Web Development trends in 2020 will shape the development landscape for the decade to come. Understanding emerging and established technologies is crucial; if you can capitalize on all the available tools at your disposal to make your site run better and more efficiently, you can ensure your brand’s site stays ahead of the web development curve and consistently outshines your competition. Keep an eye on the following web development trends in 2020 to enhance your web development toolset and to ensure your site’s continued high performance.
Investigate new JavaScript Frameworks
JavaScript frameworks have taken off in a big way, and it’s definitely worth your time to start investigating their potential for your development efforts. Specifically, Vue.js has grown incredibly popular. If you have used competing frameworks like React and Angular but have not investigated Vue.js yet, it may be worth your time to invest some effort into learning this new framework. If you already know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it should take no time at all before you can start building things easily with the Vue.js open-source framework. It’s adaptable, versatile, and sure to gain even more traction in 2020 and beyond.
Learn CSS Grid, Flexbox, and CSS Frameworks
CSS is more complex than HTML, but it’s necessary to understand the powerful options and tools within CSS to be a successful modern web developer. Going into 2020, more developers are going to start taking full advantage of the additional tools CSS offers to make web development easier and more intuitive.
CSS Custom Properties are useful variables that can make CSS development easier, and you may want to take time to learn Sass. If you understand CSS, you can learn Sass, and this can make your CSS development faster and more efficient. It is a CSS preprocessor that can dramatically cut down your production times.
Responsive Design Is Still King
Consider taking a mobile-first approach to website design. Build your smaller mobile site first, and then start adding columns for larger displays. Responsive design, or the ability of a website’s design to respond to the device on which it is viewed, continues to be the preferred method for handling complex web development today. Since mobile traffic is sure to keep increasing, understanding and implementing responsive design is a great idea going into 2020.
Git and GitHub
Any kind of programming should involve version control, allowing you to test new features without overwriting the code you have that you know works. GitHub and Gitlab are some of the most popular version control tools available, and they’re easy to learn. You can use these services to prototype your site or test new versions of your site safely.
Understand State Management
When it comes to working with larger applications, a third-party state management tool may be necessary. It’s worth your time to learn how to use state managers like Vuex or React so you have reliable state management tools available when you need them, but you should get used to needing them less in 2020 and beyond.
Server-Side Rendering Will Take Off
Server-side rendering has already become a trend in 2019. Most professional web developers expect it to grow even more popular in 2020 and beyond. Instead of client-side rendering of single page web applications, frameworks like NextJS and NuxtJS allow you to run React or Vue on the server side. While a framework for a framework may seem overcomplicated, server-side rendering actually brings you closer to production than building static assets and following a typical production path thanks to file system routing. This also improves your SEO because your content is already there as if it were just a regular HTML file on the server instead of waiting for JavaScript to render the content for SEO bots to crawl. Server-side rendering also enables static exporting and automatic code splitting.
Static Site Generators
React offers Gatsby and Vue offers Gridsome, and these are two static site generators you should familiarize yourself with for 2020 web development. These generate static web pages, allow you to implement data fetching easily and expand on the functionalities of single-page applications. Gatsby sites are incredibly fast, don’t require servers to function, and improve SEO to boot. Gatsby is gaining a lot of traction and is sure to become more popular in 2020.
TypeScript
TypeScript is everything contained within JavaScript plus many additional features that can streamline your future web development projects. It enables the ability to have static types, which JavaScript does not allow by default. It’s also completely optional, making your JavaScript more flexible. You can use it with a front-end framework like Vue or React, but you can also use it on the backend. It also includes modules, classes, decorators, and a compiler that compiles your code down into clean JavaScript.
Try Cloud Database Management
FireBase is a fantastic new cloud-based database that functions as a full-fledged cloud platform. It comes with a full set of authentication tools and many other additional features you won’t find with other databases. SQLlite is fantastic for prototyping if you want a lightweight database or something to use as a cache for smaller applications.
Imagine Monkey is an established web development and digital marketing firm offering high-return design and development services to business owners across various industries. We stay up to date with the latest web development technologies, so contact us today to learn more about what we’re most excited to use in 2020 and beyond.