Software Development Trends

Software development is continuously changing due to evolving business needs in organizations. This has also brought a lot of changes and improvements in SDLC.

It has come to notice that in 2022, Covid-19 brought many changes to small and medium enterprises. Businesses had to quickly adjust to the changing requirements while prioritizing their IT roadmaps.  Business owners also realized that they need to shift their focus to a digital-first world, where businesses will depend upon softwares for most of the work.

Though software businesses were not hit so severely by the pandemic, they also had to face losses and delays. Currently, the industry is recovering from the hit and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5% by 2024.

Since the IT industry is so crucial the demands and the trends keep changing. This is why it is important for businesses to adapt to trends and achieve the competitive edge required.

Let’s look at some of the best trends in the software industry in the year 2022.

Low-code & no-code software development

Low-code/No-code software development is a technique that requires little to no knowledge of coding. The applications can be built by anyone who knows how to use the platform. A low-code software platform provides users with a virtual interface to drag and drop different modules and create applications. These applications use simple logic to function.

No-code/Low-code platforms also are very intuitive, anyone with no formal education can also play around with modules and create something meaningful. No-code allows users to build anything they want from software applications to mobile applications. It has become quite popular in recent years because of the ease of adoption and less complexity.

DevSecOps

DevSecOps is also known as development, security, and operations.

In DevSecOps, the security integration is automated from the initial stage to the delivery stage of software development. It is one of the greatest upgrades in the world of development because security is one of the biggest concerns when it comes to software development.  

Back in the days, before DevSecOps security was looked upon after the development of the software product or application by a team of security engineers and then was tested by QAs. This was manageable when the software was updated once or twice a year.  Nevertheless, as software developers adopted Agile and DevOps practices, aiming to reduce software development cycles to weeks or even days, the traditional 'tacked-on' approach to security created an unacceptable bottleneck.

DevSecOps brings tools and infrastructure security to the Agile and DevOps processes. This helps in tackling the security issues as they arise, in a faster, easier, and less expensive manner. Also, due to security being apart from the initial stage. Security becomes a shared responsibility of the development, security, and operations teams.  

Artificial intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has become the most technology in the next couple of years. From simple predictive applications to building intelligent systems that can handle multiple processes, it can help us with everything. The scope goes far beyond just the Software industry.

With GPT3 around the corner, one can also predict that it can replace humans easily in a couple of years. Though most AI systems are narrow, the enormous benefit they can bring is quite impressive. The level of accuracy it provides is helpful for most analytical tasks.

The more neural network, the better the predictive and logical the AI system will be. Also, the systems have been learning and evolving. Most of the development efforts are now dependent upon such systems.

Augmented reality, virtual reality & mixed reality

AR, VR, and MR are some of the biggest technologies being developed right now. With the buzz about Metaverse everywhere the terms have gained a lot of popularity. Every big tech company is trying to do something with AR, VR, and MR.

Augmented Reality(AR)

AR is currently predominately used in Ecommerce and Social Media. But, it has more applications across different industries. It is also predicted that in the future AR will become a big part of the user experience. All this equates to software developed targeted towards AR.

Virtual Reality(VR)

VR is associated with gaming so much that it comes to mind every time someone talks about VR. But VR has become bigger than ever. With the emergence of the Metaverse, VR has gained a lot of popularity. It can offer a great user experience, taking you into the virtual world. You can explore the digital world in a few seconds and connect with a lot of people, all from the comfort of your home.

In the future, it can also be used for education and entertainment purposes other than gaming.

Mixed Reality

Bridging the gap between the real and digital world is the technology called Mixed Reality. It is capable of blending the digital world with the physical world. MR has the potential to change how we interact with the real world.

Microsoft and Meta are already working on making devices that will make it easy for us to use Mixed Reality.

Progressive web apps

Developing separate applications for mobile and web is an unnecessary burden. This is where PWA or progressive web apps come into the picture. It enables developers to create mobile-focused versions of web applications. These apps enable applications like experience without consuming any space. PWAs depend on browsers to provide a native web app experience.

Growth in IoT

Today, billions of smart devices are powering different industries, these devices could be used in specific industries like medical and healthcare, or could be a device that makes your home smart. As the demand for these devices will grow the softwares required to function the devices be higher. Since most of this technology works around the model of distributed computing or cloud, the software requirement will keep increasing reliance on the cloud tech is at an all-time high right now and is projected to increase in the future.

Increased emphasis on UI/UX

UI/UX is not a new concept but the companies have started realizing the importance of a great interface. A complex can ruin the UX very easily, this is why companies are spending a lot of money on building solutions with better UI and UX.

Back in the day, developers gave priority to the backend and application logic without considering UI and UX. But, now things have changed. It has come to the point where the UI/UX engineer decides on the application logic before sending it to the development stage.

Serverless computing

Serverless Computing as the name suggests requires no server setup. It is deployed and delivered from the cloud. Cloud technology has removed the burden of depending upon the servers. This has brought the cost down and gave a rise to serverless computing.

For example -

SAAS tools are mostly deployed on the cloud and require no other infrastructure to run or function.

Blockchain technology

2021 and further is all about web3 or is considered as the technology or future.

Blockchain basically became popular because of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. Different industries like shopping, retail, and banking are already using the technology. But it is yet to be explored. New techies are liking it because of the concept of decentralization and transparency.

Cloud-based CI/CD

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery have gained popularity pretty quickly. CI/CD is the basis of automated SDLC. Also, the reliance on Cloud made CI/CD much better. Developers are now creating cloud-based CI/CD software development pipelines. CI/CD provides benefits by reducing the management overhead and also saving costs.

Cloud-based CI/CD is one of the upcoming trends. In the future, more software will be powered using CI/CD.

Multi-cloud architectures

Multi-cloud architectures are becoming really popular. Software developers now have the freedom to mix and match different services from multiple cloud providers and utilize them without being locked to one platform.

Multi-cloud architecture provides optimal efficiency and resiliency. Using a distributed deployment allows for leverage.

Rise of modern programming languages

Python and Java still dominated the field of development. But, some new languages have emerged very quickly with new features and support for new technologies. This also provides solutions for existing issues and provides a better development experience for developers.

Languages like Rust, Go, Kotlin, and TypeScript will become mainstream and may replace established languages like C/C++, and Java in most use cases. Kotlin has already replaced Java in the mobile development landscape, while TypeScript is becoming favored in projects like Vue.js.

Cloud-native application development

With the unstoppable growth in cloud services, almost all software will be using some kind of cloud service in the next decade, with most software explicitly designed for cloud-based environments. This way, cloud-native application development will become the standard practice in the future.

The software will be naturally evaluated to be deployed and managed in the cloud as fully online solutions due to most software development tools and services also moving to the cloud. In some sense, this has already happened, yet this trend will only intensify with more and more software transitions to cloud-native architectures.