what is low code technology.

At the beginning of technology, it all started with binary coding and after that, we got into the programming languages that write code for us and syntax that gives instructions to the computers to do work for us.

But in Programming languages, we face issues like complex code, scalability, quality, performance, etc. we need to write thousands of lines of code for each and every logic by ourselves.

Now the time changes. it’s the era of low-code technology that helps to build apps more productively, smartly, and seriously. the word low code doesn’t mean any code. Simply put, it’s a different way of delivering enterprise web and mobile applications. It allows you to use skills you have, expand to places maybe you haven’t done, integrate into nearly everything, and deliver faster than ever.

Low-code is a software development approach that enables the delivery of applications faster with minimal hand-coding. It enables developers to skip hand-coding, speeding up the process of getting applications to production. We can say it’s the modern way to develop applications that resorts to visual development that abstracts and automates every step of the application development lifecycle.

No-code solutions also feature drag-and-drop, visual development. Indeed, both low-code and no-code platforms are built with the same thing in mind: speed. But unlike low-code, they mostly cater to business people or others in IT who may not know any actual programming languages and want to build an application for a specific use case.

By 2024, three-quarters of large enterprises will be using at least four low-code development tools for both IT application development and citizen development initiatives. and by 2024, low-code application development will be responsible for more than 65% of application development activity.

Outsystems is also a low-code platform. When selecting a low-code platform, you need to look beyond just the speed of development and validate that the platforms make use of standard technology to avoid lock-in and that they cover all the necessary non-functional requirements of security, scalability, and performance just to name a few.

1. The OutSystems provides an environment that empowers developers to extend their reach outside IT. Through a single platform, you can build the user interface, logic, processes, and database.
2. Again it’s a low code that enables you to extend the application with easy integration. It has 2500+ pre-built components that help to accelerate the development and extensibility allows it to integrate with any API like REST, SOAP, Cloud Services, Enterprise Systems, and Databases.
3. The OutSystems has DevOps capabilities for lifecycle management. It provides three different development environments for Development, UAT, and Production.
4. With Outsystems, you can develop Web Apps, Mobile Apps, APIs, Web Services, or any Chat, Email, or Voice application through a single platform.
5. Overall, you get Scalability, Security, Performance, and flexible deployment complaint with a complete lifecycle.

Service Studio is the OutSystems low-code and visual development environment that allows us to:

1. Create applications and Modules on the server
2. Create user interfaces for Reactive Web and Mobile Applications
3. Debug your apps
4. Define the data model
5. Define business processes and timers (batch processes)

The workspace of Service Studio is where we can design, deploy, and debug the modules of our applications.

1. It has the main editor where we can design the interface and logic of our application.
2. The toolbar contains shortcuts to the most common operations.
3. Toolbox Contains the tools and widgets to develop the screens and logic of your application.
4. The development area displays TrueChange, Debugger Tab, 1-Click Publish Tab, Search Result Tab
5. The status bar displays information about the user and the current environment, and when the application was last published.
6. The application layer contains the elements of a specific application layer – processes, user interface, logic, and data model.
7. And last is the 1-Click Publish button that starts the deployment of your application module to the current environment. If your module has errors, this operation isn’t available.

So In a single line, we can say that Outsystems is a single tool to do with our Data Structures, Methods, User interfaces, Libraries, DB Access, Integrations, and APIs.