Introduction
The software development landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace. As developers, staying updated on the latest trends and technologies is key to providing the most value to end-users and maintaining a competitive edge. Some notable emerging trends seem poised to make major waves in 2024. In this post, we will delve into the 5 biggest software innovations to keep an eye on:
- The Rise of Low-Code & No-Code Platforms
- The Quest for Hyperautomation
- AI & ML Will Become Even More Integrated
- The Adoption of Multi-Cloud Architectures
- Quantum Computing Steps Towards Reality
These five rising stars have the potential to greatly impact developer roles and transform what’s possible in app development. Read on for an inside-look at what’s brewing in these areas and why they signal big shifts ahead in 2024.
The Rise of Low-Code & No-Code Platforms
The expanding accessibility brought by low-code and no-code platforms marks a turning point – enabling more professionals to contribute to application development without needing to acquire extensive coding skills and experience.
These new tools provide graphical user interfaces and configuration options to build apps fast through model-driven processes. They eliminate much manual coding using prebuilt templates and drag-and-drop components. Leading options include OutSystems, Appian, and Mendix on the low-code side – plus Zapier, Webflow and Bubble for no-code services.
Key Drivers Behind the Surge in Popularity:
Consumerization of IT – higher demand for apps/digital solutions than development teams can sustain
Democratization of technology – bringing app creation capabilities to non-technical business users
Faster delivery times – accelerate prototyping/MVPs and active projects through visual modeling
Tighter collaboration – central platforms integrate feedback seamlessly from all stakeholders
As businesses recognize these platforms’ ability to expand productivity beyond traditional coding, usage is skyrocketing. By 2024, Gartner predicts low-code will account for 65% of all app development activity.
For developers, this trend warrants learning how to support low-code tools or even transition into roles managing no-code application builds as citizen developers gain steam.
The Quest for Hyperautomation
Hyperautomation takes workflow automation to the next level using technologies like RPA, AI, and machine learning. It focuses on rapidly automating multiple processes end-to-end by combining complementary tech.
Process discovery tools first analyze systems to identify automation opportunities. Sophisticated bots can then be quickly trained to automate pre-scripted tasks or utilize AI to handle more complex work. MLOps helps provide continual model review and enhancement, while process mining continuously monitors for optimization.
Leading hyperautomation frameworks integrate best-of-breed tools to speed this lifecycle. For example:
UiPath – RPA software
Amazon Polly – Text to speech
Google Vision – Image recognition
Azure Form Recognizer – Extract text/data from documents
This amplifying effect increases automation rates exponentially to reduce costs and improve efficiency beyond what standalone tools can achieve.
Analysts expect hyperautomation adoption to grow at nearly 20% yearly through 2025 as more functions benefit. Developers play an integral role here by both building out frameworks and training machine learning models.
AI & ML Will Become Even More Integrated
AI and machine learning are already firmly entrenched, but new advances seek to make AI seamlessly pervasive across applicationtech stacks. MLOps trends reflect efforts to help productize models faster. Automation expands ways to apply AI, fueling intelligent process automation.
Most impactfully, AI-driven development aims to let AI handle more actual coding work. GitHub’s Copilot demonstrates the possibilities, with the coding assistant trained on billions of public code repositories. Early benchmarks indicate Copilot can suggest 40%-60% of a codebase, but questions remain around bias and security risks.
As barriers limiting ML application in production decrease, developers in 2024 will need increased skills in:
MLOps – Using CI/CD best practices for reliable, accelerated deployment of ML apps – while monitoring for concept drift
Explainable AI – Improving model transparency and accountability
Data Engineering – Building more reliable data pipelines and analytics capabilities to power AI
Augmentation – Teaming with AI co-pilots capable of amplifying output
Demand for AI talent reached all-time highs in 2022. Developers with cross-cutting ML Ops, data science, and core software engineering skills have huge upside.
Adoption of Multi-Cloud Architectures
Most organizations utilize more than one public cloud provider today. But multi-cloud often sprouts in siloed pockets across functions. 2024 will bring efforts to unify management and actually leverage cloud diversity for technical and business gains.
The multi-cloud management market is forecasted to grow over 25% yearly given key drivers:
- Preventing vendor lock-in
- Optimizing pricing across providers
- Minimizing service disruption risks
- Deploying best fit platforms and locations for workloads
Tools like Kubernetes help enable portability between vendors and hybrid deployments spanning private data centers. Approaches include:
Multi-Cloud – utilizing services across vendors
Hybrid Cloud – balancing public and private resources
Cross Cloud – designing to shift workloads across multiple public clouds
Real benefits center on increased flexibility, optimized costs and risk mitigation. But complexity rises making integration and centralized control difficult. Success requires planning architectures thoughtfully upfront using infrastructure-as-code techniques.
Quantum Computing Steps Towards Reality
Quantum holds enormous promise moving computing far beyond classical binary gates to powerful qubit processing. 2023 marks a pivotal point where fledgling quantum machines finally outpace the fastest supercomputers.
True fault-tolerant quantum still remains years away, but impressive milestones are within reach potentially including:
- IBM hits milestone 4,000+ qubit system in 2024
- Significant accuracy/stability improvements in quantum gate sequencing
- Demonstrated speed-ups over classical algorithms in niche applications
- Real 100+ qubit machines available via cloud access models
Even limited exotic computing could help catalzy progress. Promising use cases span finance, pharma, energy, manufacturing and more. Savvy developers should start experimenting now through emulators like Qiskit while hardware matures. Becoming conversant in quantum principles and applications lays crucial foundations for the future.
Quantum specialists will remain highly coveted as more enterprises awaken interest. Pioneering developers can stand out by honing in-demand skills like:
- Quantum algorithm design protocols – Qubit control/error correction techniques
- Quantum machine instruction – Hybrid quantum-classical architecture
Conclusion
From augmented coding capabilities to expanding computing frontiers – the chance to transform software development has never been greater entering 2024. Revolutionary advances lie ahead in automation, AI, the cloud and quantum.
Keeping your skills aligned to this accelerated rate of technology change is critical for professional developers. Use this overview of five rising impact trends as a starting point to pinpoint areas for proactive learning investments in the year ahead.
By getting ahead experience curve – mastery over these exponential technologies becomes realistic. The outcomes can pay dividends for years via access to the most meaningful and stimulating projects revolutionizing software’s future.
Which game-changing 2024 software development trend resonates most with your current ambitions? Share your forward-looking perspectives in the comments below!