We explore the six ways the field will change going forward.
With the world going digital, software runs everything. As enterprises innovate while seeking new business efficiencies, software development too is undergoing a transformation of sorts. Software development has all along been viewed as a highly specialised function where programmers specialising in various languages write code. Software development lifecycles have been regulated by various methodologies. For many years now, enterprises have also been experimenting with automating software development by building code generators. But these have not been able to fully replicate programmers. However, in recent times automation seems to be getting there. Here are a few ways software development will change in the days to come.
Software development will get collaborative
With enterprises embracing concepts like agile and DevOps, software development will get increasingly collaborative as development teams synergise with IT operations teams and business users. Development teams working in silos is no longer acceptable.
No code
This is a term that’s gaining currency in software development circles today. It is an approach that brings the power of software development directly to business users and product owners. Instead of having programmers physically writing code, users are provided visual interfaces or components that directly generate code. In such a scenario, software development is a generalist’s function, not the specialised function it has been all along. But this doesn’t mean the software developer is no longer needed. She/he has more challenging tasks to perform, such as building these visual interfaces or code generators.
Software development will become a continuous activity
In the digital world competitive edge will be defined by a company’s ability to roll out software in real time. Over the last year we have seen software delivery taking place faster than ever before. Companies like Amazon and Netflix deploy new code every few seconds.
AI will drive software development
Artificial Intelligence will change the way software is being written, tested and delivered. Over the next few months we will see companies taking to AI for software quality assurance and testing. AI will also automate software documentation.
Self-learning software
Machine learning and deep learning technologies will give way to self-learning software modules that will handle various tasks. AI-driven conversational assistants and self-learning chatbots are some of the early examples of this trend. Leading players like Amazon, IBM and Google have already started offering AI as a service to their customers. This trend will continue.
Edge Computing and IoT
Moving forward, Edge Computing will affect every layer of IT infrastructure. This will include the Cloud too. As enterprises pursue faster real time analytics by deploying Internet of Things (IoT) on the edge, software development will become a strategic task.
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