The web is a vibrant place and the customers expect ease of use and high performance for each web or mobile application they patronize. Software development has evolved in the last few years and now is the era of bespoke solutions. Factors such as Mobile, AI, Blockchain and IoT have also contributed towards the evolution of Web Development.
The popular front-end technologies used today are a mix of CSS, HTML and various Javascripts. Javascript has numerous frameworks and libraries that can suit the need and mood of developers across the globe. The most popular JS include Angular, React, Node, Vue, jQuery and so on.
We will highlight a few front-end development technologies and tools in this blog that Web Developers across the globe entrust. These tools substantially save developer’s time and effort, while ensuring that the code quality is excellent.
React
Let us start with React! 2018 was by and large the year of React and its popularity is likely to continue in 2019, as well. A JavaScript library, React is used for building user interfaces. React developers use JSX (JavaScript/XML), which is a combination of HTML and JavaScript to write its components.
Another notable feature of React is its Virtual Document Object Model (DOM), which can be compared to a node tree where elements as Objects.
React also endorses unidirectional data flow that ensures that it is easy to debug the application.
Action –> Dispatcher –> Store –> View
React Native is used to develop mobile apps and delivers the APIs in Objective-C for iOS and Java for Android. Read our blog on Leveraging React Native to Build High-Performing Mobile Applications.
TypeScript
TypeScript is an Object Oriented Programming language, which is easily rendered across devices, browsers, and operating systems. Angular uses TypeScript, as well as JavaScript to build applications. Some notable features of TypeScript include –
- ES6 feature
- Support for modules
- Has an interface
- Supports optional parameter function
TypeScript has an edge over JavaScript. It highlights compilation errors during development. Its Static typing feature ensures that the typed code is correct during compile time. Furthermore, the TypeScript compiler can compile the .ts files into ES3, ES4, and ES5.
The all-new TypeScript 3.1 is the new superset of JavaScript. It can be leveraged for production deployments, featuring programming enhancements including mappable tuple and array types.
NPM
NPM or Node Package Manager enables developers working with Node to install their preferred packages. The developers get access to more than 470,000 code packages of free and reusable code.
NPM offers a command line client that interacts with a remote registry. It allows users to consume and distribute JavaScript modules that are available on the registry. It also facilitates an ideal interface that the developers can work on.
WebStorm
WebStorm is an uber-powerful JavaScript IDE (Integrated Development Environment). WebStorm offers developers advantages such as
- Intelligent code completion
- Real-time error detection
- Navigation
- Refactoring for JavaScript, TypeScript, and stylesheet languages
- Supports Angular + Ionic, React + React Native, Vue.js, Cardova, Node.js
The developers can also utilize linters, build tools, test runners, REST, and many other tools that are integrated with the IDE.
Sass/Less
The two most popular and widely used CSS pre-processers are Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets (Sass) and Leaner CSS (LESS).
Sass is a Ruby-based, easy-to-use front-end tool to write CSS. It utilizes variables, nesting, and mixins, loops, mathematical operations, imports, functions to develop robust CSS code. Sass offers two syntax options –
- SCSS or Sassy CSS allows the developers to use the .scss file extension and is compliant with CSS syntax.
- Sass uses .sass file extension and indentation and helps write code faster.
Less or Leaner Style Sheets is a JavaScript-based CSS pre-processor. It ensures that the CSS code is maintainable and extendable and its higher-level style syntax facilitates advanced CSS. Less is a backward-compatible language extension for CSS.
GitHub
GitHub is an open-source, version-control (Git) and collaboration platform (Hub) for software developers and runs on a SaaS business model.
The source code of a project is uploaded on Git and the community can track all the alterations and modifications that happen to the code. The Hub facilitates the collaboration of the developers and provides tools to manage the projects. GitHub offers benefits such as Easy documentation, code repository, as well as integration with Amazon and Google Cloud. GitHub also offers Code Climate to track feedback received on open-source code and has the ability to highlight syntax in over 200 different programming languages.
At SynergyTop, we have expertise in popular front-end technologies. We have created winning web solutions for our clients using the technologies of today. Write to us at info@synergytop.com for a free quote.
