7 Programming tools For 2020 and Beyond

2020 has brought in a lot of new technologies and trends to the development world. With artificial intelligence and IoT, among other revolutionary technological trends rising rapidly, the programming world has undergone a revolutionary change. Some of the new technologies and trends that this year has brought have already started to become standards of 2020.

Thus, it has become essential for programmers to keep up with the latest programming languages, techniques, and tools so that they end up creating software products relevant to modern users. Coders must realize that no matter how useful software is if it doesn't strike a note with the new generation of users, it is deemed to fail.

Before finding out what programming tools are commonly being used in the development world, let us understand what these tools are and what purpose they serve in the programming world.

What are the Programming Tools?

Programming tools, aka software development tools, are software programs that help programmers build, debug, maintain, or perform a programming task within the different phases of the programming cycle.

Some of the commonly used forms of programming tools include debuggers, compilers, interpreters, profilers, inkers, assemblers, disassemblers, performance analysts, code editors, and GUI designers, among others.

Importance of Programming Tools

• A debugger or a debugging tool is a computer programming tool that aims to debug programs and fix the located bugs. The work of this tool is to identify and report the defects in the software. Once it gets detected, its cause is determined by the developer by checking, modifying, and rechecking the codes to correct code errors.
• Compilers are those programming tools that are responsible for translating source code into object code. Programmers cannot write instructions in the language which the processor understands. This is where compilers come to their rescue and bridge this gap. Along with having better error detection mechanisms, they serve the purpose of checking the correctness of codes.
• Another way in which programming tools are helpful is that they help find the hot path in your code. Profilers allow programmers to check how programs use different computing resources when they run. This helps them identify performance problems and improve the performance of their code.
• Source-code editors are incredibly helpful for code junkies and newbie developers alike. They are used for editing the source code of computer programs. It can help you find syntax problems immediately while the code is being entered.
• GUI designers make computer operation more intuitive and user-friendly. In addition to making it easy for humans to interact with machines, they also allow multiple programs to be displayed simultaneously.
• Assemblers are another form of programming tools (far more straightforward than compilers) that convert assembly language into machine code with minimum instructions and efforts.

Let us now dive into some of the leading programming tools and trends that developers are increasingly incorporating into their software to stand out from the crowd:

Software Development Trends 2020

1. GraphQL

It is a data query language for APIs, and a powerful programming tool for developers majorly used to develop web APIs. It prevents returning excessive data by empowering users to clearly define their required structure of data and ask for precisely what they need. Evolving APIs over time is a piece of cake for this tool.

Want to build fast and stable apps that can easily control the data they get? Consider using this tool when building your apps. Apps built using GraphQL are fast even on slow network connections because GraphQL queries can access many resources in a single request.

This phenomenal programming tool for developers allows accessing the full capabilities of data from a single endpoint. Moreover, it makes it easy for you to know exactly what data to request from your API by leveraging the type system.

Facebook, Pinterest, Coursera, Shopify, Airbnb, GitHub, PayPal, Starbucks, Twitter, Yelp, and Intuit are some popular companies that use GraphQL to power their mobile apps, websites, and APIs.

2. 5G

5G connectivity is no more only applicable to the mobile app development world. It has extended on o the software and web development world too. If your software fails to leverage the trending wireless resources to its full potential, it will fall at some point in time. It’s the era of IoT after all.

To take advantage of this technology, programmers will need to enhance their programming styles and make the correct usage of APIs. But the good news is that implementing this technology into your digital products will distinguish them from the crowd.

3. NLP (Natural Language Processing)

This programming tool is appropriate for non-technical users and allows for interactions between complex computer languages and natural human languages. It is majorly used for complex development processes, such as building chatbots. By incorporating NLP into your software products, you can allow for more voice-driven user interfaces that are great when it comes to searchability and data accessibility. 

The demand for voice-driven applications is increasing at a fast pace since they eliminate the need to click and tap, and allow users to navigate the app, perform functions, and access information using their voice. 

However, programmers must advance their skills before starting to implement NLP into digital products. This is because building different NLP systems, measuring their quality, and performing language analysis is a complicated task.

4. Authentication tools

Passwords do not serve the purpose of protecting sensitive data well enough these days. With several hacking tools and techniques emerging, they have become increasingly vulnerable. This is how so many new types of authentication tools have appeared in the market.

From biometrics to facial recognition and voice analysis that are built on artificial intelligence, these cool authentication tools have already started to become a custom for users. 

Make your software stand out by integrating such authentication tools into them. However, as a programmer, you ought to know that your codes will require certain verification technologies and capabilities for validation before you can integrate these effectively into your digital products.

5. Low/No Code Functions 

Low/no code functions empower non-programmers to build complex digital products seamlessly with minimum costs. These functions are increasingly being deployed in mobile applications and web portals. It has gone beyond that. Today, they are being stretched to other areas like in back-office systems and other more extensive programs.

Programmers often end up writing already-existing functions because they are required to write various programs from scratch. This causes an overlap. Low/no code functions jump into the picture to correct this by embedding pre-configured code into applications. 

Going Forward

Programming has become more challenging than ever. However, with new software development trends rising rapidly and the world heading into a new digital age, the future of the programming world is going to be quite bright.

Programming tools serve the purpose of bridging the communication gap between human-friendly programming languages and complex computer languages. Additionally, they also help in understanding complex programs, identifying and preventing software bugs, simplifying the creation of GUIs, and performing complex transformations on the source code.

The programming tools outlined in this post are highly popular among programmers in this digital age.

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