The Latest Software Development Trends To Watch Right Now

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, staying informed about the latest software development trends is crucial for businesses and developers alike. These trends not only shape the future of technology but also determine the most effective strategies for solving complex problems, enhancing user experiences, and staying competitive in the market.  Moreover, technology is an ever-evolving industry, with new product launches and updates flooding our news feeds daily. As a result, tech workers must continuously learn and improve their skills outside of work, or risk falling behind. From learning new programming languages and incorporating smart AI integrations and APIs to utilizing AI assistants, companies are investing in the latest software development trends. Venture capitalists have even noted that it feels reminiscent of the early days of the app store. Let's explore some of the cutting-edge software development trends currently being adapted by companies right now.

Companies Adopt Newer Programming Languages

As technology continues to evolve, so do the programming languages used by software development companies. While established languages like Java, Python, and JavaScript remain popular, newer programming languages such as Golang, Typescript, Swift, Kotlin, and Rust are gaining popularity.

First let’s take a look at web development. HTML, CSS, and Javascript have been the languages used to build most of the websites and web applications we see today. But now Javascript developers have been moving over to Typescript. Typescript is a superset of Javascript that is statically-typed instead of dynamically-typed like Javascript. The most important difference is that dynamically typed languages are easier to write and require less code, but are much more prone to errors later on, while statically-typed languages require more code and will have many errors early on, but the code will be safe. For this reason, developers continue to use Javascript for smaller projects, but will start using Typescript on larger projects.

For mobile app development, Swift and Kotlin continue to grow in adoption, while the number of projects using Java and Objective-C projects continue to decrease. Although Java will continue to dominate in enterprise level software development. The Spring Boot framework has been doing great things for backend Java development. As for Swift and Kotlin, it’s inevitable that these languages will dominate mobile app development as they were created by Apple and Google respectively and optimized for their use in developing iOS and Android applications.

On the backend, popular languages right now include Ruby, Python, Javascript (Node.js), and the fast growing Golang language. Although developers love Ruby, the language is going to struggle to keep up with the others. Javascript is already used on the frontend, so being able to use the same language on the backend as well is a huge benefit so Node.js will continue to grow in popularity. With AI and machine learning growing so rapidly, Python, which happens to be the programming language that dominated the field, will continue to grow as well. On the other hand, Golang - a newly developed language by Google, will be used by companies that need to optimize performance over everything. This will be especially useful for microservices.

Finally, let’s not forget about Rust, which is probably the most talked about programming language among developers right now. For developers looking for a high performance language that is safer than C or C++, but provides the same performance benefits, Rust is a great option. The low-level language provides direct access to hardware and memory, making it perfect for writing operating systems or microcontroller applications.

Apps Get Smarter With GPT, Whisper, and Dall-E Integrations

Artificial intelligence has been at the forefront of technological innovation, and its influence is also visible in software development trends. One of the latest trends in software development is the integration of AI APIs to make apps smarter and more user-friendly. Software developers are increasingly utilizing AI API’s like GPT, Whisper, and Dall-E to create more efficient and interactive apps.

Generative AI is an exciting new field that is growing rapidly right now and it’s an exciting time for both enterprises and startups who can take advantage of this new superpower. By using the ChatGPT API, companies can introduce smart assistants into their applications. This can be done by combining ChatGPT with their data. For example, an ecommerce website like Amazon or Shopee can pass all their product data into ChatGPT and then create a chatbot-like search experience for users to help them find products they need or even help them find products they didn’t even know they needed.

With Whisper, voice recognition and speech to text just got very exciting. Big cities are filled with people from all over the world these days, so you will probably hear multiple languages being spoken throughout the day. Translation and language learning applications are just some of the examples that could benefit from this. When learning a new language, the most challenging part is practicing. With Whisper and ChatGPT, language learning apps can now introduce smart language learning bots that people can speak to and hold a conversation with.

Local businesses such as restaurants and cafes need to sign up to multiple applications to remain competitive. One of the biggest challenges for them is creating images for all their products that look good. By integrating Dall-E into these applications, vendors can take their simple photos and transform them into beautiful images that will attract more customers.

Developers Utilize AI Assistants to Improve Their Workflow

As technology continues to advance, the use of AI in software development is becoming increasingly popular. One area where AI is being utilized is in code assistance. AI-powered code assistants, such as Github Copilot, Tabnine, and ChatGPT, are helping developers build applications faster and more efficiently.

Firstly, let’s take a look at Github Copilot. Now before you think ChatGPT and Github Copilot are competing products, it’s important to note that Microsoft owns Github as well as a large stake in Open AI - the company behind ChatGPT. So, Open AI was behind the development of Github Copilot as well. Github Copilot was trained using the Codex model on all the publicly available source code that was available at the time. Because of the focus on code, Copilot has a very strong understanding of it.

Developers can add Copilot as a plugin to popular code editors such as Visual Studio Code and receive assistance with code completions in real time. Copilot also continuously learns from how they code and suggests code snippets that solve the problem before the developer even had time to think about the problem. One thing to note about Copilot, is that it is not always correct and developers should carefully review the code it suggests. Right now Copilot runs on GPT 3 and once it is trained on the later models, we should see significant improvements.

ChatGPT on the other hand is being used by developers to solve problems that they would typically turn to Stack Overflow for advice. By using prompts such as “write me a function in python that finds the total of all inputs” would have ChatGPT give them the solution. It’s easy to see how this can speed up development by having an assistant provide solutions to problems that have already been solved.

Similarly to Copilot, Tabnine is an AI assistant that learns from developers coding style and makes smart suggestions. Tabnine had a head start, but developers are getting better results with Copilot. That being said, Tabnine does have almost instant code completions, so it’s useful to complete a variable name after typing the first letter.

By using AI-powered code assistants, developers can save time and improve their productivity. This can also lead to a decrease in the cost of app development as less time is required to write code.

The cost of developing software applications in countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States can range from $20,000 - $100,000, which requires a significant investment. Because of this, many companies in high income countries have been exploring software outsourcing to take advantage of lower software development costs in lower income countries. But software outsourcing does come with its own set of downsides such as lower quality products and communication issues, and lower development costs could lead to more companies outsourcing their development to local companies instead of going offshore. This will be largely beneficial for local economies.

Summing It Up

As software development trends constantly evolve, it's crucial for companies and developers to remain up-to-date. The increasing use of cutting-edge programming languages, such as Golang, Typescript, Swift, Kotlin, and Rust, empowers developers to create highly efficient and scalable applications. AI assistants like Github Copilot, Tabnine, and ChatGPT are revolutionising the development process by simplifying tasks and reducing app-building time and costs. In addition, integrating AI APIs like GPT, Whisper, and Dall-E enhances software applications with new functionalities, elevating user experience to new heights. Staying current with these trends allows companies and developers to remain ahead of the curve and continuously deliver innovative solutions for the future.