The demand for software applications with baked-in cognitive and data science technology is raising expectations of what a developer must bring to the table. Open-source Application Programming Interfaces lower the “concept count” needed, but composing them into next-gen apps will take practice, according to  Angel Diaz (pictured), vice president of cloud architecture and technology at IBM Corp.

“The developer is becoming a cognitive developer and a data science developer in addition to an application developer, and that is the future,” Diaz said.

A code-first paradigm, event-driven architecture and micro-services are tools for the job. “These three things combined allow you to kind of break the shackles of the monolith of old application architectures,” he said.

Diaz spoke to John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, during IBM InterConnect 2017 in Las Vegas, NV. (*Disclosure below.)

With open-source platforms and APIs, developers have shortcuts around learning or designing algorithms. “If I’m in Cloud Foundry and I need a container model, why am I going to create my own? I’ll just use the open compute initiative container model,” he said.

Next-gen DevOps crash course

Where developers will have to use some muscle is in learning to combine and blend these tools to build the cognitive and data-driven apps businesses demand, said Diaz.

Many open-source communities provide rich opportunities to learn these skills. In April, IBM will be offering “starters that show people how to use the technology, add the methodology and then help them on their journey to get value,” he stated.

Developers can visit developer.ibm.com to learn more.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM InterConnect 2017. (*Disclosure: SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE is a media partner at InterConnect. Neither IBM nor other conference sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE