Current trends for web development?

[Jose_49]

Sup neowin and pals! Until 10 months ago I thought I had a grasp of Web Technology. Knowing whiz terms like Responsive Web Design, HTML 5, CSS3, jQuery and CMS I thought I had knowledge of what was going on. That's when a friend told me to try out something different than PHP and Drupal, and learn ASP.NET MVC for an upcoming project.

 

OMG. I've felt that I've been living under a rock. This forced me to understand different concepts, frameworks and platforms: In which we include: Dependency Injection (Inversion of Control), MVC (Which got popular thanks to Ruby on Rails), RESTful apps, RESS (Responsive Web Design + Server Side), Node.js (NPM, grunt, gulp) Angular, Backbone, Knockout, github, bootstrap, Web API, React.js, Animate CSS. Cross Site Script Forgery, Debugging sessions in Web Browsers, Agile Web Development, truthful understanding of OOP (I finally understood why was PHP never considered a truly OOP programming language) and many many many much more things.

 

Now that Microsoft has forked Node.js and applied the Chakra engine underneath it, Node.js will get full traction in the upcoming months.

 

So... I think I'm living under a rock. What is worse is that they are concepts that originated YEARS AGO!

 

I'm also on the brim of killing myself for all these tools. I just know little of them, but I also feel the responsibility of knowing how to work with them. My friend told me to take it easy and work with what I need now.

 

 

So I'm asking what are the current trends of web development that I'm also missing that they're very important?

 

Thanks!

I'm also fearing of going into an Analysis-Paralysis for the fear of not doing it "by the standards".

[BinaryData]

Sup neowin and pals! Until 10 months ago I thought I had a grasp of Web Technology. Knowing whiz terms like Responsive Web Design, HTML 5, CSS3, jQuery and CMS I thought I had knowledge of what was going on. That's when a friend told me to try out something different than PHP and Drupal, and learn ASP.NET MVC for an upcoming project.

 

OMG. I've felt that I've been living under a rock. This forced me to understand different concepts, frameworks and platforms: In which we include: Dependency Injection (Inversion of Control), MVC (Which got popular thanks to Ruby on Rails), RESTful apps, RESS (Responsive Web Design + Server Side), Node.js (NPM, grunt, gulp) Angular, Backbone, Knockout, github, bootstrap, Web API, React.js, Animate CSS. Cross Site Script Forgery, Debugging sessions in Web Browsers, Agile Web Development, truthful understanding of OOP (I finally understood why was PHP never considered a truly OOP programming language) and many many many much more things.

 

Now that Microsoft has forked Node.js and applied the Chakra engine underneath it, Node.js will get full traction in the upcoming months.

 

So... I think I'm living under a rock. What is worse is that they are concepts that originated YEARS AGO!

 

I'm also on the brim of killing myself for all these tools. I just know little of them, but I also feel the responsibility of knowing how to work with them. My friend told me to take it easy and work with what I need now.

 

 

So I'm asking what are the current trends of web development that I'm also missing that they're very important?

 

Thanks!

I'm also fearing of going into an Analysis-Paralysis for the fear of not doing it "by the standards".

HTML5/CSS3/PHP/Ruby on Rails/jQuery has been everything I've encountered. I don't see too many sites using asp.net anymore either. I'm sure its out there, but I don't see it.

[EddieF]

I'm with BinaryData, HTML5/CSS3/PHP/jQuery has me covered on most projects.  I see asp.net here and there, usually as a small back-end app though, not full blown websites anymore.

I have done some cool projects with node.js, but more as a novelty than a requirement.  

Its about using the right tools for the job.  A lot of what you mentioned crosses over.  MVC, RESTful apps, bootstrap, etc.. can apply towards any project, written in PHP, python, ruby, etc...

 

Its just important to know about them and being willing to learn and use them if the job calls for it. If I had to pick any one thing that you should spend your energy towards learning now, I'd pick knowing the MVC architecture,  which would apply to just about anything. However, it itself is more of a coding standard for reuseability/readability and you could program something just as well without even knowing MVC is a thing. On the flip-side to that, trying to work with an already existing project that use the MVC architecture and not understanding it could make life rather difficult. 

[sbauer]

It's funny how people's experiences vary. I see ASP.NET all the time. On the flip side, I never see PHP. Rails projects come around. I mostly work with larger companies, though. 

 

I have three ASP.NET MVC projects right now. One that works with MongoDB and others that work with SQL Server.

 

I would research your area and see what's going on. Markets can vary dramatically. 

[vhane]

Big picture-wise:

• Containerisation, DevOps
• Microservices, distributed applications

[Jose_49]

 

Big picture-wise:

• Containerisation, DevOps
• Microservices, distributed applications

 

Didn't catch this!

[BinaryData]

It's funny how people's experiences vary. I see ASP.NET all the time. On the flip side, I never see PHP. Rails projects come around. I mostly work with larger companies, though. 

 

I have three ASP.NET MVC projects right now. One that works with MongoDB and others that work with SQL Server.

 

I would research your area and see what's going on. Markets can vary dramatically. 

 

I work for CSC (Computer Science Corporation), most of the stuff developed is what I posted. I asked a few of our programmers who work with different teams, and they've all said that PHP/SQL with various other languages are easier to implement, and widely supported. However, most of these devs only work with Linux. I'm not sure how Linux friendly asp.net is.

 

 

As for Node.js, I've never heard of it until this topic. I may have previously, but didn't catch the context.

[Mulrian]

I'm not seeing a whole lot of new PHP being created at the moment and of the people who do use it, must moan about it. Seems to be going down a lot in popularity recently, being replaced by Javascript, Python and Ruby on Rails.

 

I lot of teams develop for ASP.NET as the tooling is great - C# and Visual Studio. Can't say I blame them really.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

What makes you think that Node.js will now take off because Microsoft has forked it?  

 

From my experience there is very little serious web development done using Microsoft technologies other than what enterprise development shops produce for internal consumption - a very contentious statement which will have the .NET crowd jumping all over me, without doubt.

[spacer]

I work on ASP.NET MVC projects every day. Microsoft's Web API 2 makes creating true web services incredibly easy. In my opinion, PHP is sloppy and behind the curve in comparison. The problem is that ASP.NET has traditionally required Windows Servers. However, that all changed when Microsoft announced .NET was going open source, including the ASP.NET pipeline and Visual Studio. I don't know if it's officially available yet, but it could be a viable option for Linux platforms.

 

Node.js is a cool platform. I definitely like how light-weight it is and I enjoy programming in JavaScript. So an end-to-end JavaScript application is just fine by me. The problem is, is that it's fairly new and therefore you don't see too many companies around here (Connecticut) using it yet. Most companies here are large insurance companies, and they only change technologies every eon or so.

 

I also use jQuery, lodash, knockout, toastr, momentjs, requirejs, and some other frameworks on a daily basis for client-side programming. With a lot of custom javascript on top of it.

 

As far as  trends go, I would say Angular 2, Ember, and other SPA frameworks are going to be pretty ubiquitous in the near future; with everything communicating via web services. To that end, HTTP 2 is going to drastically change how we consume data over the web. All of our tricks to speed up page loading will be obsolete, which is pretty cool.

[Mulrian]

Yeah I forgot about Angular. My company and a lot of competitors are now picking up Angular and we seem to be having a lot of success with it. Trouble is people are reluctant to start a new project in 1.x when 2 is around the corner and changes everything.

[sbauer]

 I asked a few of our programmers who work with different teams, and they've all said that PHP/SQL with various other languages are easier to implement, and widely supported. However, most of these devs only work with Linux. 

 

That's why you got a lot of PHP answers since they only work with Linux. ASP.NET on Linux has just recently started getting official support from MS. 

[LaP]

Last time i checked PHP was still more used than ASP.NET MVC. Lot of web servers are based on linux and last time i checked ASP.NET support on Linux was still not a reality. Ruby is supposed to be used but so far no company i worked for used it. I work more often with PHP than ASP.NET MVC but i work most of the time for "small" companies. I still see Java more often than people want to admit.

 

My only recommendation would be stay far, very far away from Web Form. This is crap and should be burned and sent to hell.

 

I would say It's important to know c#, .NET framework and the other tools provided by MS like Razor, Entity or LINQ. You can learn ASP.NET MVC on the fly if you are familiar with MVC and programming (C++/Java/PHP). It's not really hard. Grab a book and read it if you are a good programmer that will be enough to get you started. You can do a little 1 week project as a practice.

 

To be honest despite what fans will tell you all server side techs are good enough. PHP, Ruby, ASP, ... they are all used on big web sites and they all work relatively well if you know what you are doing. Being a pro in client side techs will likely pay more. Most kiddos coming out of school forgot to properly learn CSS, JS, HTML standard, WAI, responsive design media queries and such.

 

Every programmers with a brain can grab a book and do something with ASP.NET, PHP, Ruby or Java. That's not hard. But mastering CSS/HTML/JS and knowing all the little differences between old IE, new IE, Firefox, Chrome can get some time. There's lot of things to know on the client side and most kids neglect this. They are very good ASP.NET programmers. They build crazy things using automated tools doing most of the client side work for them. But when they have a client side problem with the tech they are using (it's inevitable no matter how good the framework is) they are totally clueless about it. I can't count the number of times i was hired to solve a simple client side problem related to some JS and CSS. I can't count the number of times i've seen HTML/CSS/JS code that should be obliterated from existence.

 

Frameworks are awesome. But you should still learn how to properly build a web site by hands and understand how client side tech are working.

[sbauer]

Being a pro in client side techs will likely pay more. Most kiddos coming out of school forgot to properly learn CSS, JS, HTML standard, WAI, responsive design media queries and such.

 

Every programmers with a brain can grab a book and do something with ASP.NET, PHP, Ruby or Java. That's not hard. But mastering CSS/HTML/JS and knowing all the little differences between old IE, new IE, Firefox, Chrome can get some time. There's lot of things to know on the client side and most kids neglect this. They are very good ASP.NET programmers. They build crazy things using automated tools doing most of the client side work for them. But when they have a client side problem with the tech they are using (it's inevitable no matter how good the framework is) they are totally clueless about it. I can't count the number of times i was hired to solve a simple client side problem related to some JS and CSS. I can't count the number of times i've seen HTML/CSS/JS code that should be obliterated from existence.

 

 

This so short-sighted and, quite frankly, wrong that I don't even know where to start. You're completely downplaying the importance of properly coded back-end/middle tiers while talking up the importance of browser compliance. It doesn't matter how it looks in any browser if it doesn't perform well or function properly. 

 

Also, on average, backend developers and software engineers make more money. 

 

http://www.quora.com/Which-job-title-has-a-higher-salary-front-end-developer-or-back-end-developer

 

http://blog.udacity.com/2014/11/front-end-web-developers-what-youll_12.html

[Mulrian]

Quite frankly around here front-end web developers get paid pittance compared to pretty much every other kind of developer. The resource pool for front-end is massive - everyone knows a bit of HTML/CSS/JS nowadays. People who are familiar with complex backend architectures are a lot harder to come by.

 

I don't see why anyone at the moment would just stick with client facing apps - you are pushing yourself into a corner which a load of other people have already fell into.

 

Every programmers with a brain can grab a book and do something with ASP.NET, PHP, Ruby or Java. That's not hard. But mastering CSS/HTML/JS and knowing all the little differences between old IE, new IE, Firefox, Chrome can get some time. There's lot of things to know on the client side and most kids neglect this. 

 

Knowing all the differences between browsers may take some time, but it's not exactly that hard and the problem is getting smaller and smaller nowadays. Yes people can read a book about ASP.Net/PHP. That definitely doesn't mean they are able to create a well designed backend for a webapp. Not even close.

[LaP]

This so short-sighted and, quite frankly, wrong that I don't even know where to start. You're completely downplaying the importance of properly coded back-end/middle tiers while talking up the importance of browser compliance. It doesn't matter how it looks in any browser if it doesn't perform well or function properly. 

 

Also, on average, backend developers and software engineers make more money. 

 

http://www.quora.com/Which-job-title-has-a-higher-salary-front-end-developer-or-back-end-developer

 

http://blog.udacity.com/2014/11/front-end-web-developers-what-youll_12.html

 

By paying more i was not talking necessarily about money.

 

Knowing both design, client side programming and  server side programming will make it more easy to find a good job. The design and client side programming part is neglected by so much programmers it's not even funny anymore. Knowing it is imo definitely a big + and a important tool added to a toolbox.

[Mulrian]

 The design and client side programming part is neglected by so much programmers it's not even funny anymore. Knowing it is imo definitely a big + and a important tool added to a toolbox.

 

Really? This is pretty much all that new developers focus on IMO. They all want to create new shiny webapps using the next big Javascript framework.

[TAZMINATOR]

For web development side: I have been using PHP/CSS/JS mostly.

 

I did some DHTML for a bit..  Ended up using those languages as mentioned above.

 

For software side, I have been using the Visual Studio.... I started programming with Visual Basic that was many years ago...   C# C++ as well.

 

 

I did some ASP/.NET for short time when I did my pages on my friend's servers. Then he ended up moving to Seattle for a job at Microsoft. So I went back to the languages I mentioned in the first line of my post.

[sbauer]

 

By paying more i was not talking necessarily about money.

 

Knowing both design, client side programming and  server side programming will make it more easy to find a good job. The design and client side programming part is neglected by so much programmers it's not even funny anymore. Knowing it is imo definitely a big + and a important tool added to a toolbox.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't want a programmer designing my site. If a company expects their programmers to design their sites, then it's a company that I don't want to work for. I know javascript and use it, but I don't have any design capabilities at all. It's not my specialty and I'm OK with that. 

[LaP]

Quite frankly around here front-end web developers get paid pittance compared to pretty much every other kind of developer. The resource pool for front-end is massive - everyone knows a bit of HTML/CSS/JS nowadays. People who are familiar with complex backend architectures are a lot harder to come by.

 

I might have not clearly expressed my opinion.

 

I'm not suggesting him to become a web designer doing front end ui. That would be a bad advise of course unless this is what he wants to do. What i wanted to say is he should know design and client side programming and not focus only on the server side programming. Let's be realistic for a sec the % of people who become good enough in "complex backend architectures" to make a fortune out of it is marginal at best. Most of the web devs are not.

 

Most people end up part of a team where they do simple pieces of code not requiring special knowledge. Lot of them end up doing almost exclusively forms. Anyway that's the reality of the market where i live. I would say 90+% of the job in web development are this. Of course if you are living close to silicon valley it might be different.

 

Average web programmers are countless. They are everywhere. Few of them where i live are good in both in server side programming and client side programming. My OWN and personal experience (where i live) is when i apply for a job my good understanding of both side of the fence helps me get it most of the time. It's a tool added to the toolbox.

 

Now of course if he wants to become a master in "complex backend architectures" then fine. But reading his first post again that's not really the vibe i got from it (i might be wrong). It looks like he wants to become yet another web devs. They are not hard to find here. Your mileage might vary of course.

 

All this said my original comment/rant might simply have something to do with all the young web devs i encounter these days not knowing a **** about front end programming. It's not because you don't have to do it too much that you should not know about it. I've seen some awful pieces of CSS/JS in the past 5 years and it's sad cause while it was understandable 10 years ago it's imo not acceptable in 2015. But that's my experience things might be different in other countries.

[LaP]

I'm sorry, but I don't want a programmer designing my site. If a company expects their programmers to design their sites, then it's a company that I don't want to work for. I know javascript and use it, but I don't have any design capabilities at all. It's not my specialty and I'm OK with that. 

 

Did i say he had to design anything? If i said it then it was not my intention.

 

I said it's good to know about it. That's it. But anyway it's going nowhere maybe my English is not good enough to clearly express myself in a complicated subject.

[perochan]

other than you mentioned know Bootstrap 3 and responsive design and photoshop.

[firey]

HTML5/CSS3/PHP/Ruby on Rails/jQuery has been everything I've encountered. I don't see too many sites using asp.net anymore either. I'm sure its out there, but I don't see it.

I usually stick with HTML5/CSS3/Angular/jQuery.  However 99.9% of web development I do at work is ASP.NET

[vhane]

Didn't catch this!

 

These are the current big picture trends that I'm seeing in the industry. To elaborate a bit:

 

Containerisation using Docker. Move over virtual machines, containers are where it's at now. Docker automates the deployment of applications inside software containers. Docker has had a meteoric rise since it's inception in 2013. The next big trend in this sector is orchestration.

 

DevOps: In practice, this means that the team building the software is also responsible for deploying and operating it. As opposed to developing it and throwing it over the wall for the operations team to run the software.

 

Microservices: Instead of building monolithic n-tier systems, split the system up into small separate services that can be independently developed, updated and deployed.

 

Distributed systems. Moore's law is running its course. In order to get more performance out of the hardware, we need to parallelise. To scale beyond one machine, we also need to parallelise. Functional programming lends itself well to this, and it has thus been trending up. Apple's new language, Swift, has functional programming baked in. Java 8 finally got lambdas. The Actor Model (see Erlang/OTP, Akka, and recently Akka.NET) is an elegant way to think about distributed applications. Check out Elixir and the Phoenix Framework for a take on what Ruby and Rails might look like in this brave new distributed world.

 

To my original list I will add Functional Reactive Programming, and in particular Reactive Extensions (Rx). Rx came out of Microsoft, and has exploded in popularity. It has been ported to many other languages.

[Jose_49]

My only recommendation would be stay far, very far away from Web Form. This is crap and should be burned and sent to hell.

 

I would say It's important to know c#, .NET framework and the other tools provided by MS like Razor, Entity or LINQ. You can learn ASP.NET MVC on the fly if you are familiar with MVC and programming (C++/Java/PHP). It's not really hard. Grab a book and read it if you are a good programmer that will be enough to get you started. You can do a little 1 week project as a practice.

Agreed.

 

In regards of MVC, I've already learned most of the basic stuff + Entity Framework + Identity + Razor. Need to learn much more, but I'm getting the hang of it.

[greenwizard88]

If you think PHP isn't object oriented, the PHP you're learning is 10 years old. Modern PHP is very much so an object oriented language.