People are going through a cultural shift due to corona. More and more people are thinking about bringing their business online. Enterprises that were already online happened to see business growth.
With the growing need of people in web development, we should understand what are the technologies that are going to be the top priority.
- API-first Development
- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
- Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
- Microservices
- Micro Frontends
- JavaScript Frameworks
- Single-Page Applications (SPA)
- Blockchain Technology
- Automation Testing
- Serverless Architecture
#1 API-first Development: With the adoption of new technologies like JavaScript Frameworks, and IoT etc. It is required to have a function that connects the user interface like browser and mobile or any other device with the server. To achieve this we have a reliable technology for web development that is API development.
In most cases, it makes sense to have API developed first. For example, in case you don’t know how the front-end would look like or the device with which the APIs are going to be integrated is not ready then the concept of API-first development can be leveraged as this helps to develop reliable functions with well-defined input and output
Why to use:
- APIs are decoupled from any front-end of IoT device which gives the flexibility to develop as an independent component
- It can be developed in parallel with the front-end development going on and connect the backend and frontend once both the components are ready
- Mature tools like Postman and Swagger are available to create API documentation and test the APIs (once ready)
- Reduces the risk of failure as APIs are easily testable
#2 Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP): With the trend of using websites on mobile and tablets it is important to focus on the load time of a web page on handheld devices. AMP is the initiative from Google which helps to load web pages faster. A page that could take 20-30 minutes to load could load in 2-3 seconds with AMP.
Why to use:
- Liked by Google as the speed is faster than a web page. Meaning SEO will be better
- Adjust to any device/browser
- Better user experience
#3 Progressive Web Apps (PWA): PWA can replace mobile native apps. The user experience with a native mobile app is good but it has certain limitations like a user has to download the app from the app store which consumes time and memory. Where ass PWA doesn’t need to be downloaded. It works as a website but with the capabilities of a native mobile app. Progressive Web Apps allow what you build to be installed by anyone, anywhere, on any device with a single codebase.
Why to use:
- The biggest advantage of PWA is it doesn’t require to be downloaded from the play store as installable
- Just like AMP, the load time is better than a web page which makes it comparable with native apps
#4 Microservices: Monolithic application with a huge codebase takes days to test and deploy which makes the process slow. Even for a small change complete build needs to be redeployed for which downtime is required. Whereas microservices architecture solves that problem.
In a microservices architecture, the application is broken into smaller services/components where each service works independently of the other which makes these services easy to test and deploy. Microservices allow developers to work independently, with minimal or no downtime for deployments and scale the application easily.
But some challenges need to be handled as there are a lot of services, each service needs to be maintained, communication between the services needs to be handled when there is a need to share data, the team has to deal with several cross-cutting concerns like externalized configuration, logging, metrics, health checks, and others.
Why to use:
- To develop independent components/service
- Code is easy to understand and write. One person can focus on one service
- No or minimal downtime is required for deployment
- Scalability is not an issue. Service which requires more power can be scaled up
#5 Micro Frontends: Just like microservices architecture which is used for backend micro frontend is the concept used for frontend, to break the frontend application into different components. With this design, each microservice will have its corresponding micro frontend to work together to solve one business problem.
Why to use:
- Traditional web Development often requires multiple requests to load all the components of a page, especially if some parts are not needed to be rendered. The micro frontend approach makes it possible to delay loading these other modules until they are required to speed up performance across your site.
- Each micro frontend is modeled off the same pattern, you can use shared libraries across applications for any common functionality that needs implementing
- Allows each team responsible for implementing new functionality to control their deployment process without impacting others who may also test out experimental code at the same time
#6 JavaScript Frameworks: Although JavaScript has been in the web picture for a long time, it grew miraculously into other scopes with the evolution of frameworks. Not only do frameworks provide JS developers tons of pre-compiled libraries but also they eased the code writing. This introduced the new architecture which was lacking in previous versions.
JS is now not only limited to frontend web development but it is now a one-stop solution for frontend, backend, testing and AI/ML. JS frameworks are nothing but a collection of compiled javascript code.
- JS in Frontend: Javascript framework provided such a high level of abstractions which attracted many frontend developers and made them the most popular choice for designing web applications.
-
- Angular became quite famous as a full-fledged framework with double-sided data binding, now the developers can separate the code logic and UI. Since it’s quite a famous framework many external libraries are also supported.
- React is not a framework though but its widespread use made React a place in this list. React is quite famous for its high-performance applications, all thanks to its unidirectional flow. It is much more simple to learn in comparison to Angular. It is made for making the view layer only unlike Angular MVVM architecture.
- JS in Backend: JS frameworks grew exponentially when it came to backend development, the efficiency and cost-effectiveness made JS a great choice for full-stack. Node.JS, a runtime environment based on Chrome’s v8 engine to run JavaScript on the server-side. I won’t be bothering to include that in this list since it is not a framework. Some popular backend frameworks are Express and Next.js
Why to use:
- Frameworks have predefined functions which simplify the problem statements and ease the development process.
- Since there are plenty of JS frameworks to choose from, it becomes quite easy for developers to find the perfect framework for a particular problem.
- JS frameworks are not only limited to web but also you can find its application in Native web development with the introduction of React Native
- Some libraries like Synaptics, Brain.js & Tensorflow.js are making JS to step into the AI/ML world
#7 Single-Page Applications (SPA): Why is the UI of Gmail smooth? Hardly in a few clicks and less waiting time for the server to respond, users can check mails without navigating to another page. This kind of UI is quite engaging and leaves a good impression on your audience. Many companies like Paypal, and Netflix etc use the SPA (Single page application) architecture.
SPA is just a single page where only the information required is updated as per user needs. On traditional (MPA) pages the same thing loads the whole data again when any event is triggered, for example, imagine reloading every page to see the mail. So SPA has quite an edge when it comes to UI/UX. The advancement of JS frameworks (like React, Angular & Vue) made the life of developers easy while developing SPA applications. These frameworks break the whole UI into components so the management becomes easy.
Why to use:
- Instead, the whole template gets rendered into the server the SPAs send the code to the browser to be rendered
- User experience is rich as the user can interact with the application in a few page reloads
- As SPAs are broken into components so debugging a particular component becomes quite easy
- Performance
- Better caching
#8 Blockchain Technology: Blockchain design allows storing the information in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change, or cheat once the information is in the distributed system. It’s a distributed database that shares the data to each node. For example, one block is added to the database. That block contains the unique code which is linked with other blocks. So there is no chance of changing the values of the database which also makes the database more secure.
Blockchain technology is one such concept that brings in a lot of things for every industry be it Finance, Game, Social media etc. Blockchain will transform web development as it will provide secure database technology. We will be able to create a lot of cloud services with the help of blockchain technology. Moreover, blockchain technology will provide help to social media as it prevents privacy breaches and sandals.
Why to use:
- To stop illicit trade. Smart supply chain solutions can be built using blockchain. It can help trade in the food industry, supply of goods etc
- To build financial services. As we have already witnessed the cryptocurrency is already booming. It’s 826.6 million in 2020 as mentioned by Fortune Business Insight
#9 Automation Testing: With the rapid development happing using new technologies and frameworks it is also important to test efficiently without compromising the quality. Automation testing is one such approach with which this can be achieved. Automation testing is not limited to automating the UI, but it has more to it. Automation can be done at the unit level, Interaction level, UI level. With each phase of development, appropriate automated tests can be executed to ensure quality to avoid last-minute surprises.
With Continous Automation Testing you can focus on the quality and outcome of the test results without worrying about testbed creation. Automation testing can be used to test APIs, Web UI, Desktop UI, Mobile applications.
Why to use:
- To make the process faster. With an automation suite in place, the tests can be executed within a few hours which would anyway is impossible for a human to perform even in days or weeks
#10 Serverless Architecture: Serverless architecture, means that the ownership of managing the server software and hardware is with the cloud company like AWS (Lambda Functions), Microsoft Azure (Azure Functions), and Google Cloud (Google Functions). It is also known as serverless computing, a software development model where apps are hosted by a third party, so you need not handle server software or hardware.
In Serverless Architecture you don’t need to manage server load, upgrading and downgrading the hardware based on traffic. Not only this but also avoid data loss and reduce development costs.
It is not necessary to make the whole application on serverless architecture. The application could be monolithic or microservice and still cloud functions can be used to achieve a specific task which adds a great flexibility.
Why to use:
- Serverless architectures offer greater scalability, more flexibility, and quicker time to release, all at a reduced cost.
- With serverless architectures, developers do not need to worry about purchasing, provisioning, and managing backend servers.
The above article is authored by Abhishek Aggarwal, Co-Founder and Delivery Head at SpeckyFox Technologies.
