There are few words left to describe the events of 2020. We saw a global contagion spread and create a pandemic of seemingly unimaginable proportions. Among the few things that we can say after the tragic loss of life and wider disruption is perhaps the fact that we all experienced it collectively; nobody needs to be told what has happened.

So, looking to the reality of carrying out roles in software application development, developers everywhere have had to face up to new – often much more virtually connected – ways of collaborating and working.

I know that developers as a community are sometimes parodied for introspectiveness and screen-obsessiveness. But, really, in reality, developers do enjoy programming as a team and sharing a pizza at some level or other.

Enter intelligent, modernised, contemporary software platforms. In this time of uncertainty, they offer automation and management that is well suited to virtual connections.

With these platforms, developers can harness more automation and management in terms of how work gets done, which is an advantage to them in this time of uncertainty. There’s a serious architectural planning process that needs to be a part of every prudently and professionally engineered software application development process. I can point to lower code platforms that go a long way to easing the complications of architectural planning in a remote working environment.

So what other elements of core software engineering best practices do we need to think about going forwards? After all, we want to be holistic in our approach to both our platform of choice and the lifecycle development process that we work in.