The purpose of business is to produce profitable solutions to the problems of people and planet.
Oxford economist Colin Mayer, on role of the modern corporations.
Today, developers solve problems, big and small, across every industry and organization on the planet. The problems we together are looking to solve are far from static, and as they evolve and grow, we need to relentlessly keep seeking the tools and platforms that deliver better, faster and more effective solutions. Advent of Artificial Intelligence is fast having impact in the holy grail of software development. We are witnessing tremendous work in the area of designing and developing code, as well as Front End by using Machine Learning capabilities. There are constant developments in this area. Many of these updates and innovations fall into several key categories:
- The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted development – keeping developers in their flow.
- As Apps reach new areas and get meaningful application in wide range of process across all domains of business and life, there is an almost desperate need to develop new apps. If non-programmers get the option of developing app then it can be a real boon. Even for hard core code writes, any method to get the job done automatically, or even as a rapid rate, would be more than welcome. This is where No Code/Low Code comes into play. This is fast gathering momentum with number of platforms now offering No Code App Development feature.
- The broad opportunity with Windows for developers including new hybrid AI app patterns for new edge endpoints, without walled gardens.
In the new normal, Productivity is becoming the most essential- right from the employee to the employer, from the last mile user, the developer to the organization board rooms. We need to constantly look for possibilities of automation and how it may assist the productivity.
The impact of AI and AI-assisted development
AI and coding have become deeply entwined, and at Build, we are proud to detail all the platforms and tools being provided to developers to aid them with AI development. The goal is to improve developers’ sense of flow – getting in the zone and staying there – and removing obstacles to let them focus on the most important code they need to write. I have personally found below three during my own app designing process where suggestions from AI came in extremely handy.:
- IntelliSense in Visual Studio: IntelliSense is a code-completion aid that includes a number of features: List Members, Parameter Info, Quick Info, and Complete Word. These features help you to learn more about the code you’re using, keep track of the parameters you’re typing, and add calls to properties and methods with only a few keystrokes. Check full details
- GitHub Copilot general availability: Microsoft introduced a preview of Copilot last year, and the reception has been overwhelmingly positive. More than one-third of those who signed up for the program have become daily users. GitHub Copilot is an AI pair programmer that helps you write code faster and with less work. It draws context from comments and code to suggest individual lines and whole functions instantly. GitHub Copilot is powered by Codex, a generative pretrained language model created by OpenAI. It is available as an extension for Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, Neovim, and the JetBrains suite of integrated development environments (IDEs). GitHub Copilot is powered by Codex, a generative pretrained AI model created by OpenAI. It has been trained on natural language text and source code from publicly available sources, including code in public repositories on GitHub. Read further
- Microsoft Dev Box: Cloud has brought in a freedom where we are not bound and tethered to a physical PC. You may login and continue developing without any aberration from any machine worldwide. It gives a feeling of roaming freely literally like a cloud! Microsoft Dev Box allows developers to spin up a virtual machine (VM) and provision it automatically in the cloud, reducing limitations and delays. Now, developers can use Microsoft’s AI tools and the AI-infused cloud to write apps they want and deploy them anywhere. Microsoft is the only place where developers can go from the box to the cloud and back out to any endpoint in the world.
Low Code/No Code Solutions
Looking ahead to a new era of AI and automation for all
Low Code or No Code is a new domain which is fast gaining prominence for Rapid App Development. This allows App to be developed with very little code knowledge. Organizations like Microsoft have made lot of progress in this with number of products. Express design in Power Apps, allows you to convert a hand-drawn sketch, PowerPoint, or PDF into a working application. Furthermore, you can customize the application, add more screens, and so on. This entire process does not require you to write even a single line of code. Check few innovative products which bring in lot of versality in app design:
- Microsoft Power Apps promises giving everyone the tools to be an app builder! It comes very close to it. Now you can build applications faster—with fewer resources and very little coding knowledge. It definitely merits a look. Check here. Loads of video & ebooks.
- With Power Automate, Microsoft promises -Take care of what’s important, Automate the rest! It is a big promise but Power Automate brings in some remarkable capabilities. With different flavors for Desktop automation, Web Automation and Teams Automation, Power Automate can truly make life easier for both; a developer as well an everyday user. Check details
- Microsoft Power Pages, a low-code development and hosting platform that allows anyone, from low-code maker to professional developer, to design, configure and publish websites for both desktop and mobile through a fluid, visual experience.
- Express Design in Power Apps, which allows you to upload a PDF, PowerPoint or even a hand-drawn sketch that Express Design will convert into a working app within seconds.
- With text summarization for customer support, users can recap complex conversations to help reduce handling time and improve job satisfaction.
These kinds of scenarios give everyday users the power of a cloud-based AI supercomputer to help them accomplish their work quickly and effectively. This is what we mean when we think about tools for people to use today to change the way they work and live.
New hybrid AI app patterns for new edge endpoints
As developers explore intelligent cloud solutions that have multiple endpoints and neural processing units (NPUs), the natural evolution is to create hybrid apps with unique capabilities. However, many are stopped in their tracks by a common problem. Developers must write specific code for specific ecosystems – in this case, chips. Instead of a hybrid solution, developers are forced to step into a walled garden, writing code for each individual chipset in order to provide working apps.
Organizations like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are providing developers freedom to work outside those walls with a set of tools in the cloud that automates the process and allows them to capitalize on using hybrid apps. After they’ve written an app, they can use our service to target NPUs no matter the chipset.
Microsoft is creating a powerful, cross-platform development pattern for building AI experiences that span the cloud to the edge, using ONNX Runtime and Azure Machine Learning, along with an AI toolchain. In addition, the forthcoming Project Volterra is a development kit with AI capabilities that will come with a neural processor that has best-in-class AI computing capacity and mind-blowing efficiency.