5 web development trends to look up in 2018

For succeeding in digital-based industries it’s vital to accept tech changes and ride along with it. You can do this by exploring tomorrow’s trends and seeking to integrate them into your business plan. And, when it comes to web development trends, sometimes they change faster than they can be implemented. That’s why it is important to be ahead of the game.

So, here are some in-demand web development trends that we believe you should look up this year:

1. Javascript

In our previous article, we underlined that Javascript continues to dominate on software development industry. Its position is strengthening even more in the last few years thanks to dozens of JS-related technologies existing and still in development. Now we are not just making small interactive elements in web pages anymore, we are building complex applications in JavaScript. And, it became more complicated to grasp the size and scope of the current JavaScript ecosystem.

One of the main items that benefit from the recent Javascript improvements, such as ES6 and ES7, is Functional Programming. Some useful improvements for functional programming are:

• Arrow functions: Arrow functions reduce boilerplate when writing functions.

// functional ES6
const numbers = [1, 5, 8, 13];
const doubledNumbers = numbers.map((number) => number * 2);

• Object/Array Spread: Object spread makes it really easy to avoid mutating objects because it is so much easier to create new objects that contain existing values.

// old school
var oldState = { email: 'foo@example.com', comment: 'i really like javascript' };
var newState = {};
Object.assign(newState, oldState, { ip: '192.168.5.87' });

// with spread
const oldState = { email: 'foo@example.com', comment: 'i really like javascript' };
const newState = { ...oldState, ip: '192.168.5.87' };

• async/await: Their purpose is to simplify the behavior of using promises synchronously and to perform some behavior on a group of Promises.

ReactJS will also have an important role to play in 2018 thanks to its versatility. React keeps winning customer satisfaction surveys and according to indeed.com, React is the first library to pass jQuery in job popularity in a decade.

Moreover, the rise of Node.js has made JavaScript boundless. With the help of Node.js frameworks, JavaScript can be used in front-end, web server, desktop application, embedded system, databases and so on.  And, in 2018, there are some Node.js Frameworks that will stand out:

• Express consists of features that assist in building a very powerful web and mobile apps as well as APIs. Extension package or plugins can be written in Express easily and be used quickly.
• Sail.js (node.js mvc) is an ultimate solution as it comes with features that can build anything. It also makes database work easier irrelevant no matter what database is being used.
• KOA handles flow control, error-handling and omits callback issues with the help of generators. It consists of modular approach and allows the user to write codes their own way to make it robust.
• Meteor assists you build web and mobile apps through JavaScript. It has only one API which is utilized in both, client and server side. You can make a connection with anything with the database through its DDP protocol.
• Derby.JS consists of Racer, a data synchronization engine, that assists in swift data sync amid database, sever as well as a browser.

2. Golang

Even though JS will still hold their superiority in 2018, Golang will strengthen its position – it is just the question of time.

Why is Golang became one of 2018 web development trends?

• Development is fast, secure, and provides cross-platform support
• The language is developed by Google and well-financed which guarantees its regular improvement.
• Huge collection of open source packages and free official guides
• It is the language of cloud infrastructure. Go is a part of Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, AWS, Dropbox.

As we talked in one of our previous articles, Golang is a language of cloud industries and open source development. Both Cloud and OpenSource technologies are definitely going to grow in next 5 years – and Go programming is a perfect way of implementing these solutions.

Golang has 8 years on the market – so it’s relatively new. However, OverStack and GitHub statistics state that the number of Golang developers is already huge, and it is only going to grow.

3. Real-Time Apps

Real-time web apps, based on WebSockets, have been around for years, but they are getting more and more popular. The reason: users want fast interactions and real-time web apps are delivering on the need to share information instantly.

The main idea of real-time web apps is that a connection between client and server is left open, and the server pushes the new data once it’s there. Prior to real-time web apps, clients had to check back manually to find out if something new had happened.

While this has been very common in the world of Node.js, this trend is really spreading to other languages and frameworks as well. Even Ruby on Rails, a framework which has always relied heavily on server side rendering, and very long ignored the rise of Javascript single-page-applications, has seen the need for real-time (as you can see in Basecamp 3), and incorporated it under the name “ActionCable”.

4. Chatbots

As you probably noticed chatbots gained incredible popularity in 2017. And they will continue to evolve helping to increase communication online.

With chatbots, a company can provide a personalized experience that will enhance the quality of service through instant customer service 24 hours a day. In fact, many have predicted that 85% of all customer interactions will be done without human assistance by 2020.

It means that the customer service/care chatbots should turn into an essential aspect of every website this year. Nowadays consumers have become excessively demanding and want their issues to be resolved instantly, the customer service/care chatbots should top the priority lists of web development service providers.

5. Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

Not widely known, progressive web apps are similar to native mobile applications. Introduced in 2015, the concept of progressive web apps are anticipated to compete for the native mobile applications in the year 2018. This technology has many advantages, such as the ability to work offline, virtually no load time (because much of the information is stored in the cache of the phone), good reliability, and the ability to receive notifications. These progressive web apps can be designed faster than mobile applications, work for all users, and are generally easier to deploy and maintain, which is good for both the developer and the user.

This can maximize conversion rate by enabling the users to browse the Internet even when they are not connected to the Internet. However, despite being a relatively new technology, the progressive web application will continue to progress in 2018.

In conclusion, it’s important for businesses to have both a strong online presence and competitive spirit, but also a flexible strategy based on web development trends in order to attract new customers, satisfy existing customers and encourage older customers to return.