The future of JavaScript frameworks

Is the future of JavaScript and related technologies uncertain? Without a doubt in web development, Angular is the most sought-after skill, especially in Italy (React follows right behind). 

However, the two Front End technologies are starting to be progressively less and less appreciated by developers according to the Report of "State of JavaScript 2022″.

We are beginning to see a loss of interest not so much from the market, but rather from the developers themselves.

The reasons may be various; let's try to analyze some of them.

Index

1. JavaScript: Angular and React are mature frameworks
2. The future of JavaScript frameworks
   1. The motivations behind these numbers
3. What about in Italy? what is the future of JavaScript?
4. The JavaScript framework market is buzzing more than ever before

JavaScript: Angular and React are mature frameworks

Did we just publish an article about how Angular and React are the most in-demand technologies on the market, and next thing we know we're talking about their decline? No, we haven't gone crazy!

First, to learn more about what Angular and React are I invite you to take a look at the article by our frontendist Vincenzo.

Let us not waste any more time describing frameworks, rather let us analyze this phantom "decline" mentioned at the beginning. 

Angular was launched in 2016, while the first version of React is from 2017. If you think 6 or 7 years in computing is a century, in web development it is a geological era.

Angular and React are currently in production on so many websites, including those of big companies. Over the years they have shown their full potential (still huge), but also all their weaknesses.

Huge bundles, slow compilation, quite a lot of code to deploy on servers, seemingly simple learning curve, are just some of the issues with large frameworks.

They give you so many possibilities, but if you don't master them, they risk getting out of hand. 

In fact, Microfrontend has been increasingly talked about lately precisely because websites with a framework infrastructure have become huge and complex to manage.

The future of JavaScript frameworks

The State of JavaScript 2022 Report summarizes over forty thousand views and opinions of developers from around the world in order to investigate the future of JavaScript.

According to reports, new frameworks Front End such as Solid e Qwik are suggesting that React does not have the answers for everything.

Server side, Astro, Remix e Next.js are making you reconsider the amount of code you need to send toward the client.

Another framework that was born a few years ago and has now reached a good maturity è Svelte, whose leitmotif è speed, speed, speed (seriously, on their website they repeat it 3 times in a row).

Framework Front End JavaScript

The most significant finding is certainly the interest in Angular, which since 2016 to 2022 has suffered a loss of intereste of 26%, going from 68% a 43% of respondents.

Retention Angular - State of JavaScript 2022

By interest we refer to A developer who has used Angular and would like to reuse it in the future. The percentage of people who have heard about it and would like to learn it (again from 2016 to the present) on the other hand has gone from 50% to 20%, even worse.

Interest Angular - State of JavaScript 2022

Similar discussion for React, but with generally higher percentages: l'interest rose from 92% to 83%, while the percentage of people who would like to learn it has risen from 75% to 47%.

Retention React - State of JavaScript 2022

Interest in React - State of JavaScript 2022

Quick on the other hand, since it was launched (2019) has seen an increase (albeit small) in the rates of interest, going from87% to89% of people who have used it and would like to use it again and from 66% to 70% of people who would like to learn it.

Retention Svelte - State of JavaScript 2022

Interest in Svelte - State of JavaScript 2022

The motivations behind these numbers

Of course, one must consider that these data are constructed on a globally significant but also quite heterogeneous sample: different ages and occupational levels.

Surely there are various motivations that drive interest toward one product over another, such as:

• ease of use,
• community support,
• But also word of mouth. 

Svelte, Solid, and Qwik seem to bring innovative solutions regarding the speed of compiling JavaScript code..

For example, unlike React, these frameworks directly compile components in JavaScript instead of relying on the concept of virtual DOM to update data in the DOM. Angular, on the other hand, does not rely on the virtual DOM, but has its own change detection mechanism based on Zone.js which is just as fast.

Another factor to consider is the widespread knowledge one has of a framework: the more it is used, the more its limitations are exposed, especially as complexity grows. It may be that over time new products also expose their limitations and are gradually abandoned and move toward others that perform better.

What about in Italy? what is the future of JavaScript?

Unfortunately, the survey data cannot be displayed according to the respondents' country of origin, but lhe percentage of Italians who participated stands at around1.3% of the total. It is assumed that the situation in our country is no different from the rest of the world, although here news arrives, as always, a bit late ..

Without a doubt, Italian big companies still prefer to rely on established frameworks and that offer a lot of support, rather than rely on technologies that are new and on which developers do not have enough experience.

Another important factor is continuity: from 2016 onward many web portals have been completely redone from scratch in Angular or React, so it is to be expected that people would prefer to continue quite a bit more with the maintenance on the same technologies rather than redo everything from scratch again.

The JavaScript framework market is buzzing more than ever before

To conclude, whatever framework we talk about, the key words are always the same: ease of use, fast learning curve and performance. There are no miracle solutions; each framework has its strengths and weaknesses.

If in fact Angular is slightly slower in compiling and detecting changes in the page than Svelte, it has as a strength that it offers out-of-the-box a number of features (routing, Http client, multilingual support, and more) that on other frameworks have to be made up for with third-party solutions.

It is up to us developers to delve deeper into studying these solutions to package the best possible product, regardless of the framework used. 

Because even the best of technologies, if misused, can lead to disaster.

Thanks for getting this far and see you next time!