Tech in 2022
If there's one thing I can say for certain about the new year, it's this:
2022 will be an awesome year for web developers.
I figured I'd take this opportunity to discuss some of the new tools / updates coming in the new year, combined with my predictions of what I think will be the most popular frameworks and libraries you won't regret learning. I'm a front-end developer, so most of these predictions are front-end related - but that's also because front-end frameworks are moving in a fullstack direction, making them exciting for backend developers too!
Let's start with the Vue ecosystem. A few months ago, Nuxt 3 entered public beta (using Vue 3), and I fully expect it to be production ready in early 2022. This is super exciting for any Vue developers, as Nuxt is a great framework for building serverside rendered or static applications. We'll also get API routes in the new version - meaning you can create your backend within Nuxt as well, making it a fullstack framework. The upgrade to using Vue 3 will also improve performance, create a better developer experience and solve many issues with past versions of Nuxt. Definitely excited for this release!
There's lots of cool stuff happening in React land too. NextJS has been the go-to React framework for a while, and I think they'll continue to push awesome features in the new year. Vercel (the company behind Next) has made several important hires to really move development forwards too. At the same time, the new framework Remix was released to the public some months back and is definitely picking up steam. Remix is another fullstack framework based on React, but it's very focused on the web fundamentals and using "the platform", which is a welcome breath of fresh air.
We also can't forget about Svelteand SvelteKit, another great option for fullstack apps. With Rich Harris (the creator of Svelte) now working fulltime on the framework, I'm excited for the official production-ready release of version 1.0, likely coming early this year.
These are some of the expected updates coming soon, so let me end with some more personal predictions of what tools I think will REALLY explode in popularity this year:
- TailwindCSS. It's just the best CSS framework, period. And I think more and more people will notice that as time goes on and it continues improving.
- Prisma. Prisma is an ORM to interface with your database. It's got a great developer experience and works amazingly with all the JS frameworks mentioned earlier, so I think this year will be huge for Prisma's popularity.
- TypeScript. I've been very back and forth on my opinion of TypeScript, but I can't deny that it's here to stay. And once you get used to it, I think it'll be a serious productivity booster that will continue to grow in 2022.
- GitHub Copilot. It's an insane tool. I've been using it for a few months now as part of the early testing phase, but it's likely to be released publicly in 2022 and will change the way we think about coding.
There's lots more exciting stuff happening in the new year, but we'll explore that as the year unfolds. Also: try not to get stressed about all of this, thinking you have to learn everything from scratch - you don't. Remember that these are tools designed to help you create better websites and apps, and that's all they are. Just embrace them and learn as you go along!