Out with 2014 and in with 2015. With the beginning of a new year comes reflections on the past year and planning for the next. With 2015 already underway, I would like to take a moment to highlight some technologies and tools that I feel will have an impact on web development over the course of the year.
Languages
ECMAScript 6
ECMAScript is the scripting language most commonly implemented as JavaScript on the web. In the last few years, JavaScript has gone from being a language looked down upon by many to the ‘new hotness’. JavaScript is everywhere; front end, back end and executable on most devices. Because of its versatility, JavaScript has been used for almost every conceivable case.
Why watch out for it in 2015?
ECMAScript will bring a boatload of new features and functionality to the language, including some OOP concepts. This native implementation will greatly reduce a lot of boilerplate code as well change some of the architectural approaches taken when constructing a JavaScript based application. And the great thing is that many of the modern browsers have already started implementing many features of ECMAScript 6 which developers can utilize in their projects today. Features that ECMAScript 6 will be adding include:
- Arrows
- Classes
- Enhanced object literals
- Template strings
- Destructuring
- Default + rest + spread
- let + const
- iterators + for..of
- Generators
- Unicode
- Modules
- Module loaders
- map + set + weakmap + weakset
- Proxies
- Symbols
- Subclassable built-ins
- Promises
- math + number + string + object APIs
- Binary and octal literals
- Reflect api
- Tail calls
ASP.NET 5
ASP.NET has seen its fair share of changes and improvements over the years as it tries to align itself with industry trends. ASP.NET 5 is the latest additional to the ASP.NET family and was designed to build the current breed of modern web apps. ASP.NET has been optimized to develop apps that are either deployed to the cloud or run on-premises. Modularization of components with minimal overhead allow for flexibility while constructing your solutions.
Why watch out for it in 2015?
ASP.NET is Microsoft’s latest version of its popular .NET stack for developing Web applications. There are many new features in ASP.NET 5 that are noteworthy including:
- New flexible and cross-platform runtime
- Cloud-ready environment configuration
- Unified programming model that combines MVC, Web API, and Web Pages
- Ability to see changes without re-building the project
- Side-by-side versioning of the .NET Framework
- Ability to self-host or host on IIS
- New tools in Visual Studio 2015
- Open source in GitHub
Frameworks
Angular 2.0
Love it or hate it, AngularJS has certainly made its mark on web development in the last few years. AngularJS is a structural framework for creating dynamic web apps. AngularJS allows HTML to become a template language and that extends HTML’s syntax. Some of AngularJS’s core features such as data binding and dependency injection help eliminate a lot of boilerplate. With many features addressing key functionality that web developers would normally spend a good portion of their time creating from scratch, AngularJS has really helped jumpstart projects.
Why watch out for it in 2015?
With the coming release of Angular 2.0, a lot of buzz has been created around what this new major release will entail. And with the release slated to make a launch possibly at the tail end of 2015, at best there is a lot of time in between for changes. The Angular team has been chronicling its progress for the community to see and provide feedback on. As of right now, Angular 2.0 will be a complete rewrite as the entire framework is being architected to address the current state of affairs in regards to industry trends and needs. Mobile first, improvements in performance, as well as loosening the coupling of modules, and utilizing new native language functionality in JavaScript are just a few of the considerations the Angular team have in mind.
Components
Web Components
Web Components are a collection of standards working their way through the W3C and rolling out to modern browsers simultaneously. Some of the concepts that make up Web Components are:
- HTML Templates - This specification describes a method for declaring inert DOM subtrees in HTML and manipulating them to instantiate document fragments with identical contents.
- HTML Imports - HTML Imports are a way to include and reuse HTML documents in other HTML documents.
- Shadow DOM - This specification describes a method of combining multiple DOM trees into one hierarchy and how these trees interact with each other within a document, thus enabling better composition of the DOM.
- Custom Elements - This specification describes the method for enabling the author to define and use new types of DOM elements in a document.
Why watch out for it in 2015?
Web Components allow markup and styles to be bundled together into custom HTML elements. These new elements are fully encapsulated meaning that the HTML and styles that are written are always rendered as intended and as a bonus all the backing HTML is not accessible to external JavaScript. Web Components help developers practice modular design natively while building upon existing skillsets.
ReactJS
ReactJS is also heavily focused on the UI realm of web development. ReactJS is a JavaScript library for creating user interfaces by the good folks at Facebook and Instagram. React is thought of as the View in MV* web application architectures. JavaScript functions are used to generate HTML in a reactive data flow resulting in UI components that are nicely encapsulated and composable.
Why watch out for it in 2015?
React.js is getting a lot of developer attention and will benefit from more tools and examples becoming available. Much in the vein as many other highly focused pieces of software, ReactJS doesn’t try to make itself out to be a kitchen sink approach to web development. React focuses specifically in the View of a web application and by doing so it allows for developers to create modular, well encapsulated components that are highly performant.
Platforms
Docker
”Docker is an open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship and run distributed applications. Consisting of Docker Engine, a portable, lightweight runtime and packaging tool, and Docker Hub, a cloud service for sharing applications and automating workflows, Docker enables apps to be quickly assembled from components and eliminates the friction between development, QA and production environments. As a result, IT can ship faster and run the same app, unchanged, on laptops, data center VMs, and any cloud.”
Why watch out for it in 2015?
With Docker 1.0 being released in the middle of 2014, it marked the platform as being production use ready. Since then there has been an explosion of tools based on Docker to facilitate its use. Microsoft is even looking to support Docker in their next version of Windows Server. The adoption of Docker for projects only seems to be on the rise as more people invest in the platform.
Outie
By no means does this list encompass even a fraction of the amazing technologies and tools that will have an impact on the Web in 2015. With 2015 just beginning, a year of learning, growing and developing great software is ahead of us all
