There is no doubt that 2017 has been a very interesting year regarding technology. The emergence of Blockchain, the consolidated Bitcoin or the increasingly connected devices in the amazing world of the IoT. High interesting markets that share something important, but no, we are not talking about all the IT covers they occupy, we’re talking about the added value that webs and native applications that are exploiting its emerging potential.
In order to leave some space for these technologies, the web as we knew it had to reinvent itself continuously. Every minute, a new javascript framework emerge (while you are reading this, it has already emerged at least 3 new frameworks), making the life of the Web developer an eternal loop of studies and certifications.
ROADMAP 2017
Let’s get a summary pill for everything that 2017 meant for the web world:
-Click on the photo to enlarge-
- The year of the UI component and the UI component tree to build complex UIs.
- It is no longer a blasphemy of conventional development: the components are built from a unic file, potentially contain HTML, CSS and JS, IN A FILE!
- React, Redux, Webpack, ECMAScript 2016 (also known as ES7) and Babel obtain a mass adoption. These solutions rise to the top of all surveys as the most used technology.
- The developers realized that, in most cases, hybrid mobile development HTML 5 through web views does not provide enough profits compared to creating native applications.
- React Native and NativeScript begins to replace the development of the mobile HTML5 hybrid web view.
- Many leave Gulp for the NPM scripts, but Gulp is still popular.
- Yarn gives ample battle to NPM, currently working wonderfully together.
- SASS remains a popular tool, while PostCSS (+ CSSNext) gains ground.
- Linting / Hinting HTML, CSS and JavaScript is something that most developers do (ESlint replaces JShint and JSCS merges in ESLint).
- A trend of developers leaving Sublime and Atom for Visual Studio Code begins.
- Vue.js continues to gain followers. And it’s worth it!
- JavaScript’s programming and functional patterns, get a lot of attention.
- The development without connection and the progressive web applications are generalized and gain ground.
- Developing native applications for Windows, OSX and Linux using things like NW.js and Electron through web technologies becomes much more powerful. Goodbye to applications with a boring look.
- Angular 5 (in the future also known as “Angular”) gets out of the well and most realize that it will never be as popular as Angular 1.
- JavaScript remains widely at the center of software technologies.
- More developers are starting to worry about tools (for example, automation) and testing.
- Unit tests, code coverage, and continuous integration become a Must Have.
- GraphQL becomes popular for the Front developer when it implementing Backend, even on REST services.
- The excitement of CSS Grid grows and the future looks bright.
- The next evolution of solutions similar to React is shown through Preact, Deku, Rax and inferno showing evolution without much change of API.
- Most people learn to accept JSX, and now they can not imagine not using it.
- It is updated and uses a viable CSS module pattern (CSS encapsulation), so CSS and JS become a viable solution for many.
- More and more people are turning to user interface integration / functionality tests, including concepts such as visual regression testing of CSS and RWD.
- The days of struggle against the inconsistent APIs of browsers are almost behind us due to a massive decline in the use and development of previous versions of IE.
¿What we will see in 2018?
2018 will be full of innovations and changes. Many emerging technologies are beginning to consolidate while old myths become obsolete, new paradigms rise.
The year of progressive apps
The world started hearing about the term in 2015 but it was not until last year that the progressive Webapps began to matter. This 2018 promises to be the greatest nemesis of native applications.
Progressive Web Applications (a.k.a PWAs) are very similar webs to native applications thanks to “service workers”, which allow working offline, delivering an extraordinary user experience.
Users can even make a “quick access” on their home screen to use it frequently as if it were an app.
The launch of AI (artificial intelligence) on the webs
If last year the trend was that little floating button to start a chatbot appeared in the most of the websites, drowning even the contact forms, 2018 has everything to be the year of the massive implementation of artificial intelligence on websites to make even more “human” “The user experience.
The flat will die and Serif will return
The flat design has taken over the user interfaces both on the Web and in mobile apps. It is time to break the mold a little and to evolve towards new designs, which does not mean that they will disappear, but that they will be more customizable.
Material design will gain more public this year and one of the things that will return will be the Serif sources, massacred by the Sans-serif for a couple of years.
The “brutalism”, the grids with uneven content, bright colors and liquid forms (Spotify) will be the new heavyweights in the industry.
Vue.js and React well above Angular
Although Angular managed to take that big step by taking the SEMVER versions with Typescript over the past few years, it is true that Angular is not as popular as its angularjs predecessor was at the time. Day by day, more and more developers are using React and testing the virtues of a Vue.js that becomes more popular every day.
Even in the mobile world, although Ionic joined the jump from Angular to Typescript, improving exponentially, it can not compete against React Native.
Our Slashboy Álvaro Saburido, the Innovation Manager, is the author of this post.
