22/07/205
By Maurício Gioia, 'leader' from Progress Brazil
Everything conspires for the software man and the user citizen to act even more on the idea of engagement in one way or another. The replacement of cold code with hot experience should also grow
A confluence of different behavioral and technological waves is radically modifying the way people relate to each other, but this is a reality of already banal knowledge, which will not be the central object of this article.
What interests me, at the moment, is just to observe, at a glance, how these interflows are already changing the role of the IT technician (whether he is the CIO, or analyst, the application developer). And how are they bringing the common "citizen" closer to this professional, that is, the user, until recently similar to the IT "consumer".
In addition, it does not seem gratuitous to me to speculate on the directions that business applications will take: what new tasks they tend to encompass and how their life cycle will happen in the context of the new dynamic business environment and – again – where This includes the technician and the user.
The first thing to emphasize is that applications no longer reside on dedicated hardware, but are confused with objects, spread throughout the environment and are present (often unnoticed) in almost all business activities.
In line with this, processing power that was unimaginable a few years ago is now always within reach of the user through the most diverse means. These means that not only contain an impressive number of tools for the execution of tasks, but also for the creation, editing, integration and combination of codes that become tools until then not resident in that environment.
Given, therefore, this "empowerment" of the user and this crazy ubiquity of business applications, what conclusions can we draw about the near future within the theme proposed here?
Progress, like other players, is permanently engaged in this discussion and, under the leadership of its Chief Product Technology Officer, John Goodson, has raised five trends for IT for the next two years.
1. Citizen developers emerge and IT needs to respond to this
IT can no longer keep up with the dynamism of business interaction and correlation demands described above. Not your fault. Businesses are demanding more and more interactions; and the rampant consumerization of IT has raised user expectations to very high levels.
The most recent trend in addressing this issue is to identify a new class of "citizen-developers". It is a new generation, which follows the BYOA (Bring Your Own Application) watchword. These are technically adept business users who understand the business and have enough basic technical experience to build apps or effectively participate in the development process.
The dialogue between IT and Business has long since begun. But, in this new scenario, it is up to the IT man to respond promptly to this trend, helping the most capable business leaders to exercise their autonomy and creativity.
And it is a condition of efficiency for the professional developer to quickly identify these volatile applications – created in part by the expert user – and be able to understand their real value for the business. Thus, they will be able to refine those apps and share them with the value chain, now in a more disciplined way.
2. It is now necessary to think of a bridge to the Internet of Things
We can no longer look at the world exclusively from an immediate perspective of ROI. The IoT model requires, from now on, a bridge that is designed (at least as a forecast), since the IoT phenomenon is something inexorable and its expansion efficiently requires readiness on the part of IT planners .
In recent years, companies are already taking important steps so that they can assimilate IoT processing as a premise of their applications, especially those applications with which the customer deals directly. It is very likely that, from now on, there will be a much greater use of IoT-specific languages, such as Node.js.
3. The end of the old impasse of data silos is near, now with the support of technologies such as Low-code and Agile.
Companies are committed to leveraging Enterprise Architecture concepts to better orchestrate the so-called concert of applications and unify development efforts. But there will always be different silos standing in the way.
Even in today's cloud-based world, organizations will long continue to grapple with a platform-specific approach.
Without holding back on the hurdle, the leading organizations will be the ones that react to the diversity of applications and use their entire skill set to combine development approaches that include both low-code (high productivity with low code demand) and agile. (high control rate combined with speed). This will allow different skill sets to be applied effectively and collaboratively without the constraints of a given platform approach.
4. The advancement of Node.js will support the adoption of JavaScript.
JavaScript's rapid growth will continue and will be borne out by the likely success of server-side Node.js, along with the powerful virtues of MongoDB.
Another exciting move will be the adoption of PaaS solutions that can allow Node.js developers to focus on application development, rather than worrying about installing, scaling, managing, and monitoring Node.js and MongoDB applications. .
This will equate to the rise of DevOps, as such a move means automating key processes and enabling small development projects to take off, while providing the infrastructure for large, mission-critical applications. One of the biggest indicators of this trend will be the release of Node.js 1.0.
5. Companies will start drinking from "Data Lakes" – or "Data Ponds".
Problems with disparate data sources should have been resolved long ago. The year 2015 will certainly conclude with an important step in this direction, bringing the next evolution of the use of unstructured data.
As more and more data streams feed into so-called "data lakes", the interest will grow and applications will be built to transform them from problems to business insights.
Not only will this increase the value of that data, but it will also encourage companies to ensure that their critical business data is integrated and flowing consistently with the business objective.
It is unnecessary, at this point, to emphasize the crucial role that the IT professional will play in triggering and executing these processes, including the indispensable engagement of the "citizen" in the movement for change.
6. The Supervia das Transações – Consumers with more technological resources will start traveling in the fastest access lanes
Consumers with more knowledge and technological resources will say goodbye to long lines in market places for products and services. The proliferation of online ordering and in-store searching of all types will continue, but the trend towards more automatic forms of purchase will spread even further as the user experience becomes more fluid and confident.
Retailers will also begin to better explore the intersections of the Internet of Things and even trivially apply analytics mining to enable "predictive selling."
For example, the connected home, if properly configured, will make it possible for certain retailers to offer consumers even more easily products they may not have realized they already need. Replacement of powdered milk, changing the water filter, for example. A combination of alerts on consumers' phone with the home delivery offer allows the only consumer action required is to simply acknowledge the alert and press the "buy" icon.
What can be learned from this scenario is that the application developer will need to be a technician increasingly obsessed with knowing and describing the user experience, understanding him, now no longer as a passive consumer.
It is with the user – his habits, his technical potential, his business knowledge – that the field of observation is found where the developer will seek the motivation and inventive purpose of his work.
So, engagement and participation are two essential expressions. Gone are the days when the IT professional created lines of code, what he creates now is really experience.
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