Product Review: DevLess

Develop Less with DevLess

Coauthor Oluwole Oyekanmi :-)

Turning to a third party for the components underlying an app could save an enterprise both money and time, as they are shielded from having to hire a team to develop those features in house. Applications normally require a similar set of features on the backend, that need to be individually incorporated into different apps, a process that can be time consuming and complicated for developers.

Backend as a Service(BaaS) is a model for providing developers with a way to link their applications to backend cloud storage.This also entails providing common features such as user management, push notifications, database persistence and queries among others. This access is made possible via the use of software developer kits(SDKs) and application programming interfaces(APIs).BaaS providers thus form a bridge between the frontend of an application and various cloud-based backends via an API and SDK.

What is DevLess?

DevLess is a BaaS software that empowers individuals to transform business ideas to products quickly, build prototypes and get the MVPs ready easily. It’s the business first application framework. A platform that allows developers build backends for their web and mobile applications by piecing together plug-and-play backend modules. DevLess was founded in 2016. Build by engineers for engineers.

DevLess really is plug n play. Built for developer's happiness by allowing developers to only need to handle the frontend part of their code. This allows startups to operate lean and innovate with speed.

Core Offering as seen on their site:

Accelerate your Web and Mobile App Development

DevLess provides an easy to use Data Storage for web and mobile applications as well as application components so there’s little need for developers to write custom code to handle complex functionalities of their app.

Focus on Optimizing your Frontend and User Experience (UX)

Whether you are building a web application or mobile app (Hybrid or Native), the front-end is what users see and interact with. DevLess removes the need to do complex server-side operations via REST APIs allowing you to focus on building a product that satisfies them.

Use your favorite Tech Stack.

Use whatever tech stack or programming language you are comfortable with to build your Web and Mobile Application. DevLess integrates easily with Angular Js, React Js, PHP, Node Js, Ruby on Rails, Python, etc. Even with HTML and CSS, DevLess provides an SDK which you could use to easily build a web application.

In simple steps and in very minimal time, this is how to get started using the platform:

Go to devless and click on 1-click Heroku Install button. It’s an instant way to create and deploy an app to heroku. Give your app the preferred name and proceed.On clicking view at the bottom, in the form,register as an admin by entering your email & password which redirects you to the dashboard.The dashboard is a user friendly interface that helps manage the backend.

Create a service:

This is a fancy way for representing features in an app. A service is a slice of business functionality that has a corresponding benefit or set of benefits for that product’s end user. Our service name is contact_us. Contact_us service has fields that can be used to specify the external database we want to use, the service description. In this case, we will use the default database,then click on create service.

Create a table:

A service can have several tables.Create table to hold details, with fields, name,email, message and select a field type for each.Depending on the field type selected, validation is automatically applied. No extra code needed for validation.

Connect app:

This is the last step to get the backend ready.When done with tables, click connect app and copy script tag and paste it in the front end page, i.e the index page that will contain the form.

Contact us form:

Devless has a set of built-in directives which offers functionality to your applications.The contact us form will collect user values .To direct where your data goes in the backend, we will use dv-add-oneto built-in directive.

• dv-add-oneto:contact_us:details
• We use service name, colon, then table name.Then the form

Make sure names in the form correspond to fields in the db.One last thing (which is a cool feature DevLess offers ) is notification directive, to tell if form was submitted successfully.

Dv-notify: We can also use Dv-notify-success, which allows us to customize the message.Now fill the form and if you need to view the data in the backend:Head over to data tables, service then table to see storage.

NB: We have only used HTML to collect details and store them in the Devless backend.

The Service hub:

This is the interesting part for developers.The base technology of DevLess is completely open and free, and undergoing continuous improvement. It can be extended to suit developer needs. Developers are invited to.

- Contribute their own ideas and develop a service. Thus implementing cool features.

- Help identify bugs or other issues, thus helping improve the code.

Pros:

• Ease of use: DevLess requires less configuration to be set up and gives startups the ability to scale with low unit cost. This is clear in it’s low learning curve.
• Rapid prototyping:The user interface on the backend dashboard is easy to use and quick to navigate. DevLess is built with the business owner’s and beginner developer’s mindset. It’s quick to set up an MVP and continuously iterate on it.

Cons:

• Stability and Scalability: There’s increase in developers wary of relying on third-party BaaS offerings.Cases of vendor lock-in and minimal customization options for the current BaaS platforms available to developers. A case of Facebook’s decision to shut down Parse definitely came as a massive surprise. This is likely to scare away developers from using the platform.

I am excited about the DevLess product because they make development and deployment fast for developers. It has the potential of being Africa’s first global software product. They have a growing community of developers with mixed skill levels that keeps growing and supporting other developers especially beginners.

In an era where we need less of everything, eg. driverless cars, cashless payment solutions, wireless internet connection, etc, it is obvious that developers need DevLess.

Catch up with the DevLess community and hack around everything product development at Slack | Twitter | GitHub | Website | Devless . Interesting chats on digital products, software development and tips on how you can accelerate your Web and Mobile App Development.