Benefits of Low Code Development Environments on Large Scale Control Systems

The rapid evolution of science and of scientific projects usually implies high levels of mobility among researchers, engineers and applied scientists. In parallel, software development has been getting easier and easier as computing technology has evolved. One direct consequence of these two paradigms is a proliferation of small software that becomes vulnerable in many ways, when the person who develops and maintains it departs. Inspector is a low-code development platform to design control interfaces. It features a visual interface composer, a visual programming language and supports Python. More than 600 Inspector applications are used at CERN. We will explain how people with little experience of writing software can develop applications that they could not otherwise explicitly code for themselves. Finally, we will demonstrate how it offers the organization enhanced security and higher productivity, as well as relieving the load on IT for bug fixes and non-compliance.