Peeking into December of 2006

In a week 2005 will become history, and  I tried to visualize what will change in the  software development  a year from now.

1.    Enterprises will finally start using Java 5.  The sooner 5.1 version will be released the better.

2.    AJAX hype will calm down. AJAX is an interesting technology, and  will become one of many techniques used in  Web applications development. Nothing more.

3.    Fat clients will be more widely used in  distributed enterprise applications . Java still has a chance to be used in this area,  if someone will create an IDE with an easy to use and powerful Swing GUI designer.  JDeveloper and  NetBeans are leading here.  Macromedia tools will become more and more popular.

4.    Smart development managers will start creating mixed open-source/commercial environments. For example, you can use open source J2EE servers in Dev and QA and their commercial counterparts in Prod and Contingency environment. The same is applicable to DBMS, messaging et al. Some open source vendors are already moving in this direction by creating products that are 100% compatible with particular commercial tools.

5.    A new software architecture  for small and mid-size businesses should arise.  IMHO a good candidate is what I call   Client-Server Message Bus  (CSMB). A set of client server applications  can talk to each other using open source messaging and an enterprise service bus. Note: client-server applications can have more than two tiers, i.e. RMI client, RMI Server and DBMS.

6.    Programming will become a trade of a  young generation. Mid-age programmers will be leaving the coding arena and  moving to  business analysis and management. You can't beat a 25-year-old Indian programmer who's ready to join any  project tomorrow (in any place on Earth)  sharing a room in so called guest apartment. The code quality of such a programmer may not be as good as was expected by the employer, but this will be a little secret  for some time, and smart kids will have enough time to learn how to program on the job. 

7.    A number of CIOs will come out of the closets and publicly admit that the real cost  of the outsourced projects is high, because for every two young Indian programmers you need a local business analyst who will write  super detailed functional specifications and validate their work. But outsourcing is here to stay (at least in the USA) and not because overseas programmers charge less, but because just finding  local programmers will become a difficult task.

8.    Yahoo! will come up with  some new innovative Web products  that  will be able to compete with Google's software. If not Yahoo, who else?

9.    By the end of the year the broadband Internet will give DSL and cable Internet  a run for the money.  The wireless companies just need to  cut the prices of their broadband service, and masses will be leaving their "traditional" ISPs.

10.    Java use will steadily increase despite the fact that various  replacements are being offered. Java is more than an excellent object-oriented  language enriched by tons of productivity libraries (networking, multi-threading, security et al). It's a mature and proven platform for development of all kinds of applications for  all kinds of hardware. Java in programming plays the same role as English in the real world. No one says that Italian  language will replace English any time soon. On the other hand, songs in Italian sound great.

In a year we'll see  which of these predictions will hold true.

Happy New Year!

posted Monday, 26 December 2005