Key trends impacting software development today

09th July 2014
Key trends impacting software development today

July 9, 2014: Global technology company ThoughtWorks,   has assessed  trends significantly impacting software development and business strategy. They call this the Technology Radar. It  sets out the current changes in software development - thing you should pay attention to. The assessment is  based upon ThoughtWorks’ day-to-day work and experience solving their client’s toughest challenges and we share their thoughts cover four areas: 
Churn in the JavaScript World — We thought the rate of change in the Ruby open source space was rapid until the full rush of JavaScript frameworks arrived. JavaScript used to be a condiment technology, always used to augment other technologies. It has kept that role but expanded into its own platform with a staggering rate of change. Trying to understand the breadth of this space is daunting, and innovation is rampant. Like the Java and Ruby open source spaces, we hope it will eventually calm to at least a deluge.
Microservices and the Rise of the API — We are seeing an incredible amount of interest in microservice architectures, as well as an emphasis on the importance of the API both within an organization and as a bridge to the outside world. In a microservice architecture a large number of very small services are deployed and linked up to build systems, with the services mapping closely to business concepts and value. In order to make this approach work, teams need good discipline around building, testing, integrating and then managing the services. This edition of the Radar tracks some of the specific tools and techniques for microservices.
Conway's Law -  that states that "organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations", keeps appearing in unexpected places. One of the key tenets of the Agile Manifesto is "People over Processes and Tools", and we see Conway's Law reinforcing this idea both negatively and positively. Some companies are mired in siloed structures that add needless friction to engineering efforts, while more enlightened companies use team organization to drive the kinds of architectures they want. We're learning the peril of ignoring Conway's Law and the benefits of leveraging it.
Re-decentralization — The Internet began life as a distributed system, but over the last decade or so we have seen an increasing amount of centralization of both services and data. As an example, over 90% of the world’s email moves through just 10 providers. Similarly with Cloud computing, a small number of providers service the vast majority of our Cloud needs. Prompted in part by revelations about the US’ stranglehold on Internet infrastructure, and a desire to maintain more individual and organizational control, we see a need for “re-decentralization” of both data and infrastructure.
Comments Dr. Rebecca Parsons, CTO of ThoughtWorks: “Today’s successful organisations are the ones that place technology at the centre of their overall business strategy. CEOs are thinking about technology like never before as they try and make sense of a massive influx of data. The need to sufficiently analyse and anticipate disruptive elements in business and technology is at the core of why our Technology Radar continues to grow in readership with each new edition.”

Find a PDF document on the Technology Radar here