ThoughtWorks Latest Technology Radar Highlights Emerging Trends in Open Source and Cloud Platform Technologies

International Advisory Board of Leading Technologists Issue Newest Edition of Technology Radar

CHICAGO, April 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ThoughtWorks, a global technology company, today issued the latest Technology Radar, an assessment of trends significantly impacting software development and business strategy. The Technology Radar sets out the current changes in software development - things in motion to pay attention to based upon ThoughtWorks' day-to-day work and experience solving their clients' toughest challenges.

"Our latest Technology Radar focuses on some exciting trends that are changing the way companies and tech practitioners deploy open source systems and Cloud and Platform as a Service (PaaS)," said Dr. Rebecca Parsons, CTO of ThoughtWorks. "Often on our Tech Radar we see software innovation from companies and individuals who do not necessarily set out to create software tools. Real-world usage is a great incubator for new ideas in software development and we anticipate this trend will continue to steer innovation in the months and years ahead."

Dr. Rebecca Parsons is ThoughtWorks’ Chief Technology Officer."Technology and business leaders in North America, and across the globe, are embracing new software systems and more importantly determining how to best leverage technology for future growth," said Craig Gorsline, President and Chief Commercial Officer of ThoughtWorks. "As businesses adopt new PaaS systems, and open source products, we will see a significant shift in customer engagement, services, and day-to-day business operations." 

The notable themes in this edition of Technology Radar include:

• Open Source as a Virtuous By-Product- Today many companies open source their important software assets—to attract new recruits and credentialize themselves. This creates a virtuous feedback loop: innovative open source attracts good developers who are in turn more likely to innovate. As a side effect, these companies' frameworks and libraries are some of the most influential in the industry.
• Parsing the PaaS Puzzle- The definition of Cloud and Platform as a Service (PaaS) remains nebulous, and many PaaS approaches are incomplete or suffer from the immaturity of supporting frameworks and tools. Consumers of these technologies should seek the inflection point that indicates "ready for prime time" for their context and should avoid coupling too tightly to the implementation details of their PaaS.
• Docker, Docker, Docker!- We see a significant amount of energy focused on using Docker—and, particularly, the ecosystem surrounding it—beyond dev/test and all the way into production. Docker containers are used as the "unit of scaling" for many PaaS and "data center OS" platforms, giving Docker even more momentum.
• Over-Reactive- User interfaces, in particular, are commonly written in a reactive style, and many ecosystems are settling on this paradigm. While we like the pattern, overuse of event-based systems complicates program logic, making it difficult to understand; developers should use this style of programming judiciously.

Visit ThoughtWorks.com/radar to access the interactive version or download the PDF.

We want to hear from you. Which Technology Radar tools, techniques, practices and platforms do you use? Continue the conversation on Twitter (@thoughtworks #TWTechRadar).

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