Software developers are in demand owing to the increasing demand for digitization and SaaS solutions. 57% of IT companies plan to focus more on software development. Many companies are building their own SaaS products, apps and undergoing a digital transformation. 

The products and services offered through traditional channels is now being offered with innovative digital technologies. The increasing demand for technology products means software developers are in demand, but the industry is also witnessing higher attrition levels than ever before. It is part and parcel of the dynamic IT industry. 

As companies brace themselves for the digital wave, new software developers entering the industry must be ready for prime time. The development quality and ability to provide top class solutions is critical to the growth trajectory of software developers. Here we look at some of the mistakes made by new software developers and how they can be eliminated using inversion. 

1. Writing Code without Understanding Use Cases 

Planning is essential to writing code that solves the problem. Good understanding of a problem gives you the ability to think through use cases. Good developers understand the use cases and corner cases for which they are building the solution.

Good developers start with customers. Users and development teams can be a drastically distant set of users. Understanding things from the perspective of your users or customers is the key to building the right software products. The best software developers ask understand questions like: 

What do the users want to accomplish?

How would they interact with the product or service I am building?

How quickly does the user receive value for time spent on the product or service?

What is the job the customer wants to do with our product or service?

What are the current hurdles for the customer and how can our product or service address it?

Do I understand the type of users for whom this solution is built? 

2. Code Quality & Documentation

Developers need to be able to document things that they are doing. Software development is a job that passes from one engineer to the other. Attrition and changes are part and parcel of the industry. So, developers must keep in mind that they would be passing on the baton to someone in the future.

It could be due to them getting promoted, changing jobs or simply changing the projects. It is inevitable that someone else would be working on the project, code quality and documentation is a rarely appreciated skill, but perhaps it is easily one of the most critical ones to the sustenance of the project. 

Software developers need to understand the design principles and best practices of the programming languages they are using. By using a structured approach to writing code, you can not only ensure top quality, but also help your team to work on the codebase with ease.

3. Choosing the Right Approach 

Good programmers don’t jump to solutions without understanding the fundamentals, architectural requirements and scenarios for which they are solving.

The right architecture, design pattern, data structures, methodology can make a big difference to the solution. The right approach requires a careful consideration of the key components, building a modular design and adopting the right approach. 

The intersection of technology and customer needs helps companies deliver top solutions. The right approach seeks the best tools and technologies that can solve the problems of the customer seamlessly. When technology complicates things, it gets replaced.

The right approach to code development involves tradeoffs between options and choosing the best ones for your purpose. Some of the key questions software developers need to ask are as follows: 

What are the advantages of technology you are using?

What are the disadvantages of technology used?

Which new technological tools can help you solve this better?

What are the alternative options for customers that solve the problem and how does your solution compare to them?

What are the alternative ways customers can solve things, if they don’t use your solution?

What will be the architecture of the application — Centralised, distributed, replicated etc?

What will be the services and modules required for the application?

Are there any failure and recovery mechanisms needed?

What level of security and authorisations will be needed for the project?

What are the requirements for the data on the server, are all compliances met?

Do we need to develop a quick prototype or a fully scalable product? 

4. Quick Fixes & Technical Debt

Nothing hampers the quality and longevity of a codebase than quick fixes. When developers are assigned to solve problems, they are firefighting with critical deadlines that need to be addressed.

Clients are breathing down the neck of the development team, QA teams cannot do coverage for every line of code and developers don’t write test cases for all the code for fixing the bugs. This results in technical debt, the solution may have provided a temporary fix the problem, but would introduce several more bugs into the system. It is a vicious cycle. 

Developers must fix bugs in line with a keen understanding of the impacts their fix would have on the system. Automated test cases must be passed before the code is deployed for production.

A thorough code review ascertaining the architectural and quality guidelines must be passed before the solution is presented to the clients. It is better to have a late fix than a wrong fix, which leads to more patch work. 

5. Learning Developments in the Industry

It is important to embrace the new developments in your industry. When you are writing code and building solutions with outdated technologies, you will incur significantly more effort. But when you leverage the latest technologies and tools, it will reduce your effort and you can use the same time to deliver a better solution. 

The technology industry is dynamic and staying upto date can be a challenge. New developers must be able to identify the right channels for learning new developments in their fields of expertise. Staying upto date and use of relevant technologies is a core development skill today.

Software developers need to understand the trends in technology. For e.g. there could be new developments and technological changes that could obsolete their work. In such situations, they will need to update their products or services accordingly. 

6. Use of Libraries

The web development and programming in general is facilitated by libraries, SDKs, and language frameworks. In essence, these libraries provide APIs and constructs to accomplish a set of tasks.

Rewriting the same code becomes redundant, seasoned developers know which libraries to leverage and when to write code from the scratch. A library provides functions and objects that can be readily called by your application to implementing specific functionalities.

For e.g. libraries could offer specific functionalities for strings, fileIO, sockets, etc. These functions can be called using APIs. For large scale applications that require retrieving, indexing, searching, large data sets, libraries may be used for implementing these functions rather than rewriting the code from scratch.

Experienced developers understand and use libraries and frameworks. They know where to focus their programming effort to build the best solutions.

7. Usability Design 

Good development is when users are able to get their jobs done. Usability design and user experience is what makes code development useful. Usability design is an integral part of the web software and apps. The usability design facilitates a rich interaction between the technology and the users.

Developers need to understand things from the layman’s perspective. When building a new enterprise project or app, the usability aspects drive the adoption of the products you are building. 

The best software developers use gamification, automated workflows, intuitive designs, clear messages and integrated help for the users. It helps the users connect with the product or service with ease, increases the uptake and creates a habit loop for them.

Usability design makes a product or service delightful, sticky and engaging. Lack of it causes gaps in products or services, makes users frustrated and increases customer churn.

8. Improvise Existing Features

Many software developers often cringe at the sight of making changes to what they have implemented. But feedback and iterations are the starting point for improving the product or service you are building.

Improving the code requires constantly evaluating the usage data and improving the product, it also mandates explicit collection of customer feedback to see if they are getting the value. 

Three ways to improve existing features: 

i)   Improve the product functionally, emotionally or aesthetically

ii)  Frequency of Usage ( Making changes so that your product is used for often) 

iii) Getting more people to use your products or services 

The feedback ensures that the time to value from the code is optimized. In other words, customers can derive value from your code in their earliest interactions with your product. When the time spent on your product creates value the users, they will use it more.

The software developers also need to ensure that technical parameters with respect to security, user data and application performance and scalability etc. is fine tuned. And feedback also means not writing code for features users don’t want.

Kreyon Systems offers exciting opportunities for software developers, product managers, and other IT professionals. If you are looking for IT jobs, you may please contact us.

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As technology continues to evolve more and more, it is finding its way into virtually all aspects of our lives. Whether it is a new app that can be downloaded to your smartphone or a new way to make automobiles even less dependent on a driver, the fact is software development is moving ahead by leaps and bounds. But as many people look to the future, numerous questions are being asked as to how application software will be used in our personal and professional lives. If you find yourself asking the same questions, here are some details about what many experts believe the future holds for application software.

Security Integration

As online security becomes a greater concern to all companies, most will look to have additional aspects of security integrated into their application software. To do so, high-quality code will be required, and most experts agree developers will need to learn to write it even faster than they do now. In part, this will be due to company’s wanting to make a stronger connection between their brand and the type of code they produce.

Real-time Data Processing

Along with greater security, application software will also move more toward real-time data processing. With streaming applications becoming all the rage with consumers, companies will want to invest heavily in new ways to increase streaming applications and make them run faster. By doing so, they expect to be able to reduce the manpower needed to make this happen, leading to greater cost-efficiency for the company.

Data Consumers

As many businesses and consumers have moved to cloud-based technology, the result has been a greater emphasis on improving developer productivity. Because of this, companies will focus on not only developers, but also data scientists, analysts, and engineers, all of whom will play a key role in continuing advances with application software. This will lead to cloud vendors, such as AWS, being able to focus more on data visualization, opening the door to expanded application opportunities in virtually all industries.

Autonomous Cars

If there is one area where application software is projected to have a big impact within the next decade, it is with autonomous cars. As more and more auto manufacturers begin investing in technology that leads to the production of autonomous cars, application software will lead to major innovations. In the not-too-distant future, it is expected Apple and Google will both begin autonomous car programs, aimed at competing with major auto manufacturers as well as Uber. When this happens, competition between companies will be intense, and will also have them opening up their wallets to attract the best and brightest developers to write code for these programs.

Artificial Intelligence

While humans haven’t yet developed artificial intelligence that can completely replace the need for human logic and reasoning, that day is much closer than many people realize. As a result, application software will continue to be used extensively in this area. With current technology being where it is, most companies will focus their efforts on developing application software that will allow artificial intelligence to use machine learning technology. When this happens, the technology can then be used to assist companies in analyzing massive amounts of data simultaneously, helping in a decision-making process that would otherwise prove impossible.

Workflows and Operational Blueprints

Since companies are always looking for ways to become more efficient, most tech experts predict application software will be used to create better workflows and operational blueprints for businesses. Specifically, the software can be designed to help companies use methods that have worked in the past to make current operations much more efficient. By doing so, the application software will in essence eliminate the need for trial and error, leading to cost-efficient and effective operations.

The Cashless Society

Perhaps more than any other area, application software is expected to play a major role in the continuing move toward a completely cashless society. As consumers shift more and more to a digital world where all financial transactions are conducted electronically, banks, insurance companies, and other related companies and institutions will continue to develop technology allowing for more digital transactions to occur. Because of this, banks and other companies will need to rely less and less on physical infrastructures, allowing them to invest more in digital technology rather than brick and mortar buildings.

With developers coming up with more and more uses for technology in all aspects of our daily lives, there is little doubt the future of application software appears to be brighter than ever.

Kreyon Systems is an offshore software Development Company, serving clients globally. If you need any assistance, please get in touch with us.

Caryl Anne Crowne is a contributing writer and media specialist for Allegra Network. She often produces content for a variety of software blogs.

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