5 Trends That Will Shape the Future of Application Development

Imagine a world where every device is connected, from your mobile phone to your fridge. A world where every person can access the same information from any device and at any time. This vision is already becoming a reality thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT). But other trends will shape this future: DevOps, AI, containers, and edge computing. These technologies will make it possible for companies and developers to create increasingly efficient applications that meet users’ needs in an increasingly complex ecosystem of systems and devices—whether at home or on the go. Let’s look at how these trends will shape the future of application development.

1. Containers

Applications are becoming increasingly complex and distributed, so there’s a need for a new way to package, deploy, and manage them. That’s where containers come in.

Container technology allows you to package an application with all its dependencies into an isolated runtime environment that runs on any infrastructure. Containers are lightweight and portable, allowing them to run on any infrastructure without requiring code changes or additional dependencies. This makes it easy for developers to build and test applications locally before deploying them into production, maximizing efficiency by running multiple containerized applications simultaneously on the same servers.

A practical example of this is a web application that uses a database. Without containers, each time you want to deploy your web application, you need to install the database software and configure it with your application’s connection information. If there are any issues with this process (such as an incompatibility between the applications), you need to troubleshoot them before deploying again. With containers, these dependencies are packaged together into one package and stored in a repo, like the Helm Repository by JFrog. So that once you’ve got everything set up locally, you can deploy your application to the cloud in one fell swoop.

2. Edge computing

Edge computing is an emerging trend in application development that will impact how we approach building solutions. It refers to moving data processing and analytics closer to the source of data collection.

Edge computing can be considered a form of distributed computing that uses the cloud to process data and applications at the edge of a network. Edge computing also has many benefits for developers, such as:

• Faster, more efficient processing
• More controlled costs associated with cloud services

Edge computing is currently used in many industries, including healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, and smart cities. As edge devices continue evolving, we expect to see more use cases emerge within these industries.

3. DevOps

DevOps is a software development methodology that aims to improve software development flow by aligning the goals of software developers and information technology (IT) professionals. DevOps is derived from merging two words: “development” and “operation.”

With the advent of cloud computing, DevOps has become increasingly popular for developers to use when developing new applications. For example, a developer can quickly build an application on AWS or Azure with minimal effort, including scalability capabilities and automated deployment processes built into these platforms. This allows developers to focus on building applications rather than worrying about how they will be deployed in production environments or managing infrastructure updates.

4. AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to machines that can learn and adapt to new situations. It’s a broad term encompassing many technologies; however, it is not synonymous with machine learning (ML). ML has been around for decades and is used in applications ranging from image recognition to financial trading. ML is just one of several areas within AI research and development. However, AI is often used synonymously with “machine learning” due to their similarities—hence: AI = machine learning + more stuff.

But what does this mean for application developers? There are plenty of use cases where businesses can benefit from using AI tools—from voice assistants like Amazon Alexa or Apple Siri, which respond intelligently without needing human intervention; self-driving vehicles such as those under development by Tesla Motors; intelligent assistants like Cortana on Windows 10 devices; or chatbots explicitly designed to solve specific problems across industries like finance or retailing.

5. Serverless architecture/computing

Serverless architecture is a new way to build and run applications. It’s a form of cloud computing where the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. The main difference between serverless architecture and standard web apps is that serverless applications do not require you to provision virtual or dedicated servers to run your code.

As an emerging trend in application development, serverless architecture provides many benefits, such as improved security and reduced costs. In times to come, we may see serverless architecture dominate the cloud computing space. It’s already being used by some of the major players in the industry, including Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Conclusion

We believe that these five trends will have the most significant impact on the application development space in 2023 and beyond. It’s important to note that they will enable new ways of thinking about how we build software and what we need from it. The future of applications is exciting and challenging, but above all else, it’s exciting!