Combining Rigorous Requirements Specifications with Low-Code Platforms to Rapid Development Software Business Applications

Abstract

Low-code development platforms have gained popularity as an effective solution to address urgent market demands for software applications. These platforms have often overcome challenges faced by traditional software development processes, including requirements engineering processes, as they tend to incorporate the requirements in their prototyping phase. However, low-code platforms have followed different approaches with proprietary languages, which is a problem when customers need to move to other technologies or intend to define the specification of their applications in a readable and platform-independent way. To mitigate these challenges, this article discusses a model-driven approach that semi-automatically produces software business applications by combining rigorous requirement specifications (defined with the ITLingo ASL language) with a concrete low-code platform (Quidgest Genio). First, we analyse the common concepts in both ITLingo ASL and Genio languages. Then, we discuss model-to-model transformations that allow converting ASL specifications into Genio low-code projects. Finally, the code generation capabilities of the Genio low-code platform are employed to generate the source code of the target software applications. To evaluate the consistency of the proposed approach, we use and discuss a simple and representative case study based on a fictitious system, the Invoice Management System (IMS), whose requirements are similar to those found in many business applications.