Web Development: What’s Hot Right Now

  • Duc Filan
Web development is one of the most unstable industries out there because of the advancements it experiences on a regular basis. Learning is a part of the job and some skills might become primitive on the course of a few years. Sophisticated web developers are well aware of these facts and they always try to keep an eye out on what’s hot in the industry. You’ll find out throughout this article about the web development trends in 2018-2019. So without further ado, here’s the list:

Vue.js Emerging Popularity

In less than 4 years, Vue.js has gained a reputation of being one of the most popular lightweight frameworks for JavaScript. Vue.js was released to the public in 2014 after it was created by one single person: Evan You. He worked for Google using AngularJS and he decided to “extract the part that (he) liked about Angular and build something really lightweight.” Vue.js is an open source framework focused on the view layer, making it perfect for front end developers who are looking for something that is easy to handle but can create refined single-page applications at the same time.

Real-Time Web Apps

For more than 10 years, real-time web applications have been revolutionizing the web and they will continue to do so for most of the foreseeable future. What sets the difference here is their near instantaneous transmission of information between the end user and the server where all data is stored. The most notable solutions for building such real-time web applications are Node.js and Ruby on Rails. These two web development frameworks are compatible with virtually every model of modern web servers and are really suitable for timely web communication. The need for real-time web apps is still growing and they are used for popular web services like browser based multiplayer games and messaging web apps, most notably Facebook Messenger.

CSS Grid

CSS grids are the most efficient way to create web-based layouts by quickly combining columns and rows to build more asymmetrical yet dynamic layouts. Even though they have been around for a relatively long period, CSS Grids will continue to be popular for many practical reasons; they do not need a framework (only browser compatibility), they are easy to implement, and most importantly they are functional. Here are some basics to learn more about CSS Grids.

Progressive Web Apps

Emulating web content was one of the main concerns for mobile developers who want to bring the tempting web functionalities to their then comparably limited platforms. Nowadays, the tides have shifted as mobile devices became so powerful. Web developers in 2018 are trying to incorporate mobile-like experiences onto web pages to save time and effort, reach a greater number of devices, and increase session length. Take a look at some examples of such progressive web apps here.

Desktop Notifications

Though often annoying if abused, desktop notifications have proven to be a great asset to websites as they will often bring back users and visitors. This type of notifications is best used to announce deals and give real-time updates about in-app events. E-commerce platforms such as AliExpress and eBay have capitalized on this feature and they continue to have success with it.

Material Design

Material design has been trending since it was created back in 2014. Google has brought it to life to give web interfaces more realistic features and implement 3D effects to optimize the user experience. At first, it was oriented to become an Android exclusive design language, but now it can be found all across modern web browsers revolutionizing web experience design. This is a list of websites that have successfully adapted the Material Design web design concept.

Customer Support and Chatbots

We still get our customer support through text documents to this very day. However, there are remarkable attempts by developers who are trying to take it to the next level by implementing Artificial Intelligence for a better experience of customer support. Profiling customers Through Chatbots and AI will help developers give a human-like experience when it comes to customer service. For more information, this link will give you a broader sense of how chatbots are being used on the web.

Static Web Pages

Yes, static web pages sure are trending in 2018. While web development in general is moving towards a state of complete dynamism, static web pages are not out of the competition yet and they remain as strong as ever. Dynamic web pages require lots of bandwidth and can easily go down if met with high levels of traffic. Static web pages on the other hand are simple, faster to load, reduce hassle with the servers, and are overall easier to make. They are also cost-effective and a go-to option for small businesses, brick and mortar, and B2B service providers among others. Not convinced yet? Here are 6 reasons why you should go static.

Single Page Applications

An SPA is a web application that works entirely on one single URL that is constantly updated using technologies like JavaScript. The idea here is that the user-end side only needs suitable browser processing abilities without the arbitration of a server. Websites that rely on such technologies are able to dramatically cut loading times which is always a popular choice with users. Facebook, GitHub, and Gmail are among the most popular examples that implement the concept of Single Page Applications.

Browser Extensions

Despite having some drawbacks for being considered as a potential privacy threat, browser extensions are a part of web development and their popularity is on the rise. Extensions like these can be an integral part of web browsing for many users. The main challenge with browser extensions these days is compatibility and web developers are trying to make web extensions compatible all across browser systems without the need of the slightest amount of code changing.

So…

To wrap it up, these were the hot trends of web development of 2018-2019. Everything is constantly changing and that’s simply the status quo. It is important to keep in mind that you cannot survive in such an aggressive industry which has a cutthroat job market if you are solely relying on the skills you acquired back in 2016.
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