The software development industry is dynamically changing and improving. The frontend development alone is a field where developers, designers and involved team members should constantly observe new trends. They influence future design choices because fitting into trends has an impact on the achievement of business goals or adaptation to user requirements. So what are we observing in the area of JS programming? Is JavaScript still a thing? What JS framework is the most popular? Read on to find out what are the trends and overall JS state so far.
What is JavaScript?
Developed in the mid-90s, JavaScript, or JS for short is a scripting programming language created by Netscape, one of the primary web technologies. It is high-level, often just-in-time compiled, multi-paradigm and supports event-driven, functional, and imperative programming styles. JavaScript is currently used on over 97% of websites. Moreover, most web browsers have a dedicated JavaScript engine nowadays, but also some servers and apps. It is also the base of many frameworks, libraries, and other development tools. Frontend developers who work with JS can quickly try and work with the chosen JS framework without much effort. Considering the numerous uses of JS solutions, this language is truly universal.
What is JavaScript used for?
The most common use of JavaScript is web pages. Scripts written in JS are most often used to ensure interaction on the website. They can be used to create visual effects, react to events, validate data entered in forms and other interactive actions. Although JavaScript is used mainly in frontend development, it can also work on the server-side with an appropriate technology like Node.js. You can also write full-fledged applications in JavaScript.
Popular JavaScript frameworks
A frontend developer has much more to choose from than vanilla JS. Below frameworks and libraries are dedicated not only to web development. Actually, they extend the possibilities of using JS for mobile applications, advanced web apps and are used in all kinds of software development.
ReactJS
React is currently the first choice among web developers, according to Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2021. It is a front-end JS library for building user interfaces and UI components. It can be used as a base for creating single-page or mobile applications, but in many cases, it requires extending its capabilities with additional third-party libraries. The main reason is React architecture – it only deals with state management and rendering that state to the DOM. So it may lack some functionality to create fully functional software according to our requirements. As for mobile applications, React is the core of React Native cross-platform technology. It is considered SEO friendly, ensures faster rendering and boosts productivity.
AngularJS
It is an open-source, front-end JavaScript framework supported and developed by Google. Its main purpose is Single Page App development and simplifying it. It has dedicated functionalities and characteristics such as providing a framework for client-side Model–View–Controller (MVC) and Model–View–ViewModel (MVVM) architectures, along with components commonly used in web applications and progressive web apps. Frontend developers that use AngularJS appreciate it for promoting code reusability, rapid development and facilitated testing. AngularJS is the front-end part of the MEAN stack that also consists of MongoDB, Express.js and Node.js. Support for AngularJS ends December 31, 2021, and Google recommends upgrading to Angular (from version 2 up). Since version 2, Angular is a TypeScript-coded JS Angular that takes over some of the original features and constantly improves.
Vue.js
The idea behind Vue was to get the best out of AngularJS and create a lightweight frontend development framework. It is based on the Model-View-ViewModel pattern and allows for extending HTML with HTML attributes called directives. The core Vue.js library focuses only on the view layer. The technology itself is characterized by a progressively adaptable architecture that concentrates on declarative rendering and component composition. As in React, dedicated supporting libraries are needed to extend Vue functionality with routing or state management.
Node.js
Node lets developers use JavaScript for server-side rendering to produce dynamic web page content before the page is sent to the user’s browser. This open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment represents a “JavaScript everywhere” paradigm. It means that it standardizes web app development around just one programming language – it handles both front-end development and back-end development. Node.js also allows you to build client-side applications via the Electron platform.
What are the latest JavaScript frameworks?
There are really a lot of JS technologies. Below are the three most interesting of the latest JavaScript-based solutions available on the market.
Svelte
It is another framework for creating graphical interfaces of web applications. However, applications written in Svelte do not have a framework structure, and instead, Svelte generates code that manipulates the DOM directly. It contributes to speeding up the action on the user’s side. Svelte has its compiler to process the application code on the user side when building it. It is written in TypeScript.
Gatsby
Gatsby.js is widely called a static page generator, but generally, it is a web framework that works based on React and GraphQL. It offers static site rendering, focuses on optimizing the website code and is relatively easy to use.
Jamstack
Jamstack is a web development architecture for creating dynamic web platforms using static sites. It began to gain enormous popularity when the concept of headless CMS also began to be popularized, in 2016.
Summary – trends in 2022
What is certain is that people still want to learn JS. Hence, JavaScript’s future seems bright. The language has been at the peak of its popularity for years, and new JS-based solutions constantly appear. Many companies rely on it. As noted earlier, the most popular JS framework is React, and everything indicates that it will maintain this high position in the near future. The visible trend for the coming years is the increase in the popularity of TypeScript. It is worth observing the development of this language because perhaps with time, it will more and more often replace its prototype, JS. From the strong trends, the growing popularity of Headless CMS, and thus JamStack, is noticeable. There is also much talk about motion design as one of the inherent elements of website design, which provides a catch to website visitors. Undoubtedly, more and more emphasis is placed on accessibility, which affects the user experience and more holistically, privacy and safety.
To sum up, front-end trends focus on developing available technologies, adapting modern solutions, and constantly adapting to users’ needs.
February 25, 2022
