Mobile and web applications are something that we practically can’t live without. From ordering food to booking flight tickets to making important bank transactions these apps have made our lives easier to cope with the changing demands. With respect to user experience and security web development needs to take a robust and efficient approach. This article tells you what the future of web development will look like.
Web Development
So let’s begin by understanding what web development is:
- Web development involves building and maintaining websites and other web applications.
- A web developer converts a web design into a website.
- They are responsible for how a website or web application looks and functions from its user interface and page layout to back-end systems for gathering data.
Frameworks and Libraries
So a lot goes into building a website. There are several tools frameworks and packages that help create web applications. To develop a website Html, CSS, and JavaScript are the basic languages. Javascript offers several frameworks and libraries like React Angular and Vue.
Javascript and its environments like node.js and express.js. Node is an open-source clock cross-platform runtime environment that allows developers to create server-side tools and javascript applications. Knowledge of the basic command line like npm node package manager is essential but I’m sure you’re aware of all this. So what’s going to be new? Let’s explore.
Four Major Future Trends
Well! according to experts, there are four major future trends in web development. so let’s start and decode them one by one
1. TypeScript
The first one is Typescript. It is a superset of javascript and is an object-oriented programming language. In other words, it is just javascript with other impressive additional features. Typescript supports all javascript libraries and frameworks with an increase in code complexity. Javascript had to fulfill the requirements of oop. Hence that lead to the introduction of TypeScript. Typescript helps with quicker code development thus improving performance. There are a few improvements with typescript that give it an upper hand over javascript. Only at the time of development does typescript bring out compilation issues. This reduces the chances of mistakes occurring at runtime.
A property of typescript is that it is strongly typed or enables static typing. Static typing allows type correctness to be checked at compilation time. In javascript, this isn’t possible typescript is nothing but javascript and some additional features. Some of these features are interfaces, generics, namespaces, null checking, and access modifiers. Typescript supports IntelliSense which provides active hints as the code is added. So considering all these advantages typescript is something that will be widely adopted by teams across the globe.
2. Web Assembly
Secondly we have Web Assembly. It is a new way to run on the web. Also called WASM, Web assembly is the second universal programming language that all web browsers can understand and run. However you’re not going to be writing scripts in webassembly yourself. It’s a low level assembly language designed to be very close to compiled machine code and very close to native performance. What this means is practice is that javascript is no longer the only language you can run on the web.
Web browsers can run any language now. If that language has a web assembly compiler even traditional desktop languages like C++ can be compiled down to WASM with relative ease. WASM currently runs in 94 of users browsers with IE, UC Browser, and Opera mini support, being the main things holding it back as per usual. However it’s backed by developers from Mozilla, Microsoft, Google and Apple and support in modern browsers is fast moving.
3. Packages
Thirdly we have Package Managers. Packages, a package manager, or package management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing software packages for a computer’s operating system in a consistent manner. It typically maintains a database of software dependencies and version information to prevent software mismatches and missing prerequisites.
npm is the package manager for the node javascript platform. It puts modules in place so that node can find them and manages dependency conflicts intelligently. It is extremely configurable to support a wide variety of use cases. Yarn is another package manager that replaces the existing workflow for the npm client or other package manager, while remaining compatible with the npm registry. It has the same feature said as exciting workflows while operating faster more securely and more reliably.
4. Compile to JS
Lastly we have Compiler to javascript. There are many javascript dialects like coffee strip, darn, babel, typescript and svelte. that offers better features that javascript and ultimately compile to javascript. It is likely that these languages will be the future. Moreover, there are several other predictions like better appreciation for web standard, less client works, and more focus on personal projects. The need to know more languages regardless the future of web development looks more promising than ever. If you wish to make a career as a web developer start now. So where do you think the future of web development is heading? Let us know in the comments below.
Javascript Libraries that you should know: Click here
