January 04, 2020 | By Webandcrafts
Top JavaScript framework & libraries to watch out for in 2020
It all started in the year 1995 when Brendan Eich during his years at Netscape Communications created JavaScript. JavaScript, commonly known as JS is a high-level, object-oriented programming language which was created to make web pages alive. Programs in JS are called scripts and can be written in web page’s HTML and runs when the page loads. JavaScript conforms to a specification called ECMAScript and till present JavaScript remains as the best-known implementation of ECMAScript.
History of JavaScript framework
Browser compatibility was a common issue during the initial days for JavaScript. A code which runs well in one browser may fail to run in another browser. JQuery was the first library of JavaScript, and it helped in HTML document manipulation, animation, event handling and so on. Jquery helped developers solve the problem of browser compatibility up to a great extent. JQuery played a vital role in making the website interactive during those days.
Several JavaScript framework was created to solve the problem of consistent data handling. In 2014, a central repository called NPM registry was created, and it consists of lots of public and paid-for-packages. Backbone, Ember was some of the frameworks that were initially built to solve some persisting issues. A framework is one in which there will be some rules and regulations, and by following these rules and regulations, you can build your application. Instead of building the application from scratch you can make use of some common components from certain templates. BackboneJS was one such framework which was created to build single-page applications. BackboneJS doesn’t need to make use of JQuery to build applications; it is an independent framework. But the entire front-end application development landscape changed with the introduction of AngularJS, one of the most successful JavaScript framework. Two-way data binding was one feature of AngularJS that contributed to the success of the framework. In two-way data binding, any changes in the application state will reflect automatically to the view and vice-versa. Dependency injection and the ability to create reusable components was another feature that was offered by AngularJS. There are lots of other frameworks like Vue.js, React.js, and so on. Facebook released React framework in 2013 and since than React have enjoyed great popularity. At present Javascript can run on both browsers and server-side using Node.js.
So let’s dive deep into the world of different JavaScript framework and see how each one will benefit you in the coming years.
Express.js, a prebuilt Node.js framework is a lightweight and minimalist framework used for making server-side web applications which are faster and smarter. Express.js gave programmers the freedom to code on the server-side using the same language. Express.js is the most successful Node.js framework released so far.
Event loop on Node.js helps in performing the I/O operations asynchronously without blocking any other services. Apart from lightning speed executions, the biggest success of Node.js comes from the fact that it can handle a large number of requests at the same time without any failure. Even though Node.js is an extremely good language by making use of Express.js, you can reduce the coding time considerably. Documentation of Express.js is well written, and in conjunction with Node.js, it will be the most in-demand JavaScript framework for back-end development in the years to come.
At present, React.js is the most popular front end technology in the world. Developed by Facebook, React.js is not a JavaScript framework but an open-source JavaScript library and which can be used for front-end development. Many big companies like Facebook, Netflix, DropBox, PayPal, Tesla Motors and many others use React.js. Following are the reasons that make React.js the most preferred one for front-end development.
1. Easy to learn- Unlike Angular, React is not that much complex. With lots of online tutorials available, it is very easy to learn React. Basic JavaScript skill is the only thing you need to have before starting to learn React.js.
2. Faster Development – Lots of tools can be integrated with React.js, which will help in getting things done in a short period. The time taken for coding in React.js would be comparatively less than others. DOM is a tree-structured model, and a small change to an upper layer cause a lot of issues to the interface. Virtual DOM introduced by Facebook helps in solving this particular issue, and it is one of the reasons that makes React.js the best pick.
3. JSX- An extension for React that allows developers to write HTML like code directly into JavaScript. Most people are familiar with HTML; hence this extension makes things simpler for developers.
4. Community support for React offers solutions for almost all the issues you face while developing in React.js. It is another reason that makes React the most preferred one.
All these factors make React.js one of the best-preferred libraries to work with, in 2020.
Visit web development portfolio page to know more about the works done by Webandcrafts using the JavaScript framework.
Developed by Google, Angular was first released in 2010, making it one of the oldest JavaScript framework. Initially released as AngularJS the major shift happened when Angular 2 was released. Angular 2+ is collectively called as Angular. Angular have components which are referred to as directives. Angular separates the UI part from the JavaScript code, and this is what separates Angular from other JavaScript frameworks such as React and Vue. The main difficulty associated with Angular is its learning curve. It takes quite a lot of time to master the art of programming in Angular. One need to learn concepts like TypeScript, MVC before learning Angular. A year back Angular was one of the most trending topics in Google Trends, but things have changed a lot in one year. At present, React.js leads the pack of JavaScript framework with Vue.js falling just behind React.js in terms of popularity. Even though Angular has lost its popularity a bit still, it is an excellent JavaScript framework to learn in the year 2020.
Vue.js is an open-source model-view-view model Javascript framework for building UI and single-page applications. Vue is versatile in the sense that the ecosystem is adaptable, which scales between a library and a full-featured framework. Vue has grown to such popularity that now everyone compared Vue.js to already popular React.js. According to a survey by Stackoverflow, Vue.js and React.js are the most loved JavaScript framework in the year 2019, beating Angular quite comfortably. Vue, like React, has virtual DOM and provides much better performance when compared to React. Virtual DOM ensures better performance of applications. Framework size of Vue.js is only around 80 KB which is 20 less than that of React.js. The fact that Vue is smaller in size makes it the most suitable for developing lightweight applications. A Vue Service Side Render also supports server-side development.
Redux is a JavaScript library and is best in managing the state of an Application. In short, Redux can be defined as a state management tool. React, Angular and other frameworks are built to internally manage their state without making use of any external library or tool. But as the application becomes larger, it becomes quite challenging to manage states shared with components. Ease of testing, maintainability, easy debugging is some of the other benefits that make Redux an excellent JavaScript library. Redux is already used to React, which is already popular. Hence Redux will surely be a thing to watch out for in 2020
Conclusion
The dynamic ecosystem of JavaScript ensures that each day new JavaScript framework and libraries are released. Users have a wide range of choice to pick from all the JavaScript framework. Each of these JavaScript framework and libraries mentioned here has its benefits and drawbacks. There are other frameworks or libraries like Svelte, GraphQL, Meteor too, which are equally good but not famous like the one mentioned here. It’s always better to do your research before starting to use any of the JavaScript frameworks for developing applications.
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