The software development industry is booming with new trends and innovations every day, indicating where the industry is headed. You can use new technologies, development methods, and customer preferences to understand where you should focus your development skills. And staying on top of new technology trends is an ideal way to future-proof your software development skills. It helps you ensure that your abilities don’t go to waste. Here are some of the most popular software trends that will help you stay at the top of your game: 1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) AI is a powerful, modern technology that is making AI tools a reality, with the global AI software market to hit $126 billion by 2025. Organizations are now depending a lot on AI to fundamentally transform their industries, be it deep learning, machine learning, or broader artificially intelligent applications. Right from retail to healthcare, the future of software development and technology lays its foundation on AI algorithms, big data, and sophisticated AI tools since they help us draw fascinating conclusions. 2. Cross-Platform App Development It is now a thing of the past that developing applications meant choosing to start from a single platform, like iOS or Android. Cross-platform app development allows the developers to build the initial app for one platform and create another version for a different platform. Earlier, it required them to devote several resources to porting code between each operating system. But all thanks to modern cross-platform development tools that are making life easier for developers and users. Development environments like Google’s Flutter and Microsoft’s Xamarin are allowing the software developers to write apps that work efficiently on nearly every major desktop and mobile platform. Not only this, but all these new software technologies can harness the full advantage of native APIs and user interfaces to create apps that behave natively without having to compromise the performance. 3. Blockchain Blockchain is an emerging technology, i.e., it is still in its infancy, yet it is making a greater effect on the future of development. Its decentralized nature helps you store any type of record in a public-facing database that can’t be hacked or corrupted easily. Software developers are always looking for new and interesting ways to implement it. Now, we can see a lot of blockchain-based apps, known as dApps, in the market that are emerging as a popular option for developers who have their eyes on creating decentralized and secure open-source solutions. 4. IoT Internet of Things (IoT) has gained massive popularity amongst developers, and that too in a very short span. The installed base of active IoT-connected devices to reach 30.9 billion units by 2025. And with the emergence of technologies like 5G, IoT is all set to expand with more devices taking advantage of better wireless bandwidth and power efficiency. It helps us bring to life new and exciting possibilities for software development. Furthermore, IoT devices are always communicating and hence they are making it easier for us to use technology to track and monitor the world around us. IoT software developers are benefiting from the technology by its ability to write code for small energy-efficient internet-connected devices. 5. Progressive Web Apps Websites provide us with the convenience of accessibility from any browser or device. But they are not able to take advantage of platform-specific hardware to boost their performance. However, native apps can do the same, i.e., they can fully embrace the hardware and software capabilities of their native platform and finally hit their maximum potential. But they also have one disadvantage: they can only be used on the platform they were developed for. This is the part where progressive web apps come into the picture as they have a fine balance between performance and availability. They offer the developers app-like experiences in the browser itself. Progressive web apps also make it easy to create powerful web-based tools that can run on any platform by packaging new web technologies into a fine solution. 6. Low-Code Development The contemporary methods of software development required teams of dedicated coders and computer science experts that could bring non-tangible solutions to life. Even if you were the most intrepid entrepreneur with a great idea for an application, you would eventually need a team of software developers to help you turn your vision into reality. Moreover, software development is quite an expensive and time-consuming process, which is why the barrier to entry remains high. But the software development trend of low-code development changes this equation completely. The same is achieved by making it easy to code applications via GUIs rather than using complex programming languages. Instead of having to hand-code every piece of an application, you can use low-code development platforms that feature drag-and-drop interfaces and help you visualize applications on your own, i.e., without having to seek any help from programmers to get down in the weeds. Endnote With time, the trends keep changing irrespective of the type of the industry, be it software development or some other sector. There is no doubt that these trends will advance and make their place in the market in no time, but we, as the adopters of these trends, need to understand their ins outs before we start using them.
Redefine customer journey and user experiences through Goavega's Cloud solutions-driven digital transformation.