Svelte? Preact? Next? Gatsby? Nuxt? JavaScript frameworks continue to evolve as we farewell flash
You’ve heard of Vue, React, Angular? And Google’s alternative to developing cross-platform mobile apps Flutter with Dart? TypeScript? And are probably using one of them on your current project but what about some of the newer frameworks on the scene? The JavaScript world continues to evolve at a lightening pace…
With web being the norm these days & as a specialist software recruiter across the market I see a lot of trends evolve. Gone are the flash / ActionScript days and long video intros on websites that came out in the late 90s / early 2000s.
These were hilarious when you clicked on an intro which would take forever to load then gave you this over the top big graphics showcase when you were just trying to find the company’s phone number…soon a button was introduced ‘skip intro’…and the rest is history.
But I have to say there were some ground breaking designs back then & the experimentation of new graphics was awesome. In my early days of IT recruitment we’d have a lot of fun finding a really cool new website with an outlandish intro pushing the limits and gather round showing it to our work mates.
Some examples of classic Flash websites back in the day click here: https://www.creativebloq.com/flash/best-flash-sites-ever-7087173
Flash created by Adobe was the dominant framework for web for a long time but it is finally coming to the end of the road with Adobe announcing support will finish 31st Dec 2020 which marks a real end of an era in the web world.
Adobe announcement click here: https://www.adobe.com/nz/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html
So we’ve come a long way & had a whole bunch of new JavaScript frameworks & eco systems evolve including most popular React, Vue, Angular with Ember, Knockout & Backbone still about and recent newcomers Preact, Svelte on the front end. Back end has seen Node explode in popularity over the years with Express and more recently Next, Gatsby, Nuxt & testing frameworks Jest, Mocha & Jasmine.
So here are some of the new frameworks on the scene & how they describe themselves…
Preact https://preactjs.com/
‘Fast 3kb alternative to React with the same modern API’.
Svelte https://svelte.dev/
‘Svelte is a radical new approach to building user interfaces. Whereas traditional frameworks like React and Vue do the bulk of their work in the browser, Svelte shifts that work into a compile step that happens when you build your app. Instead of using techniques like virtual DOM diffing, Svelte writes code that surgically updates the DOM when the state of your app changes.’
Next https://nextjs.org/
‘Next.js gives you the best developer experience with all the features you need for production: hybrid static & server rendering, TypeScript support, smart bundling, route pre-fetching, and more. No config needed.’
Gatsby https://www.gatsbyjs.com
‘Gatsby is a React-based open source framework for creating websites and apps. Build anything you can imagine with over 2000 plugins and performance, scalability, and security built-in by default.’
Nuxt https://nuxtjs.org
Nuxt claims: ‘Build your next Vue.js application with confidence using NuxtJS. An open source framework making web development simple and powerful.
Jest https://jestjs.io
‘Jest is a delightful JavaScript Testing Framework with a focus on simplicity.It works with projects using: Babel, TypeScript, Node, React, Angular, Vue and more!’
Mocha https://mochajs.org
‘Mocha is a feature-rich JavaScript test framework running on Node.js and in the browser, making asynchronous testing simple and fun. Mocha tests run serially, allowing for flexible and accurate reporting, while mapping uncaught exceptions to the correct test cases.’
Jasmine https://jasmine.github.io
‘Behaviour driven JavaScript’
But what are the best & why? I guess it always comes down to what you’re trying to achieve ascertains what tooling or framework will best provide the solution. And then comes some considerations to keep your boss happy - how well supported is the framework? Community? What companies use it? Does it have staying power?
What’s your favourite framework or ecosystem? Have I missed any? Love to hear your thoughts…
I'm Paul, I Iove coffee and I’m Founder & Principal Consultant of Sunstone, an IT Recruitment & HR company specialising in recruiting IT roles within software, web, mobile, blockchain, big data, infrastructure, security & networks in Christchurch, South Island of New Zealand.