From Declarative to Iterative: How Software Development Is Evolving

Software development is an ever-changing landscape. Over the years, it has become easier to generate high-quality code faster, though the definition of "faster" is a moving target. 

Take low-code tools, for example. With them, developers can build most of the functionality they need with the platform, so they only need to write the custom code the application requires. Low-code tools have also democratized software development — particularly with the addition of AI.  

GenAI is accelerating development even further, and it's changing the way developers think about code. 

Siddharth Parakh, senior engineering manager at Medable, expects AI to "revolutionize" productivity. 

"The ability for AI to automate repetitive tasks, refactor code and even generate solutions from scratch would allow developers to focus on higher-order problem-solving and strategic design decisions," says Parakh in an email interview. "With AI handling routine coding, developers could become orchestrators of complex systems rather than line-by-line authors of software." 

But there's a catch: Currently, AI-generated code cannot fully replace human intuition in areas such as creative problem solving, contextual understanding, and domain-specific decision-making. Also, AI models are only as good as the data they are trained on, which can lead to bias issues, error propagation or unsafe coding practices, he says. Quality control, debugging, and nuanced decision-making are still areas where human expertise is necessary. 

Related:Quick Reference Guide for Software Development

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