Articles about AI dominated media protection in 2025, as the flexibility to carry out extra than simply rudimentary duties grew into making software program growth life cycle processes autonomous. The widespread piloting and implementation of generative AI, brokers and MCP servers have been among the many matters that produced the highest trending articles on sdtimes.com this yr. However AI wasn’t the one factor on the minds of builders and their managers. Right here’s a have a look at the highest trending tales on sdtimes.com for 2025.
Essentially the most-viewed article this yr requested the query: “Is Agile Lifeless within the Age of AI?” Creator Adam Sandman, CEO of Inflectra, posited that Agile processes are in truth not useless, however are evolving. “The way forward for software program growth isn’t Agile vs. AI, it’s Agile with AI. Strategic alignment, mentorship, and good governance guarantee that AI’s energy enhances security, maintainability, and long-term product worth.,” he wrote.
No. 2: 88% of firms are considering leaving Oracle Java
SD Instances editor Jenna Barron dug right into a January report by Java platform supplier Azul Programs that confirmed Oracle modified its licensing mannequin to base the price on the variety of staff a company has, as an alternative of charging by the Java occasion in use. “Since then,” Barron wrote, “organizations have been considering alternate options, and 72% of respondents have been already fascinated about it when surveyed in 2023.”
The report reveals that the highest 5 causes for wanting to maneuver on from Oracle embody price (42%), desire for open-source (40%), Oracle’s gross sales ways (37%), uncertainty round altering licenses and pricing (36%), and restrictive Oracle insurance policies (33%).
“AI adoption is saving builders a major period of time, however a number of friction factors nonetheless exist all through the software program growth life cycle that builders are nonetheless dropping time to,” Barron wrote from August research of developer expertise and engineering administration.
Atlassian’s 2025 State of Developer Expertise report confirmed, “So we’re proper again the place we began, with builders saving 10 hours every week utilizing AI and dropping 10 hours every week to inefficiencies. Enhancing the developer expertise requires a scientific method to understanding and resolving developer friction factors.”
No. 4: AI received’t exchange builders, however it is going to go away some behind
Dan Faulkner, CEO of Sensible Bear, wrote: When execs ask, “What number of builders can we lower if we embrace AI?”— They’re asking the mistaken query.
The fitting query is: How can we evolve our whole software program lifecycle to match the rate AI makes doable with out breaking belief or burning down high quality?
“The longer term doesn’t belong to groups that write probably the most code. It belongs to those that ship probably the most resilient, reliable, and scalable software program,” he wrote. “That future wants growth groups. But it surely wants a unique mindset and a unique type of management.”
No. 5: Why AI brokers want a protocol like MCP to achieve their potential
MCP can do for AI brokers what USB does for computer systems, Lin Solar, senior director of open supply at cloud native connectivity firm Solo.io, defined.
As an illustration, a pc wants a means to hook up with peripherals like a mouse, keyboard, or exterior storage, and USB is a typical that gives that connectivity. Equally, MCP permits AI brokers to hook up with totally different instruments and information sources, like Google Calendar. It gives “a typical strategy to declare the instruments so the instruments may be simply found and may be simply reused by totally different AI purposes,” she mentioned.
No. 6: Google goes all in on agent growth, Gemini at Google Cloud Subsequent 25
At its Google Cloud Subsequent 25 occasion in April, Google introduced plenty of new bulletins, primarily associated to enhancing Gemini choices and making it simpler to construct and undertake brokers.
Among the many bulletins have been the discharge of ADK, Google’s Agent Improvement Package; an Agentspace platform on which builders can construct brokers combining Gemini fashions, Google-quality search performance, and enterprise information; and launched Google Workspace Flows, enabling customers to create agentic workflows to streamline processes and automate repetitive duties throughout Workspace.
No. 7: Containers in 2025: Bridging the hole between software program and {hardware}
Containers have lengthy been a well-liked means of packaging up and delivering software program, however many builders have additionally begun to discover utilizing containers in additional methods than initially meant.
In a latest episode of the SD Instances podcast, What the Dev, Scott McCarty, senior principal product supervisor for Pink Hat Enterprise Linux, sat down with us to debate the developments he’s been seeing and in addition make predictions for what’s to return.
No. 8: tRPC vs GraphQL vs REST: Selecting the best API design for contemporary net purposes
Software program engineer Kacper Mihalik contributed this information to SD Instances evaluating these applied sciences from a sensible engineering standpoint, after a number of years of constructing manufacturing methods with React and TypeScript.
“I’ve shipped REST, GraphQL, and tRPC APIs,” he wrote. “Every choice presents distinct strengths, with real-world tradeoffs builders and engineering leaders ought to perceive. … specializing in structure, kind security, toolchains, and developer expertise.
ChatGPT captured the world’s creativeness, however it might have additionally trapped it. The chatbot interface—with its acquainted conversational format—made AI accessible to hundreds of thousands, demonstrating the outstanding capabilities of huge language fashions (LLMs) in a bundle that felt pure and welcoming. But this very success has created a false impression: that AI equals chatbots, and that each utility wants a chat window to be AI-powered.
Peter Day, a common companion at tremendous{set} – a startup studio the place nice information+AI concepts turn into transformational software program firms – wrote: “The way forward for AI isn’t about chat home windows. It’s about invisible intelligence woven seamlessly into how individuals work, making complicated duties less complicated and tedious work disappear. That future requires rethinking person expertise from the bottom up, not retrofitting chatbots onto current merchandise. The winners will likely be those that acknowledge this distinction and design accordingly.”
As SD Instances editor Barron reported in November, this yr’s up to date listing options lots of the identical considerations from the 2021 variations, with just a few notable adjustments, akin to Server-Facet Request Forgery, which was in final place in 2021, being rolled into the Damaged Entry Management class.
“Moreover, a brand new class, Software program Provide Chain Failures, was added and contains Weak and Outdated Parts (#6 in 2021), and Mishandling of Distinctive Circumstances made the listing for the primary time, containing CWEs associated to improper error dealing with, logical errors, failing open, and different associated eventualities,” Barron wrote.
