Innovate or Extinct: A Developer's Story in 2024 - Navigating the AI Tsunami and Reshaping the Future of Programming.

Dear Friends and Students,

Welcome to my next story @ Inspire to Innovate Storytelling Movement.

Last week, Sails Software (sailssoftware.com) invited me as a guest for their Annual Day Celebrations, beautifully coined?SAIL’RS NITE 2024. I was asked to talk on “AI and the Future of Programming,” as well as engage in discussions with its leaders on “The Role of Innovation and Collaboration in the Present Times.”

Sails Software is a growing mid-sized IT company with more than 180 employees. This organization has adopted various IT best practices, especially cultivating an impeccable delivery culture, an eye for detailing, and design thinking.

I worked with Wipro between 1998 to 2010, a different era in software development that I consider IT 2.0. However, now, the world of software development is becoming a thrilling space where innovation and collaboration together redefine the possibilities.

Interestingly, the line between "creator and consumer" is truly blurring, and who is going to replace who is completely unknown.

As a programmer, if you don't innovate, a domain specialist is going to shortly replace you as we are all heading towards the End of Programming.

2024 is all about AI Augmented Development (AIAD) (IT 3.0). AI Augmented Development refers to integrating AI tools and techniques throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC) to empower developers and enhance the development process. Similar to UX, it now brings DX - Developer Experience.

During 2024-26, it's not about replacing developers but providing intelligent assistants to developers.

Ultimately, whether it's IT 1.0, IT 2.0, or IT 3.0, the IT industry always works towards four important goals:

1.??? Increased developer productivity.

2.??? Improved software quality.

3.??? Faster time to market.

4.??? Enhanced innovation.

But going forward, there is a twist. The industry would ask you, "Are you AI Fluent" or "Are you an AI Expert?" If you don't belong to any of these two categories, it is a sign of extinction for you from the industry!

Let me narrate a hypothetical SDLC story. If you comply with this by at least 20% during 2024, you are relevant; otherwise, make yourself relevant.

My Story Begins!

I want to start a company. However, I don't have any HR or Tech Interviewers.

Tech/HR Interviews:

I approached mockathon.skill2030.com, an AI-powered Metaverse Interview Platform, to complete the basic first Tech and HR rounds. These six avatars in three different accents (male & female) could manage and shortlist the final candidates!

Problem Study and Research Paper:

It used to take me 50 hours earlier to develop a research paper. However, now the team is using Jenni.ai or perplexity.ai and completing it in 5 hours!

Management Presentation:

The team used Decktopus AI and made a presentation in 1 hour! Management approved and asked them to convert it to a Specification.

Proposal & Requirements Specs:

The team formatted the proposal using Jasper.ai or Grammarly in 2 hours, which used to take 2 days. They also collected more insights from various customer chats/conversations and emails using a tool named Chatfuel.

Design:

The team used Uizard, an AI-powered design tool, to build UI design - Wireframes to Mockups to Prototypes.

Implementation:

All my team members have Copilot accounts. Their coding productivity improved by 35-45%.

Code Review:

Surprisingly, DeepCode reviewed the code changes and provided instant feedback. It gave a 30% productivity boost!

Testing:

The team used Parasoft Automated Unit Testing powered with AI.

Infra Provisioning:

Terraform Self-healing infrastructure is ready! AI is capable of automatically adjusting resource allocation and configuration based on application workload and real-time usage, bringing optimized resource utilization and cost savings!

Deploy:

My team is capable of CI/CD Pipeline using Jenkins.

Bug Tracking:

The team is already familiar with Jira, but my customers are adding bugs in their native language. Jira can understand Natural Language Processing.

Project Management:

An AI-powered Asana powers my PM!

Meanwhile, some team members started using Lowcode/Nocode platforms! They also began using Blockchain for decentralization.

Friends,

It is a long story, but the crux is here. If you don't become AI literate, it will not give you time to adjust in this tsunami!

Why? Look at these numbers:

1.??? Waterfall Model - 1970 to 2000 - 30 Years

2.??? Agile – 2000-2015 - 15 Years

3.??? DevOps - 2015-2020 - 5 Years

4.??? DevSecOps - 2020-2023 - 3 Years

5.??? MLOps - 2023-to date - Less than a Year

6.??? Next Cycle - Every 6 Months!!!!!

The same thing happened to the Media Industry. The same cycles:

1.??? Radio took 38 Years to reach the first 5 crore Listeners

2.??? TV took 13 Years to reach the first 5 crore Viewers

3.??? Internet took 4 Years to reach the first 5 crore users

4.??? iPod took 3 years to reach the first crore users

5.??? Facebook added 600,000 users per day itself!!

Can you imagine the time for a product to innovate?

What do you need to do?

AI has become Bhasmasura, a demon granted the power to burn up and immediately turn into ashes anyone whose head he touched with his hand. The asura was tricked by Vishnu's only female avatar, the enchantress Mohini, to turn himself into ashes.

Now, if you, as a developer, don't take up the Mohini Developer Avatar, you will be smashed by your AI creation.

Do you agree?

Ravi Saripalle