During the past few years, there have been many guesses about what topic could reach the top of world interest. Let’s take a look at some of the software development trends that I think will be present the next year.
“The only thing that is constant is change” – Heraclitus
1. Blockchain
It is believed that blockchain will revolutionize almost every industry. More and more companies are considering blockchain development and blockchain-related services every day.
How does blockchain work? Imagine that a bank updates account balances when there is a request to transfer money from one customer to another. A lot of time and effort is needed for coordination, synchronization, messaging, and checking, to ensure that each transaction goes as expected.
Typically, the money that is being transferred is held until it can be confirmed that it was received by the recipient. With blockchain, all this is simpler. A single ledger of transactions exists that both parties have access to, thereby simplifying the coordination and validation efforts. There is always a single version of the transaction or record.
Blockchain is going to be used for more than just transactions and currency. Many giant tech companies are investing hard and assigning thousands of employees to work on blockchain-powered projects.
This means that the businesses will need software applications that support blockchain, and their demand for blockchain developers is going to rise.
2. Progressive Web Apps
Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are a kind of mix between a regular web application and a mobile app. One reason to believe that the growth of this type of application will increase is that PWAs are easier to develop and maintain than regular mobile apps.
The browser runs a script in the background, separate from the web page, called Service Worker. This script is the main part of every PWA, and it enables smart caching, offline functionality to visited sites, background updating, push notifications, and many other important features. This means that the site will be faster to load after the first visit, even if the networking is not.
This new model tries to combine the benefits of both parts, the web and mobile app, giving users a modern experience.
3. Artificial Intelligence
To get better results, organizations know that digital transformation is a main part of their business strategies. Business leaders consider Artificial Intelligence as one of the key drivers of digital transformation.
Adopting Artificial Intelligence has become a necessity. It is estimated that more than 40% of businesses have adopted it already to automate their processes, and many companies are developing frameworks to execute more and more tasks with its help every day.
All this means that new specialists who are capable of developing AI software will be required.
The demand of AI specialists, as well as Chief Data Officers (CDO), will definitely grow in 2019.
4. The evolving mixed reality
Mixed reality is the combination of two different worlds, the physical and the digital, into just one world. Mixed reality has immense potential and is the next evolution in human-computer interaction. All this is possible by technology advancements, especially in graphical processing power, computer vision, display technology, and many others.
It is being integrated into large-scale web and mobile apps. All this new generation of applications are allowing customer interactions with products or services. For example, e-commerce stores can allow the customer to view clothing on virtual mannequins, and other apps can virtually design their houses with furniture, try different colors, etc. Additionally, there are many practical uses for gaming as well as for education.
To Sum Up
We are facing an environment that is changing and growing fast, and it is important to stay up to date to not be left behind. These 2019 software development trends, according to my point of view, will dominate the upcoming year as well as demand more than our basic development skills. However, it is never too late for all of us to start learning new things.