Every year the tech sector gears up for Europe Code Week, in which countries from around the world focus on coding through a number of grass roots events held over the course of the seven days.
It is clear that governments across the world are coming to understand the importance of coding, specifically for the generation of young people still in learning institutions – their world in 20 years’ time could have a different make up, and coding is likely to be at the heart of online activities as we continue to see the dominance of the internet when it comes to both market platforms and sales strategies.
Back to the here and now, software developers need to be aware of coding trends in order to keep their skills current and realise opportunities on projects they are working on. Here we take a look at the top 10 emerging coding trends you need to know about:
The explosion of social media platforms seems to have been the biggest single internet development over the past decade or so. Right in the engine room of the movement is the JavaScript library React, which is used for creating user interfaces on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. React is a coders’ firm favourite and knowledge of it could be essential in the majority of social media led projects.
In the age of hybrid cloud and other infrastructures designed to streamline several systems, applications such as Docker could be called into action increasingly. Docker allows for the packing of software into one of its ‘containers’, allowing a user to view system tools, code and everything in between. Docker runs a partner programme which allows companies and specialists to upskill themselves and then tutor less advanced Docker users.
Grunt is a JavaScript task runner, which is able to save you from repeating tasks through an automated system, which also works with a number of plug-ins built for the platform. It cuts down on the coding time drain, and an impressive client list featuring the likes of Adobe and Twitter speaks volumes about its effectiveness. For any organisations in which development workflow is a priority, IT personnel may be required to have a working knowledge of Grunt.
Is an open source search engine developed in Java and based on Lucene, the open source software library. It essentially ties to Lucene and makes its features available through JSON and Java API. Among its users are Mozilla, Facebook and Soundcloud. For companies that require reliable full text search, those with ElasticSearch skills could be in high demand.
If you are involved with any kind of configuration management, cloud provisioning, intra-service orchestration or application deployment, you might find life becomes a whole lot easier with the use of the IT automation engine, Ansible, designed for multi-tier deployments. DevOps engineers and platform engineers could be asked to show evidence of Ansible skills.
Scala is known as a ‘scalable language’, making use of simple syntaxes to make IT processes easier – with its object orientated characteristics making it suitable for large mission critical systems. Running on JVM, Scala is designed to improve your functionality across the board. Mid-level developers might not be specifically required to have Scala skills, but they should be prepared to learn them.
One of the key facets of Apache Cassandra is the lineal scalability which it provides, and the ability to replicate across multiple data centres makes it suitable for medium to large organisations. If you are using a number of commodity servers, Apache Cassandra provides robust support for clusters. Developers hired to work on a large chunk of modern business applications could be required to have Apache Cassandra skills in their armoury.
Tableau is a programming language which combines function with logic – if you are dealing with large amounts of data on a daily basis and wish to map it out more effectively, you can use Tableau to produce some attractive graphs and scatter charts. Tableau runs its own Data Analytics Learning Partnerships, as well as a ‘classroom training’ programme, meaning all the resources are there for developers to upskill themselves.
If you are looking for an effective message function for your data, RabbitMQ could be of interest. Released under the Mozilla public licence, it provides gateways for streaming text oriented messaging protocol, HTTP, and MQTT protocols. Its Shovel plug-in performs the tasks of replicating and sending messages from one broker to another. Meanwhile, the Management plug-in ensures the necessary monitoring and control over clusters. If a new role requires complex event processing or storage solutions, RabbitMQ could well be a requirement.
Compatible with all the major browsers, Twitter Bootstrap was originally Twitter Blueprint, and was created by employees at the social media network in order to improve its interface development. Twitter Bootstrap has now reached its fourth edition and is one of the most popular open source frameworks in the world. Organisations that are aiming for speedy and clean web development might make Twitter Bootstrap an essential for incoming developers.
These are skills that employers will increasingly focussed on when assessing candidates in the hiring process. Unlike many other areas of IT, it is accepted that there is a large amount of self-learning for software developers. In the case of IT Contractors they are expected to bring current and relevant skills to an organisation without learning on that organisation’s time. So the best developers use a variety of tools, whether they be specialist websites, YouTube, Stackoverflow or GitHub to ensure that they have the skills to remain relevant.
