Contemporary Web Development (2020s)
Learning Objectives
- You know of some of the trends in web development from the 2020s.
As we can see from the overview outlined in the previous chapters, web development has evolved significantly over the years. In the 2020s, web development has continued to evolve, building on the previous advancements. Component-driven development continues to be the most popular approach for building client-side functionality, while RESTful APIs are commonly used on the server side.
There are a handful of trends, which include:
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GraphQL has gained foothold as an alternative to RESTful APIs. GraphQL is a query language that allows clients request only the data they need. For more information, see GraphQL documentation.
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WebAssembly is gaining traction for both client- and server-side applications. Applications are compiled to WebAssembly from other languages, so other approaches are not disappearing; developers are still exploring the best use cases for WebAssembly.
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JavaScript optimization and minimizing the amount of JavaScript shipped to the clients, aiming to enhance performance. Some frameworks like Qwik even advocate for zero JavaScript on the client — see also e.g. The Rise of Disappearing Frameworks in Web Development.
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Meta-frameworks such as Astro allow using multiple libraries and frameworks in the same project. For instance, Astro allows using React and Svelte components together, offering flexibility in development.
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Islands architecture treats components as “islands” that can be rendered independently. This approach combines server-side rendering for the initial load with client-side JavaScript for interactive parts. One of the benefits of island architecture is that it can distribute hydration to each island, allowing each island to be hydrated independently, which can improve the performance of the application.
There has been also a lot of work in the area of scalability and performance over the last decades. This is, however, the focus of the “Designing and Building Scalable Web Applications” course, with new materials scheduled for release starting mid-ish January 2025.