Page 8 - MSDN Magazine, June 2018

Editor’s NotE MICHAEL DESMOND Our Intelligent Future
In my Editor’s Note column, “Groundhog Day,” in the February issue (msdn.com/magazine/mt829266), I honored the contributions of weather prognosticating rodents everywhere, with a collection of industry predictions from MSDN Magazine columnists. Those predictions ranged from the serious (Ted Neward expecting more “side-channel” attacks along the lines of Spectre and Meltdown), to the silly (David Platt waiting for a university to replace its science department with StackOverflow).
A common theme did emerge, though, and that was around artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on software development. Frank La Vigne, author of the Artificially Intelligent column, said that within two years AI would become a “mandatory skill set” for mainstream developers, much the way Web and later mobile development have. “It sounds far-fetched,” La Vigne told me at the time, “but then so did the idea of Web development being a mainstream enterprise development platform during the height oftheclient/serverera.”
Microsoft is working to converge and comingle its AI and cloud efforts, and opening some amazing application scenarios in the process.
Test Run author James McCaffrey concurred, predicting that sophisticated tooling would drive adoption and spur enterprise developers to add prediction code to their responsibilities, much the way they took on design, implementation and test.
The Microsoft Build 2018 Conference, held May 7-10 in Seattle, has proven both authors right. At the show, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella and Executive Vice President Scott Guthrie articulated the company’s expanding AI and machine
learning (ML) strategy, debuting powerful new tools and platform capabilities that span the gamut from the cloud to Internet of Things (IoT) devices at the edge. The new technologies, Microsoft noted, are designed “to help every developer be an AI developer.”
If you’ve been too busy to pay it much attention, now might be a good time to carve out some time to put a little AI into your life, and to get familiar with tools like Visual Studio Tools for AI, Microsoft Cognitive Services and Azure Machine Learning Workbench.
There’s good reason to make the investment. Microsoft is working to converge and comingle its AI and cloud efforts, and opening some amazing application scenarios in the process. For instance, Microsoft is enabling the family of Cognitive Services APIs (starting with Custom Vision) for the Azure IoT Edge runtime, making it possible for an edge device, like a camera-equipped drone and field truck, to execute intelligent decision making without cloud connectivity. Efforts like Project Kinect for Azure, the Proj- ect Brainwave neural net processing architecture, and improved Cognitive Services like Custom Vision and unified Speech Service all point to Microsoft’s strategic effort to improve, extend and enrich the AI development landscape.
We’re also seeing Microsoft apply AI directly to the developer experience. At Build, the company previewed Visual Studio IntelliCode, which leverages AI to provide intelligent suggestions that can boost code quality and productivity.
Frank La Vigne says Microsoft’s efforts in the AI space play directly to what it does best: “Whether it was bringing the GUI to the masses in the ’80s or developer tools to coders in the ’90s, Microsoft has a long history of democratizing technology. In fact, I’d argue that is the company’s core strength.”
La Vigne says this year’s Build event represents an important moment for Microsoft, as it works to introduce rank-and-file developers to a new frontier in development.
“I see the world changing. In fact, it already has—it’s just that not everyone in the mainstream has realized it yet,” La Vigne, says. “What I’m interested to see is the reaction of mainstream enterprise devel- opers to the announcements
and general tone at Build.”
Visit us at msdn.microsoft.com/magazine. Questions, comments or suggestions for MSDN Magazine? Send them to the editor: mmeditor@microsoft.com.
© 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, you are not permitted to reproduce, store, or introduce into a retrieval system MSDN Magazine or any part of MSDN Magazine. If you have purchased or have otherwise properly acquired a copy of MSDN Magazine in paper format, you are permitted to physically transfer this paper copy in unmodified form. Otherwise, you are not permitted to transmit copies of MSDN Magazine (or any part of MSDN Magazine) in any form or by any means without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.
A listing of Microsoft Corporation trademarks can be found at microsoft.com/library/toolbar/3.0/trademarks/en-us.mspx. Other trademarks or trade names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
MSDN Magazine is published by 1105 Media, Inc. 1105 Media, Inc. is an independent company not affiliated with Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Corporation is solely responsible for the editorial contents of this magazine. The recommendations and technical guidelines in MSDN Magazine are based on specific environments and configurations. These recommendations or guidelines may not apply to dissimilar configurations. Microsoft Corporation does not make any representation or warranty, express or implied, with respect to any code or other information herein and disclaims any liability whatsoever for any use of such code or other information. MSDN Magazine, MSDN and Microsoft logos are used by 1105 Media, Inc. under license from owner.
4 msdn magazine