2019 is shaping up to be one of the most exciting years for web app developers thanks to all the incredible advancements that were made in 2018. We are definitely looking forward to playing with all these new toys that are available to us and make some wonderful products. We thought we’d mention a few of them here and talk a little bit about why we are excited for their potential in 2019. So with that said, here are our top 5 predictions for web application development trends in 2019:
1. Javascript will become stronger and more prevalent than ever
For the sixth year in a row, Javascript was voted the most preferred programming language by Stack Overflow’s user-base. We have seen Javascript evolve over the years and now with ES6 and frameworks such as Vue JS, React and Angular supercharging its capabilities, developers have begun to realize the endless potential at their fingertips. The best part about it for us is how active the Javascript community is, creating amazing open-source libraries, components and documentation for its consumers. Learning Javascript has never been easier and more fun. If you are a new web developer trying to decide which language to pick up, we highly recommend Javascript.
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2. Serverless will become the preferred way to scale apps
Hosting providers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft are constantly fighting over market share, and their focus on serverless tells a story. AWS Lambda and Google Firebase are two fantastic examples of how serverless architectures will help developers focus on writing code and not worry about spinning up, deploying, monitoring, maintaining and scaling servers. These services have fantastic features that can handle nearly every conceivable use-case. Simply hook your application up to the company of choice’s serverless offerings and deploy your app with just a few clicks. Everything is optimized for you based on the type of data you are serving, whether you have an app that is read-heavy on the database side, or an app that stores and serves a lot of images, the underlying architecture will ensure speed, scalability and affordability by utilizing the best resources for the job.
The popularity of serverless architecture grew an incredible amount in 2018, and all signs point to this trend continuing in 2019 and beyond.
3. Fringe technologies like GraphQL and Typescript will see increased adoption
Many had predicted that GraphQL and Typescript will take off in 2018. While both saw a definite spike in user growth, many were still hesitant to use them in live projects. However, towards the end of 2018, a large spike in the interest surrounding both these technologies has been noticed, and their benefits are quite clear for those interested. They also go really well together as GraphQL is a type system query language, and Typescript helps to add strong types to Javascript. They add ease of development and robustness to the applications for developers who don’t want to deal with writing complicated queries, while delivering scalable & optimized results. Look for GraphQL and Typescript to make giant strides in 2019.
4. Machine learning & AI will become increasingly ubiquitous with web apps
So far, we have seen machine learning & AI be this soiled operation that takes large data-sets and acts upon them to provide analysis. However, with the advent of Javascript based machine learning libraries such as brain.js and Google’s Tensorflow.js, adding machine learning to your web application is becoming as easy as importing a Javascript library. Add to these the other readily available offerings such as ML Kit and Firebase predictions, web developers can now seriously consider leveraging the power of AI to enhance the user experience their web application delivers.
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5. The JAMstack will start to become more commonly used
The JAMstack has started to gain a lot of momentum as the preferred way to approach building websites and apps that deliver incredible performance in a cost effective and easy to scale manner. These applications usually tend to be simpler in scope, however, examples do exist where feature rich applications were built and deployed using the JAMstack. Essentially, the stack serves pre-built files over a CDN, using caches for lighting fast content loading and 3rd party APIs where required to generate dynamic data. As application developers move closer towards lean architectures and development experiences, the JAMstack seems to be in the right place at the right time. Look for a ton of web sites and apps to be built and deployed using the JAMstack in 2019.
Conclusion
These are just a few of the many technological advancements we look forward to in web application development in 2019. We have already implemented several of these and are working our way through experiments on the others. The future of the web is bright, feature rich and more exciting than ever before. We’re hyped to have a front-row seat for the action. See you all in 2019 – have a happy new year!
