Report: What is the next big thing in web development?

Being engaged in the tech industry means working with the web and, as more and more applications and services move to the browser and cloud, web development knowledge is gaining momentum.

The annual Packt Skill Up Report is here and it takes the pulse of the tools and trends that define how software developers work today. The survey focuses on six broad areas (Work & Community, Learning & Training, App Development, Web Development, Security & System Administration, Data) with a total of approximately 8000 respondents.

In this article, however, we focus solely on web development.

Let’s talk web dev

What better way to start digging into the report than presenting the top languages for web development? The number one language for web applications is JavaScript followed by HTML/CSS. No surprise there! However, PHP and Python go toe to toe for a spot on the top 5 list.

Golangis part of an intriguing wave of new languages. It’s part of the same generation as Kotlin and Rust in that it’s a language that is incredibly performant and quite easy to use once you get past the early learning curve. It’s a language that takes away some of the pain of modern web development and is well suited to meeting some of the latest challenges that have emerged, like single page web applications and deploying on cloud.

Interesting fact: Highest salaried developers, earning over $70,000 were more likely to report using C# (37%), Java (32%) and TypeScript (29%) than either Python or PHP.

Concerning front-end web development tools, surprising no one, JQuery is the number one choice. When it comes to JavaScript frameworks, however, Angular wins the battle with 40% of developers regularly using it, followed by 25% using React and 20% using Vue.

Interesting fact:  Despite the prevalence of Angular in the respondents’ daily stack, when asked ‘Who should win the battle of the front-end tools?’ developers are almost evenly split between Angular, React and Vue. There’s less than a percentage point between Angular (34.94) and React (34.85)!

SEE ALSO:  Node.js 2018 User Survey: Docker is still number one and Go reaches new heights

Concerning back-end tools and frameworks, Node.js remains the dominant choice.

What’s the next big thing?

Python appears to be the number one choice of what developers want to learn next. Among the technologies the respondents plan on learning, AWS, JavaScript, Android, and Docker rank high on the list.

Interesting fact: 69% of developers think that blockchain technology will be revolutionary. 

The respondents were also asked to list the most valuable thing to be learning. Machine learning wins this race.

Machine learning is not only increasingly gaining popularity but accessibility as well. To this day, numerous machine learning solutions are offered by leading cloud platforms that make it easier even for non-developers to build and deploy algorithms.

What is the next big thing in web development in your opinion?

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