IT Content Writer with 12 years of professional writing experience. Prefers facts and figures to any kind of fiction.

Dominika Reszke

<p>User experience and user engagement all rely on the perfect user interface, and here’s where <strong>Material vs Bootstrap</strong> opposition comes to play. And it's a major one, as both front-end frameworks are known as powerful tools used for web development in general, and creating responsive websites in particular.</p><p>They both have huge corporations standing behind them – Twitter in the case of Bootstrap (with the latter initially called Twitter Blueprint), and Google as far as Material Design is concerned. But they’ve both come a long way from what they were in the beginning, and currently are much more than just internal tools.&nbsp;</p><p>But what exactly can front-end developers gain by utilizing them? And what are the most significant constraints of doing so? Can we call any part of the Bootstrap vs Material UI opposition better?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Table of contents:</p><p>1. <a href="#lowdown">Bootstrap &amp; Material UI – the lowdown</a></p><p>2. <a href="#comparison">Bootstrap vs Material – which one is better?</a></p><p>3. <a href="#summary">Material Design vs Bootstrap boiled down</a></p><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="lowdown" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Bootstrap &amp; Material UI – the lowdown</h2><p>Before we get down to a Bootstrap vs Material comparison, we need to make sure what exactly both parts of this opposition are.&nbsp;</p><blockquote><p>Bootstrap is a front-end JS framework and can also be referred to as an HTML, CSS, or JavaScript library. It is known for being open-source and free, and its design templates can be used for things such as navigation, buttons, and typography, to name a few.</p></blockquote><p><a href="https://getbootstrap.com/" target="_blank">Bootstrap prides itself</a> for being „the world’s most popular front-end open-source toolkit, featuring Sass variables and mixins, responsive grid system, extensive pre-built components, and powerful JavaScript plugins”.</p><p>Also, GitHub users appreciate Bootstrap greatly, giving it as many as 153.000 stars – and thus a tenth place on the list of most starred projects (<a href="https://github.com/search?o=desc&amp;q=stars%3A%3E1&amp;s=stars&amp;type=Repositories" target="_blank">as of October 2021</a>). It enables creating cutting-edge web apps, and, apart from Twitter itself, is used by giants such as Dropbox, Bloomberg, and Airbnb.</p><blockquote><p>Material is one of the leading React UI libraries. It offers a big number of useful UI components – both foundational and advanced – that are additionally called self-supporting, simple, and declarative.</p></blockquote><p>It's advertised <a href="https://mui.com/" target="_blank">at its own website</a> as a „robust, customizable, and accessible library of foundational and advanced components, enabling you to build your own design system and develop React applications faster”.&nbsp;</p><p>Google’s Material Design, as its full name suggests, focuses on design building with the use of advanced, sophisticated theming features. It enables setting up design systems, design kits, and fully built templates as well as more flexible custom themes’ creation by front-end developers themselves. However, great design, Material’s hallmark, is to be paired with the innovative technical approach in the case of this popular library.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="comparison" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Bootstrap vs Material – which one is better?</h2><p>Keeping in mind that Bootstrap and Material are not identical toolkits, we may point out both similarities and differences between them. The latter concern, among others, possible applications and use cases so it’s essential to be aware of them before you decide to choose any of these. Moreover, Bootstrap is regarded as more versatile, being a CSS, HTML, and JavaScript framework while Material Design is a React-only library.</p><p>Bootstrap framework is valued for its <a href="https://codersera.com/blog/bootstrap-vs-material-ui-which-is-best-for-next-web-app/" target="_blank">impressive development speed</a> – due to its ready-to-use code blocks – and, for this reason, it is recommended for those front-end developers who need to deliver a web app or a website quickly. Material Design is, in general, worse on that end but using templates may increase the speed of development.</p><p>As for similarities, we may emphasize that both Bootstrap and Material UI offer good browser compatibility. Both frameworks have a 12-column grid system, enabling complete responsiveness. And both are regarded as reliable, appreciated, and frequently chosen by software developers.</p><p>However, as Material’s primal purpose was mobile devices, apps created with this design language look more modern, and its creators enjoy greater freedom when developing. It puts greater attention to things such as animation, pop-up, and sliders – elements that we won’t find within layouts created with Bootstrap, as the latter tends to be more elegant, stylish, and minimalistic – aligned with its information presenting purposes.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="summary" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Material Design vs Bootstrap boiled down</h2><p>What to choose, then, Material or Bootstrap? Well, it depends primarily on the project you are working on. Material Design framework offers an extensive library of powerful UI components that help developers build various types of user interfaces that are beautifully designed, ready-to-use and easily customized.</p><p>Material is a visual or design language with a grid system for layout creation in the very center. Thanks to it, advanced and more sophisticated effects such as vivid colors, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_Design" target="_blank">lighting and shadows, padding, and responsive animations</a> are possible to achieve. In fact, it can be used to <a href="https://mui.com/" target="_blank">support building all types of user interfaces</a>.</p><p>Bootstrap, in turn, is a tool meant to simplify the process of developing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap_(front-end_framework)" target="_blank">informative web pages</a> and building easy, fast, responsive mobile-first sites, as well as mobile and desktop applications.</p><p>And for those who still can’t decide what’s better in the Material UI vs Bootstrap opposition, or want to make use of what’s best in both of them, there’s a nice combo called <a href="https://mdbootstrap.com/" target="_blank">MDBootstrap</a> or Material Design for Bootstrap v5 &amp; v4.</p><p><strong>And what toolkit do you prefer – Material Design or Bootstrap? What are your experiences with them? Can you spot other important use cases or features that are especially valuable in front-end developers’ work?</strong></p>

Material vs Bootstrap – Which One Is Better? | Codete Blog

Material vs Bootstrap. Which Frontend Framework Should You Use?

<p><strong>What is Gulp and why do software developers ever use it? Advertised as „</strong><a href="https://gulpjs.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><strong>a toolkit to automate &amp; enhance your workflow</strong></a><strong>”, it is supposed to „automate slow, repetitive workflows and compose them into efficient build pipelines”.</strong></p><p>And, according to its proponents, it certainly does. They say that gulp is time-saving, powerful, simple and easy to use, and that it offers comprehensive documentation. Thanks to taking advantage of it, routine, time-consuming tasks within the soft developers’ world are not that painful anymore.</p><p>But Gulp doesn’t only have avid supporters. Its opponents claim that this open-source JavaScript toolkit, is, in fact, dated and not exactly cutting-edge, and that the front-end web development world doesn’t really need it. They say that one of the Gulp’s most serious drawbacks is the fact that multiple tasks cannot be performed simultaneously. Another one is transitioning between older and newer versions and repositories.</p><p>Certainly, it’s good to know <strong>Gulp’s ins and outs</strong> to be able to assess it right. In this short guide, we’ll try to shed light on this streaming build system, initially released back in 2013.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Table of contents:</p><p>1. <a href="#nutshell">Gulp.js in a nutshell – all you need to know</a></p><p>2. <a href="#use-cases">Gulp’s best features &amp; most common use cases</a></p><p>3. <a href="#improvements">How Gulp can improve your software development</a></p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="nutshell" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>1. Gulp.js in a nutshell – all you need to know</h2><p>But what is Gulp.js, in fact? It is one of the well-known <strong>task runners</strong>, listed along with <a href="https://gruntjs.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Grunt</a> and npm scripts. Moreover, it’s still present in many recent Front-end Developer Roadmaps, including <a href="https://www.decipherzone.com/blog-detail/front-end-developer-roadmap-2021" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">the latest, for the year 2021</a>. As a task runner, it is supposed to automate many development tasks and thus reduce repetition in a programmer’s activities.</p><p>Gulp is built on Node.js and npm. It is often appreciated for having a good and easy syntax. To make gulp work properly, there are two files (<i>package.json</i> and <i>gulpfile.js</i>) needed to perform any Gulp task. Those tasks are run from a CLI (command-line interface) shell.</p><blockquote><p>There are over 4,200 single-purpose Gulp plugins available (as of September 2021), but Gulp tasks involving plugins have to be performed manually. Moreover, those plugins Gulp relies on so heavily need to be installed first, and it also takes time.</p></blockquote><p>Sometimes programmers complain that the use of external plugins they need to install to perform specific operations can be a little tricky. It’s because it may turn out that a plugin they utilized in previous projects is not supported anymore by its author – another software developer.</p><p>Gulp’s ecosystem may not be that remarkable, then. However, extensive documentation and a large community are where Gulp’s users may find help and support when needed.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="use-cases" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>2. Gulp’s best features &amp; most common use cases</h2><p>But what is Gulp used for, in detail? What does Gulp do? This toolkit’s proponents emphasize its versatility, flexibility, and quickness in making software development more smooth and trouble-free. Indeed, the number of its possible use cases is quite impressive.</p><p>It is used for many functional and practical things like building frameworks and single-page web applications, executing and automating tasks and file operations, running test suites, optimizing source code, and compiling styles and scripts for CSS and JavaScript, e.g. Sass to CSS.</p><blockquote><p>In general, Gulp’s use cases include tasks such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulp.js" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">unit testing, linting, minification (with Gulp-imagemin), concatenation, cache busting</a>. What’s important is that Gulp is proper for handling both synchronous and asynchronous tasks.</p></blockquote><p>Utilizing JavaScript Gulp not only may give relief to software developers doing their front-end duties but also to end-users of applications they work on. One of the most evident immediate effects may simply be increased efficiency in web page loading.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="improvements" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>3. How Gulp can improve your software development</h2><p>There’s certainly a reason why Gulp’s supporters love it. How Gulp works can simply make a software developer’s life easier. Its fans say that it is time-saving, powerful, simple, and easy to start with, even for JavaScript beginners.</p><p>Since Gulp automates routine, repetitive tasks and speeds up the build process, they can save a lot of time. And, because those tasks are often boring or even exhausting, it may, to some extent, prevent developers from feeling burnt out and make them more satisfied with their jobs. What’s also important, is that the learning curve is shallow, and the entry barrier – low, in the case of Gulp. The integration as well as build processes – from writing code to deployment – are made easy. This way, streamlining software development gets triggered.</p><p>Despite being lightweight, Gulp can execute even complex tasks. While it does great in the majority of popular tasks, it may not be that good in the case of some more complicated builds. What’s more, it may require installing some specific plugins, and those used previously may turn out not to be compatible with Gulp’s newer versions.</p><p><strong>And you, would you recommend utilizing Gulp in a day-to-day front-end developer’s job? What applications and use cases is it best suited for? Do you find it proper for today’s world challenges, or a little obsolete?</strong></p>

What Is Gulp & How To Use It? | Codete Blog

What Is Gulp and How to Use It?

In theory, a medical physicist with a love for coding.
In practice, a front-end developer who was absorbed by web technologies like they were Kirchhoff's perfect black body. He got his first job as a software developer in 2017 (with Angular2 and Typescript). With constant acceleration, he has moved to the event horizon of the “black hole” of IT. After being totally absorbed, he’s reached the excited state when he wants to radiate his passion and knowledge. A bit of a geek with a wide spectrum of interests from martial arts, through pixel art, to the game industry.


Borys Palka

Engineer passionate about building stuff displayed in the browser window but not only. Almost like Iron Man in software development, so maybe Software Man?

Szymon Oleszek

<p><strong>React.js</strong> is making headlines, and more and more people, intrigued with its possibilities and immense popularity, ask questions like „What is React?”, „What is React used for”, and, first and foremost, „Is React a framework or library?”.</p><blockquote><p>As Stack Overflow’s annual 2020 Developer Survey indicated, React belongs to the most popular technologies software developers utilize. It ranked second in the „Web Frameworks” category, with as much as <a href="https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-web-frameworks-professional-developers2" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>36.8% of professional developers utilizing it</u></a>.</p></blockquote><p>Also, React.js was dubbed the second „most loved” web framework, with an impressive percent (68.9%) of software developers who are developing with it that <a href="https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-web-frameworks-loved2" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>have expressed interest in continuing to do so</u></a> in the future.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Table of contents:</p><p>1. <a href="#intro">What is React js? All you need to know about it</a></p><p>2. <a href="#features">React.js – the most important features</a></p><p>3. <a href="#apps">Apps that you can build in React.js</a></p><p>4. <a href="#use">How to use React in your projects best</a></p><p><br>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="intro" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>1. What is React js? All you need to know about it</h2><p>Is react a framework, a library, or maybe another kind of technology? Well, the answer is quite unambiguous. React.js is a free open-source JavaScript library for building user interfaces in web applications. It was created by Facebook and Jordan Walke in 2013.</p><p>What sets this front-end library apart are low entry barriers and significant elasticity in use, which certainly add to its great popularity. Compared to Vue.js and Angular, the <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=31&amp;q=Vue.js,React,Angular" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>interest in React is way bigger in almost all world regions</u></a>. And, what’s crucial, it is on the sharp rise, as the <a href="https://gist.github.com/tkrotoff/b1caa4c3a185629299ec234d2314e190" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>data on Stack Overflow trends</u></a> show.</p><p>But what are the reasons why React is king? Which features make React software so unique and handy, at the same time? Let’s check.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="features" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>2. React.js – the most important features</h2><p>There are several features of React that can be regarded as especially useful and valuable for front-end developers taking advantage of this library. These are:</p><p>1. <a href="https://programmingwithmosh.com/react/react-virtual-dom-explained/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>Virtual DOM</u></a> (Document Object Model) tree – it is a representation of browser DOM objects in JavaScript that helps optimize the application’s performance. Based on the comparison (a process called reconciliation), it renders new objects in the browser or updates the old ones - because manipulation directly on DOM objects is inefficient.</p><p>2. <a href="https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/reactjs-components/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>Components</u></a> – this is the encapsulation of the code’s logic into smaller blocks upon which we may build the entire application later on. UI components may be divided into class and functional ones. Render method belongs to the most used ones in the case of React components.</p><p>3. <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/react/react_jsx.asp" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>JSX</u></a> (JavaScript XML) – an embeddable XML-like syntax extension to ECMAScript, or the format of writing HTML and XML code within the JavaScript language. This syntax is to be concise and familiar, and it’s made for „<a href="https://facebook.github.io/jsx/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>defining tree structures with attributes</u></a>”.</p><p>4. <a href="https://pl.reactjs.org/docs/hooks-overview.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>React hooks</u></a> – those are JavaScript functions that embed logic, and new functionalities in other hooks or functional components. They organize code within particular components and enable using React without classes. Previously, only class components had component lifecycle status and management. By the way, check out the React Hooks series on YouTube delivered by Codete developers. Here's the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqDv-9e88AQ" target="_blank">intro to React Hooks &gt;</a>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="apps" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>3. Apps that you can build in React.js</h2><p>React js development has been used in a number of commonly used apps. It’s not only Facebook, React’s originator, that makes use of this library. The list of <a href="https://brainhub.eu/library/famous-apps-using-reactjs/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>popular apps made in React.js</u></a> is much longer and encompasses household names such as Netflix, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Dropbox, to name but a few.</p><p>But there are many more use cases possible, and, in fact, any app can be built in React. However, React.js mainly focuses on building client-side applications, the so-called single-page applications. But it can also be used to create <a href="https://nextjs.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>server-side rendering applications</u></a>. What’s more, <a href="https://reactnative.dev/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>mobile applications for iOS and Android</u></a> and even <a href="https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>desktop ones</u></a> can also be built with React - with user interface in mind.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="use" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>4. How to use React in your projects best</h2><p>Have you ever wondered when to use React js, what types of projects it is best fitted to? Well, there are some insights that it’s good to get acquainted with before you switch to React and start using it in your endeavors.</p><p>Since it is a library, and not a full-featured and full-fledged framework, such as Angular, taking part in another project is often equal to applying different approaches and solutions. And this means more time to understand the application for new developers and increasing the chance of creating an anti-pattern in the project, which can also translate into less effective development. Plus, if someone doesn’t like to have a clear-cut architecture and rules for running projects, React may not be the best option.</p><p>On the other hand, when in the right hands, React’s flexibility offers many great possibilities, like the fact that we can use different libraries and packages more easily to create React apps. We can swiftly and freely apply various approaches, e.g. Styled components, <a href="https://cssinjs.org/?v=v10.7.1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>CSS-in-JS</u></a>, CSS modules or even plain CSS, Redux, Mobx, Recoil, and more.</p><p>The enormous React community and popularity of developing with it is certainly also a plus because it increases the probability that someone will help us with a problem that we may encounter one day. However, there are some voices that the documentation for React is rather poor and insufficient, and that <a href="https://www.knowledgehut.com/blog/web-development/pros-and-cons-of-react" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>using JSX may be inconvenient</u></a>.</p><p><strong>And what are your experiences with React.js? To you, what are the challenges of developing with it? What kind of projects is it best suited to? Can you spot any significant limitations of using it?</strong></p>

What is React.js? Complete Overview | Codete Blog

What is React.js? Complete Overview

<p>Angular State Management is something any software developer must have heard of. However, even among those who utilize it, there is a fair amount of confusion regarding when and why particular libraries should be applied. This refers to Redux Angular, NGXS, and NGRX state management, to name but a few.</p><p>The need for switching between a variety of components makes software development using Angular quite demanding although the export class makes using the content across modules possible. Applying the right approach is crucial because going the wrong way makes things even more complicated, increasing the risk for things like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming" target="_blank">cargo cult programming</a> to appear. It’s about too elaborate or redundant solutions that serve no real purpose or are, in fact, improper and applied „<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">without understanding the reasons behind that design principle</a>”.</p><p><strong>It’s crucial to choose the appropriate library package, especially that the number of libraries for state management is very impressive, and picking up the right one may save the day or even longer a period on cleaning up the mess, or debugging. They all have their specific features and appropriate use cases, and it’s simply crucial to know them before making a decision regarding using any of these in your own projects.</strong></p><p>In this article, we’ll shed a light on Angular State Management in general, as well as on some of the most popular or useful libraries that go with it, namely NGRX, NGXS, and angular-redux.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>We'll go through the following topics:</p><p>1. <a href="#intro">Angular State Management in brief</a></p><p>2. <a href="#details">NGRX, NGXS, and angular-redux boiled down</a></p><p>3. <a href="#summary">State Management &amp; Angular wrapped up</a></p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="intro" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Angular State Management in brief</h2><p>Angular State Management is a user interface programming technique, that is in fact, state management in Angular. It may also be referred to as Angular app state management, state management architecture of the Angular application, or even, in short, state Angular.&nbsp;</p><blockquote><p>As for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_management" target="_blank">state management</a> in general, it concerns graphical user interface and managing different user interface controls such as text fields or buttons. And the state represents, obviously, all data within an application.</p></blockquote><p>What’s especially important is that particular UI controls influence or interfere with each other, and this can cause the application’s overwhelming complexity at some point, decreasing performance and usability of the site, as one of side effects. There are state management libraries serving particular frameworks that can either make it or break it. As for Angular, its built-in library is called RxJS and it applies the observer pattern.</p><p>Some software developers say this library is not sufficient, but, luckily, there are many other packages for Angular to choose from. Those programming in Angular, one of the top frontend frameworks, often face many problems but picking the right library may certainly limit their number. Let’s see what distinguishes the most common or often discussed libraries, what are their pros and cons.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="details" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>NGRX, NGXS, and angular-redux boiled down</h2><p>As for state management in Angular, it may be performed with the help of NGRX, NGXS, and angular-redux.&nbsp;</p><p>The most popular one is <strong>NGRX</strong>. Its name is an abbreviation built from two words: <a href="https://blog.clairvoyantsoft.com/choosing-the-state-management-approach-in-angular-app-7080aac20378" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">a<strong>NG</strong>ular and <strong>Rx</strong>JS</a>, the latter being „a <a href="https://rxjs.dev/" target="_blank">library for reactive programming</a> using Observables, to make it easier to compose asynchronous or callback-based code”. In other words, we may say that NGRX store <a href="https://ogomez.medium.com/quick-guide-for-undestanding-redux-and-ngrx-in-angular-132e2ed7404a" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">supercharges the redux pattern with RxJS</a>.&nbsp;</p><p>NGRX is sometimes praised for features that help to <a href="https://www.toptal.com/angular-js/ngrx-angular-reaction-application" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">reduce the complexity</a> not only of an application (including its architecture), but also the learning curve. Compared to the two competitors, it’s best in the field of meta reducers. Due to its popularity, it offers vast community support. But it doesn’t only have avid supporters. Its opponents claim that it’s too complicated and requires too much effort (a lot of lines of source code need to be written compared to the other two), and it’s simply not worth going the extra mile.</p><p><strong>Angular-redux</strong> seems to be on the other side of the spectrum being way more simple but versatile and efficient enough to serve the majority of purposes. It’s also easy to learn and comprehend, and the Redux community can help in case of any doubts a beginner might have.</p><p>NGRX vs redux (angular-redux) opposition is certainly an interesting one but there’s also an <strong>NGXS</strong> technology that is worth mentioning. Out of the three compared libraries, we may place NGXS in the middle in terms of its complexity, as default solutions make it quite time-efficient. Some handy <internallink internallinkid="/blog/type-script-vs-java-script-which-one-to-choose-for-2021-web-applications">TypeScript features</internallink> also make utilizing NGXS more complete.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="summary" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>State Management &amp; Angular wrapped up</h2><p>Angular state managing can be made simple or even more difficult, depending on which set of libraries we choose to use for this framework. As for state management angular redux, NGRX, and NGXS can all be successfully applied on various occasions.&nbsp;</p><p>The differences between particular libraries may be significant, though. However, if they are properly suited for given conditions, needs, and circumstances, they can make the work more smooth and pleasant although JS development with Angular may still be demanding, indeed. As for users, what can help them navigate their applications better, is a URL <a href="https://angular.io/guide/routing-with-urlmatcher" target="_blank">route matcher</a>.</p><p><strong>And what are your experiences with utilizing Angular State Management and particular libraries? To you, what are their most useful features? What kind of projects would you recommend them for? Can you spot any significant limitations of using them?</strong></p>

Angular State Management - All You Should Know | Codete Blog

Guide on Angular State Management with Redux Pattern

<p>It may be called in many ways, and <strong>Storybook JS </strong>or StorybookJS are only some of its commonly used names. Some also refer to this tool as Storybook React or React Storybook, underlining the fact that it may support the React stack or library. It may be, however, used in other common development environments such as <a href="https://storybook.js.org/tutorials/intro-to-storybook/react/en/get-started/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Vue, Angular, Ember, and Svelte</a>. But, first and foremost, it is assigned to JavaScript, being a renowned JavaScript tool.</p><blockquote><p>Dubbed <a href="https://storybook.js.org/docs/react/get-started/examples" target="_blank">the world’s most popular component explorer</a>, Storybook JS is simply a tool proper for design systems or a button component library or repository. An all-purpose Storybook JS is just what modern – large and complex – web applications, as well as their creators, may need.&nbsp;</p></blockquote><p>It helps front-end developers to document, manage and keep track of particular components and pages, being searchable easily. And, above all, Storybook JS is handy and effortless – that’s what its users often say, treating it as their everyday companion that <a href="https://storybook.js.org/tutorials/intro-to-storybook/react/en/get-started/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">runs alongside your app in development mode</a>.</p><p>By utilizing the Storybook, we may build user interfaces that are durable, flexible, and attractive. In general, with Storybook JS in the project, frontend development gets easier and more efficient. That’s crucial as using modular components for building user interfaces becomes more and more common. It's increasingly popular to create component driven UIs, meaning: starting with basic components and assembling them into screens. You can learn more about this design and development practice from its <a href="https://www.componentdriven.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">open source community website &gt;&gt;</a></p><p>But let’s shed a light on Storybook JS and see what exactly it is known and used for.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Table of contents:</p><p>1. <a href="#intro">Storybook JS in a nutshell – what it is and how can you use it?</a></p><p>2. <a href="#use">Storybook JS – why and how it’s being used</a></p><p>3. <a href="#summary">Storybook JS wrapped up</a></p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="intro" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>1. Storybook JS in a nutshell - what it is and how can you use it?</h2><p>What exactly is Storybook JS? <a href="https://storybook.js.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">According to its originators</a>,</p><blockquote><p>„Storybook is an open source tool for building UI components and pages in isolation. It streamlines UI development, testing, and documentation.”</p></blockquote><p>What’s important is that component implementation or user interface building can be done in isolation, without paying attention to things like existing data, business logic, or APIs. This makes <a href="https://storybook.js.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">developing states that are difficult to get to as well as edge cases</a> possible.&nbsp;</p><p>On the other hand, when you need to find a particular piece of information, use case, component or a page in your app, you may do so easily, using user-friendly navigation and the search bar provided.</p><p>That’s right, one of this tool’s major benefits is its comprehensivity, and multifunctionality, making UI building (but also testing and quality assurance) much smoother and well-organized. But the list of Storybook’s advantages is much longer. It meets the requirements of many developers and can certainly solve more than one problem.&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="use" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>2. Storybook JS – why and how it’s being used</h2><p>The basic advantage of using Storybook JS is that it brings logic, and order to managing and applying components. For this reason, a user interface design system and end applications, in general, tend to be more efficient, well-run, and flexible, doing good on various devices.&nbsp;</p><p>And such qualities may tip the scale and enable standing out among other UIs and other projects, e.g. when you aim to create a React app. Additionally, simple modular components Storybooks are broken into can be reused and revamped – many times and for multiple applications – as use cases are documented as stories.</p><p>Using Storybook JS helps to build top-tier UI or a React app at every stage and from the very first step. It also makes gathering feedback simple and <a href="https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/what-is-storybook-and-how-can-i-use-it-to-create-a-component-libary-in-react/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">documentation – easier to use</a>. <a href="https://storybook.js.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Other features</a> include addons array that customize teams’ workflow, availability of various ways of effortless testing (like visual test appearance, unit test functionality, and accessibility test), tools for searching and finding needed resources, as well as the possibility to share components across screens and apps, export default title and generate UI docs automatically.</p><p>Storybook examples cover a plethora of industries and types of businesses, regardless of their size and years of market presence. These are commonly known brands and household names as well as ambitious beginners and open-source endeavors.&nbsp;</p><p>According to <a href="https://storybook.js.org/docs/react/get-started/examples" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Storybook JS’s official website</a>, they include such leading teams as those of <a href="https://react.ui.audi/?path=/story/introduction--page" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Audi</a>, <a href="https://gitlab-org.gitlab.io/gitlab-ui/?path=/story/base-accordion--default" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">GitLab</a>, <a href="http://lonelyplanet.github.io/backpack-ui/?path=/story/styles--design-tokens" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Lonely Planet</a>, and <a href="http://airbnb.io/react-dates/?path=/story/daterangepicker-drp--default" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Airbnb</a>, to name but a few. Moreover, the component-driven methodology is utilized in the media, with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/opensource/projects/psammead" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">BBC’s Component Library</a> called <a href="https://github.com/bbc/psammead" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Psammead</a> as the most prominent example.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="summary" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>3. Storybook JS wrapped up</h2><p>If you don’t know Storybook software or Storybook JS yet, it’s certainly worth paying attention to. It supports React, Vue, and Angular, to name a few, and for many front-end developers, it actually turned out to be a game-changer in their day-to-day jobs. It makes a lot of daily tasks well-organized, and results in better time management.</p><p>Importantly, we may keep parts of our work for future reference, and find needed components (e.g. React components needed for building a React app) or pages easily, thanks to search bars and libraries available. We may also keep track of UI edge cases and reuse stories created beforehand, for performing automated tests.</p><p>It’s also worth mentioning that component-driven user interfaces are something more and more common as they make the workflow of UI designers or front-end developers, in general, smoother, easier, faster, more efficient, and more pleasant. And let’s not forget that Storybook JS is a JavaScript tool, and the latter certainly belongs to immensely popular <a href="https://www.pluralsight.com/tech-index" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">top technologies for software development</a>.</p><p><strong>And you, what other Storybook JS use examples can you recall? When do you find applying this tool the most useful? Which benefits and features are the most attractive to you in day-to-day work?</strong></p>

What Is Storybook JS & How Can You Use It Best | Codete Blog

What Is Storybook JS and How Can You Use It?

IT consulting and software development company. Since 2010, we’ve been supporting businesses worldwide in gaining competitive advantage by means of modern technology. We advise on digitalization, develop and implement high-quality solutions, and augment our clients’ teams with skilled software developers.

Codete

<p>One of the key factors behind the popularity of Angular as a web development framework has always been its adaptability and flexibility. It’s only natural for open-source technologies to change at an increasing pace given that such a huge community of developers is willing to contribute to its growth. Led by the Angular Team at Google, the framework is becoming more and more popular with each new version.&nbsp;</p><p>So, what can developers expect to get in the latest version of Angular - Angular 12? Read on to find out.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Table of contents:&nbsp;</p><ol><li><a href="#intro">What's the latest Angular version?</a></li><li><a href="#newfeatures">Angular 12 new features</a></li><li><a href="#summary">Summary of all latest Angular version new features</a></li></ol><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="intro" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>What's the latest Angular version?</h2><p>The team behind Angular practically releases a new major version of this incredibly widespread TypeScript-based web framework every six months. The latest iterations are Angular 12 released in May 2021 and Angular 12.1 that arrived on June 24. The new version of Angular fixes a lot of things and adds support for the compiler.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="newfeatures" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Angular 12 new features</h2><h3>1. Improvements in CSS</h3><p>Developers can now use Sass inline in the styles field of the <code>@Component</code> decorator. If this sounds interesting to you, note that you first need to enable this behavior by adding <code>"inlineStyleLanguage": "scss”</code> to the <code>angular.jsonconfig</code> file.</p><p>Angular CDK and Angular Material now internally adopted the Sass new module system. So, if your app uses Angular CDK or Angular Material, you need to switch from node-sass to the sass npm package. The node-sass package is not maintained anymore and doesn’t keep up with the new feature additions to the Sass language.</p><p>When updating to Angular 12, applications will automatically switch to the new Sass API - all it takes is updating the application with the ng update. The command refactors any Sass <code>@import</code> statements for Angular CDK and Angular Material code.</p><p>Another novelty is support for Tailwind CSS. Now supported by Angular CLI natively, Tailwind can be installed with <code>npm install -D tailwindcss</code>. All that’s left now is creating a TailwindCSS configuration file in your workspace (or project root) - and you’re done! You can now use Tailwind classes throughout your project.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>2. Browser extension for Angular DevTools&nbsp;</h3><p>One of the most commonly used browser extensions for debugging Angular applications is Augury. It has served developers for a good few years by now. But with Angular 12, you get something new: the Angular DevTools, a Chrome DevTools extension developers can use to inspect the structure of their application and profile its performance.</p><p>Take a look at the Angular DevTools and you’ll see that it all starts with a component tree view that shows all of the component inputs, outputs, and class properties. You can edit component properties manually in the dev tools and see the results live in your browser. This is the fastest and easiest way to test multiple scenarios in an application.</p><p>The second tab is a profiler that records different use cases of the application and allows developers to check the impact of these scenarios on their application’s performance. The profiler also indicates how much time is dedicated to which component or directive at every step of the way. This will help teams a lot in troubleshooting performance issues.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>3. New version of TypeScript&nbsp;</h3><p>Angular 12 uses TypeScript 4.2. What does this mean for developers? That they get to benefit from all the recent improvements added to this language like:</p><ul><li>Enhanced type alias preservation,</li><li>Stricter checks for the in Operator,</li><li>Breaking changes,</li><li>More relaxed rules between Optional Properties and String Index Signatures.</li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>4. Availability of the Nullish Coalescing operator in templates</h3><p>The Nullish Coalescing operator is now available in Angular HTML templates. What does this mean? That&nbsp; a complex expression like this one:</p><p><code>{{ value!== null &amp;&amp; value !== undefined ? value : defaultValue }}</code></p><p>Can now be simplified into:</p><p><code>{{ value ?? defaultValue }}</code></p><p>This added simplicity is going to help developers accelerate the speed of coding, become more efficient, and get faster at reviewing or debugging code.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>5. Deprecation of the View Engine</h3><p>Angular is getting rid of the View Engine - it’s going to be removed in a future major release. The current libraries using View Engine will still work with Ivy apps, so developers don’t get any extra workload related to this change. However, the authors of these libraries do because they need to figure out how to transition to Ivy.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>6. Transition from Legacy i18n Message IDs</h3><p>At the moment, Angular has multiple legacy message ID formats used in the i18n system. But they tend to cause problems related to the whitespace, formatting templates, and ICU expressions. To solve this issue, the Angular Team decided to migrate away from them.&nbsp;</p><p>Now the new canonical message ID format is more resilient and intuitive. It helps to reduce the unnecessary translation invalidation and retranslation cost in applications in which translations might not match because of things like whitespace changes.</p><p>Since version 11 of Angular, new projects are configured to use the new message IDs automatically. Angular now introduced the tooling to migrate the existing projects with existing translations.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>7. The future Protractor isn’t clear yet</h3><p>The Angular Team is now working with the community to determine the future of Protractor. For now, it’s not included in new projects where you get some options provided by popular third-party solutions in the Angular CLI. Angular works with Cypress, WebdriverIO, and TestCafe to help developers adopt these alternatives.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>8. Learning Angular will be easier</h3><p>The team is always busy improving the learning experience for developers looking to fine-tune their Angular skills. That’s why the documentation is being improved as well. For example, the team behind Angular wrote a <a href="https://v12.angular.io/guide/content-projection" target="_blank"><u>content projection guide</u></a> and added a helpful <a href="https://angular.io/guide/contributors-guide-overview" target="_blank"><u>contributor’s guide</u></a> to help the community members wishing to improve the docs.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>9. Running ng build defaults to production&nbsp;</h3><p>This is a huge time saving for new v. 12 projects! Developers can skip a few steps and avoid accidental development builds in production. Note that this feature works only for new projects and Angular tooling doesn’t provide any automatic migrations.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>10. Strict mode enabled by default in the CLI</h3><p>Why is that important? Strict mode helps to identify errors earlier in the development cycle. So, developers have an easier time writing code and can accelerate the process confidently.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>11. Support for Webpack 5</h3><p>In Angular 11, the team added experimental support for Webpack 5. Now, Angular has a production-ready version of Webpack 5 support.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>12. Support for IE11 is deprecated</h3><p>Angular keeps up with the evolving web ecosystem, so it’s only natural that it removes support for legacy browsers and focuses on supporting modern solutions that are most relevant to developers and end-users. Angular will include a new deprecation warning message, and the team will remove support for IE11 in Angular 13.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="summary" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Summary of all latest Angular version new features</h2><p>As you can see, the Angular Team is on the right track in providing developers with a framework that supports them in every project. This host of new features makes using Angular even easier and builds upon the core strengths that led it to the forefront of web development technologies.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Are you planning to use Angular 12 in a new project? Have you used Angular before? What do you think about these new features?&nbsp;</strong></p><p>Share your thoughts in the comments; we look forward to hearing from developers and team leaders on where they think Angular will go next.</p>

Latest Angular Version - What’s New in Angular 12? | Codete Blog

Latest Angular Version - What’s New in Angular 12?

CTO at Codete. In 2015, he received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His area of expertise is artificial intelligence.

Karol Przystalski

<p><strong>Angular is a technology backed by Google, so it's not likely to become obsolete anytime soon. Angular has become incredibly popular during the last few years, and many tech giants like Google, YouTube, and Microsoft bet on it.&nbsp;</strong></p><p>The framework is gaining steam in the last few years and today serves as a go-to technology for teams looking to build single-page web applications, mobile applications with captivating animations, Progressive Web Apps that work offline, and all kinds of enterprise applications.&nbsp;</p><p>Are you looking for a technology to build your digital product? Angular might be a good pick. Why is Angular such a great technology, and what kind of apps can you build with it? Read this article to find out.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Table of contents:</p><ol><li><a href="#definition"><u>What is Angular?</u></a></li><li><a href="#benefits"><u>What are the benefits of using Angular?</u></a></li><li><a href="#applist"><u>List of apps you can build with Angular</u></a></li><li><a href="#mobileapps"><u>Angular mobile apps and much more</u></a></li></ol><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="definition" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>What is Angular?&nbsp;</h2><p><strong>Angular is a framework for building web and mobile applications.</strong> It offers a defined architecture and collection of ready-to-use libraries that accelerate the development process by providing developers with generic functionalities. Low-level concerns that are common to many apps on the market are no longer a problem – all it takes is implementing a library.&nbsp;</p><p>The best part? Developers can easily modify them to their liking. That's the great thing about using this framework for web and mobile app development.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>How does Angular differ from AngularJS?&nbsp;</h3><p>As a technology, Angular has a long history. AngularJS is more than a decade old - it's one of the oldest web application frameworks! During that time, the community surrounding Angular supported by Google managed to solve many different problems and introduce a slew of valuable features.&nbsp;</p><p>However, at some point, the framework stopped addressing the concerns of modern web application development. So, now all the experience was used to create a brand-new version of Angular: Angular 2.&nbsp;</p><p>First released in 2016, Angular 2 was met with caution but then gained the approval of developers after the Angular team improved its shortcomings. This new structure took over the name of Angular. The old structure is called AngularJS, and it's going to be supported until June 2021.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="benefits" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>What are the benefits of using Angular?</h2><h3>1. Rich ecosystem</h3><p><strong>Angular is surrounded by an active community of developers.</strong> This brings a lot of advantages to any software development project. First of all, Angular offers the most important libraries and solutions, so developers don't have to rely on third-party code where future maintenance is not guaranteed. With Angular, you also get access to well-written documentation that is constantly improved.&nbsp;</p><p>Developers can also reap benefits from development tools provided out-of-the-box that make coding easier. There is no need to waste time looking for a solution - the community behind Angular is one of the biggest forces out there and ready to answer any question.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>2. TypeScript</h3><p><strong>It's TypeScript that takes Angular to the next level over other JavaScript frameworks.</strong> TypeScript allows developers to save time and emanates possible errors since developers can debug their code while writing code. The language allows typing of an app that makes it more scalable and easier to find bugs.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>3. Flexibility</h3><p><strong>Angular is a framework and does everything that a framework is supposed to do.</strong> It offers developers a number of off-the-shelf solutions that solve problems. Still, it's possible to diverge from mainstream Angular whenever you feel like it. So, teams can retain flexibility and easily come up with their own solutions.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>4. Excellent quality of libraries</h3><p><strong>Angular offers support for the most used libraries.</strong> As a result, your project will have fewer bugs and get better security. The official component also makes introducing new developers to your project easily, because it's likely that they already know the libraries.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>5. Testing</h3><p><strong>When using Angular, developers get all the testing tools out of the box.</strong> They can develop software faster and at the same time refactor it. There's no need to focus on the reading code again and again. Typescript also helps to eliminate errors and save your team's time (and your money).&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>6. Modular structure</h3><p><strong>Modularity makes application scaling easier. </strong>In Angular, components can be easily reused or replaced. This also helps the app to work much faster and deliver a more optimal user experience. The lazy loading feature means that a module is downloaded only when a user needs it – for example when they navigate to a page where the module is used.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>7. Material UI library</h3><p><strong>Material UI is the official Google library of interface components for web applications used in both mobile and desktop.</strong> Using it is bound to speed up the development time dramatically. The components are well tested and constantly improved by the community, and their performance cost is minimal.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="applist" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>List of apps you can build with Angular</h2><p>Angular opens the doors to new opportunities, provides plenty of off-the-shelf solutions, and accelerates the entire development process. However, the ultimate choice of technology depends on the requirements of your project. Angular is an excellent pick for a number of applications - and here's a selection.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>1. Single-page applications (SPA)</h3><p>Single-page applications are the most popular solutions for websites today. The idea is that users interact with a single page where all information appears dynamically. SPA delivers a better user experience in comparison to traditional multipage applications. Angular data management and routing make building SBAs much faster and help teams to develop excellent performance.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>2. Mobile applications</h3><p>Angular is more than just a framework for web development. You can use it to build a mobile app as well. The idea is to use the framework to build a web application that runs on any mobile device. Note that you can combine Angular with NativeScript, which is another open-source framework that allows developing iOS and Android apps. Developers can also use Ionic to create hybrid apps that provide a great experience and allow sharing the majority of code between iOS and Android platforms for better team performance.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>3. Progressive Web Applications (PWA)</h3><p>Progressive Web Applications should adapt to the user's screen, be available online, and retain their functionality even when the user loses connectivity on a mobile device. Building PWA with Angular is really easy because it has a special command for that, accelerating the process.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>4. Enterprise web applications</h3><p>Enterprises and government institutions often need advanced pieces of software, and this is where Angular can help as well. First of all, it's scalable and has components that can be used in many other projects. It offers a modular and unified architecture that helps to control the development process. Moreover, it addresses the highest security standards.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>5. Web interfaces with captivating animations</h3><p>Animations are more and more often used by companies to gain a competitive advantage. If done wrong, however, they might deliver a poor user experience. The team behind Angular created a module as part of the official library that allows designing and implementing animations without any risks.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>6. Server-side rendered (SSR) apps</h3><p>These are web applications that can be rendered either in the browser or on the server. In the second scenario, the server is responsible for pre-populating user data to improve the load time of the site. This also improves the website's visibility in search results, spreading the word about the brand and promoting the product. Angular offers useful pre-rendering solutions that make starting the development much simpler.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="mobileapps" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Angular mobile apps and much more</h2><p>Angular is an excellent choice for any kind of web or mobile application, including content management systems (CRMs), single-page applications (SPA), static websites, design systems, e-commerce applications, or banking solutions. It's all down to your project requirements, the size of your team, and the scope of your product.&nbsp;</p><p>Angular is supported by Google and offers a vibrant community that can answer any question. It's definitely a framework for the future.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Are you planning to use Angular in your next project? Share your experience in the comments; we look forward to hearing about how teams use Angular to build ground-breaking digital products</strong>.&nbsp;</p>

Top Angular Apps That You Can Build in 2021 | Codete Blog

Top Angular Apps That You Can Build in 2021

<p>Software development has its stars and starlets, and the area of <strong>web development stacks </strong>is no exception here. Undoubtedly, trends regarding data ecosystems called programming stacks are worth looking into. Why? Well – they greatly influence what programmers choose, what’s their experience when developing, how the end product looks like, and how fast it hits the market.&nbsp;</p><p>So what’s in the limelight in the year 2021, concerning the web development stack? Let’s see!</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>In this article, we’ll discuss the following threads:</p><p>1. <a href="#future">Web development stacks – what’s in stock</a></p><p>2. <a href="#essentials">Full-stack, front-end, and backend web development – the essentials</a></p><p>3. <a href="#2021trends">Top web development stacks in 2021</a></p><p>4. <a href="#choosing">Choosing a web development stack – how to do it right?</a></p><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="future" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Web development stacks – what’s in stock</h2><p><strong>Web development stack</strong> (a development stack may also be called a technology stack, tech stack or software stack) is an interesting and very broad term, embracing a selection of tools and technologies, including <strong>frameworks, databases, libraries, and programming languages</strong> <a href="https://www.fingent.com/blog/top-6-tech-stacks-that-reign-software-development-in-2020/"><u>underlying building and running an application</u></a>.&nbsp;</p><p>And those choices – made for a given project, team, or the whole organization – influence a lot, and not only the workflow of developers who decided to use them. They craft the way web applications millions of people use daily look like and operate, shaping their functionality and user experience as well as <a href="https://www.fingent.com/blog/top-6-tech-stacks-that-reign-software-development-in-2020/"><u>viability and competitiveness</u></a>.</p><p>Web development stacks usually come in sets of particular tools developers or the whole companies treat as their main ones and decide to focus on. For instance, Facebook’s tech stack comprises such elements as <a href="https://www.fingent.com/blog/top-6-tech-stacks-that-reign-software-development-in-2020/"><u>React, Hack (previously PHP), Swift, Hadoop, GraphQL, and Cassandra</u></a>, to name but a few, and has been updated and<a href="https://engineering.fb.com/2020/05/08/web/facebook-redesign/"> <u>rebuilt quite recently</u></a>.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Stacks may embrace both front-end and back-end, as well as full-stack elements, underpinning all aspects of web development.</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.w3schools.com/whatis/whatis_fullstack.asp"><u>Some of the widely-used stacks</u></a> include:&nbsp;</p><ul><li>LAMP stack (JavaScript + Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP),</li><li>MEAN stack (JavaScript + MongoDB, Express, AngularJS, and Node.js),</li><li>Django stack (JavaScript + Django, Python, and MySQL)</li></ul><p>but there are many more that are popular or trending, such as:&nbsp;</p><ul><li>Ruby on Rails Tech Stack,</li><li>MEVN Technology stack,</li><li>TensorFlow Stack.</li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="essentials" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Full-stack, front-end, and backend web development – the essentials</h2><p>When speaking about web development, we cannot ignore the well-established division on front-end and backend technologies.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Frontend</strong>, which may also be referred to as client-side, covers developing client software and web- and mobile-based applications. It embraces the visual or interactive elements directly accessed by end-users, as well as their experience. <strong>Backend</strong> web development, on the other hand, is about developing server software and encloses things like administrative panels, databases, and other aspects of technical background average users don’t even see.</p><p>A <strong>full-stack</strong> web developer is undoubtedly the most versatile one, combining, at least to some extent, the knowledge and the skills of the front-end and backend ones. <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/whatis/whatis_fullstack.asp"><u>Programming a browser, a server, and a database</u></a> is all that that kind of programmer should be able to do. Also, their role tends to be more and more complex and responsible, and shifts towards being a communicator between front-end and backend teams.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="2021trends" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Top web development stacks in 2021</h2><p>With a proper software or web development stack, any programmer may improve the quality of end products, and align them to what’s most up-to-date, <a href="https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#most-popular-technologies"><u>loved, and wanted at the moment</u></a>. What’s also important, the most popular solutions may provide better support for users, and meet the expectations of the masses.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Which top development stacks are bound to succeed or at least are in the limelight in 2021?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>1. The MEAN Stack</h3><p>The useful MEAN stack <a href="https://www.glocalview.com/7-web-development-technology-stacks-for-2021/"><u>called the best web app technology</u></a>, has multiple applications, including developing cloud apps. It comprises JavaScript, MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, and Node.js and is based on open-source technologies that offer superb community support. It enables <a href="https://www.fingent.com/blog/top-6-tech-stacks-that-reign-software-development-in-2020/"><u>reusing code within the whole application</u></a>, and one language (JavaScript) may be used for both <a href="https://javascript.plainenglish.io/5-popular-web-development-stacks-you-should-know-in-2021-1147f719a0d5"><u>server-side and client-side</u></a>.</p><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h3>2. Flutter Stack</h3><p>This stack, sometimes called a revolutionary one or a game-changer, is ahead of competitors in many ways, including timely and cost-efficient delivering functional apps of high performance. Website speed remains high also when <a href="https://acodez.in/web-development-stacks/#Flutter"><u>adding new features and fixing bugs</u></a>. It’s perfect for <a href="https://www.fingent.com/blog/top-6-tech-stacks-that-reign-software-development-in-2020/"><u>cross-platform development</u></a>, utilizing <a href="https://www.fingent.com/blog/top-6-tech-stacks-that-reign-software-development-in-2020/"><u>the same UI and business logic</u></a> everywhere. A <a href="https://dzone.com/articles/7-top-web-development-technology-stacks-for-2021"><u>single codebase</u></a> enables developing applications across Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Web, and Linux, and less effort is put into things like <a href="https://www.promaticsindia.com/blog/the-most-popular-tech-stacks-of-2021-as-per-developers/"><u>development and testing</u></a>. This stack includes Flutter engine, Dart, Foundation library, and design widgets.</p><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h3>3. The Serverless Technology Stack</h3><p>Cloud computing involves web development, too, and serverless computing platforms make it easy to go serverless and build applications based on the cloud infrastructure. This stack is perfectly suited to the user’s needs and cost-efficient but proper to rather short-term endeavors. It enables scalability and the ability to quickly <a href="https://dzone.com/articles/7-top-web-development-technology-stacks-for-2021"><u>adapt to the changing number of users</u></a> and offers <a href="https://www.promaticsindia.com/blog/the-most-popular-tech-stacks-of-2021-as-per-developers/"><u>the best processors and storage</u></a> in the market.</p><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h3>4. Django Stack</h3><p>A high-level stack that covers tools and technologies such as JavaScript, Python, Django, and MySQL. Its advantages embrace being a versatile, multi-use, <a href="https://www.octalsoftware.com/blog/best-web-development-stacks"><u>consistent and secure stack</u></a>, used for quick web applications creation <a href="https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/when-to-use-django-comparison-with-other-development-stacks/"><u>without installation or dependency problems</u></a>. Instead, the development is rapid, secure, and scalable, and enhanced by<a href="https://www.djangoproject.com/"> <u>clean, pragmatic design</u></a>.</p><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h3>5. Meteor.js Stack</h3><p>It is a simple, time-efficient, and integrated open-source development platform that enables using the same code for multiple purposes like building <a href="https://www.octalsoftware.com/blog/best-web-development-stacks"><u>easy, proficient, and scalable applications</u></a> for many devices, including web, desktop, iOS, and Android ones. It <a href="https://dzone.com/articles/7-top-web-development-technology-stacks-for-2021"><u>may be easily integrated</u></a> with other tools or technologies that the developer already uses.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="choosing" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Choosing a web development stack – how to do it right?</h2><p>Choosing the right web development stack is not an easy thing, at all. Sticking to the old good stack may be detrimental for an endeavor but so is changing stacks too often, based on trends only. What we also should avoid is making decisions based on <a href="https://rubygarage.org/blog/technology-stack-for-web-development"><u>competitors’ choices, personal preferences, previous projects, or simple online research</u></a>. Instead, it’s good to pay attention to factors such as tools’ security, <a href="https://uptech.team/blog/web-development-stack"><u>development, and maintenance cost</u></a>, but also making sure that the solution in question proved to be useful over time and is well-supported.</p><blockquote><p>Every candidate software stack should be analyzed in terms of all pros and cons possible. First of all, the web stack we are planning to choose should solve problems we’re dealing with, like the need for scalability or willingness to stop using archaic, outdated solutions. It’s also good to acknowledge that many popular stacks are based on JavaScript so it’s definitely worth mastering, and, of course, not only for this reason.</p></blockquote><p>Depending on the choice we make, we shape the application’s operation, as well as its scalability and the possibility to expand in the future. Time to market is also an issue, and it may be reduced when utilizing technologies that are used more often. Likewise, a wrong decision means huge trouble and giant expenses so if we’re not sure which stack to choose, we’d better ask a <a href="/estimation" target="_blank">professional software company</a> for assistance.</p>

Web Development Stacks - Top Trends in 2021 | Codete Blog

Web Development Stacks Trends in 2021

<p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js, an open-source runtime environment, is among the most popular programming tools in 2021 and is used for server-side and network app development. Neither a framework nor a library, designed to be used in both front-end and back-end applications, it supports JavaScript code-writers and testers.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Table of contents:&nbsp;</p><ol><li><a href="#intro"><u>What is Node.js?</u></a></li><li><a href="#pros-cons"><u>Why use Node.js: pros &amp; cons</u></a></li><li><a href="#business-use"><u>Using Node.js apps (in business)</u></a></li><li><a href="#use-not"><u>When NOT to use Node.js</u></a></li><li><a href="#why-use"><u>Why use Node.js in 2021?</u></a></li></ol><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="intro" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2 style="text-align:justify;">What is Node.js?</h2><p style="text-align:justify;">Prior to the advent of Node.js, JavaScript was utilized mostly in front-end programming. Now, it can be successfully used as a full-stack language, excellent for building frameworks as fast as the environment itself.&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js is a cross-platform runtime environment for developing server-side and networking applications. It is written in C, C++, and Javascript and is based on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine, allowing developers to write JavaScript on both the client and the server sides. It is estimated that the Node.js web server technology is currently used by over <strong>30 million websites</strong> <a href="https://hostingtribunal.com/blog/node-js-stats/#gref" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>(around 1,4% to 2,2% of websites globally)</u></a>, including such big names as Uber, eBay, General Electric, GoDaddy, Microsoft, PayPal, Wikipins, Yahoo, Walmart, and Netflix.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">The features and benefits of Node.js make the development process straightforward. Node.js has an event-driven, non-blocking I/O paradigm, making it ideal for data-intensive, real-time applications that operate across dispersed devices. As a result of operating a single-threaded event-based loop, Node.js performs only one operation at a time – despite receiving many requests from different users. Thus, it can efficiently manage concurrent client requests and has good performance (non-blocking calls simply <i>begin the action</i>; the response is delivered later; in the meantime, additional client requests can be processed).&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js is simple to learn, and because it doesn't have a learning curve, you may skip learning JavaScript and Object-Oriented programming altogether. Think about it as another server, similar to Apache, IIS, TOM, and so on. However, unlike other servers, Node does not support PHP,.NET or JAVA – JavaScript is executed on the server-side.&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">It makes use of JSON and offers an API for using HTTP, DNS, and TCP, etc. to create conventional servers. Plus, the back-end of a project may be easily enhanced with the use of Node. js-based frameworks like Express, Socket.io, and Meteor.js. This allows you to tweak and modify Node.js to meet your project needs.&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="pros-cons" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Why use Node.js: pros &amp; cons</h2><p style="text-align:justify;">As the grass seems always greener on the other side, it’s always best to talk not only about the perks of the tool but also mention its key drawbacks. Let’s compare the pros and cons of Node.js, then we can talk about its actual use in your project.&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">&nbsp;</p><h3>Advantages of Node.js</h3><h4 style="text-align:justify;">1. Extremely scalable</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js is well-suited to respond to numerous concurrent requests at the same time. Node.js was the rock that allowed developers to use JS for both back-end and front-end development. Unlike other web backend development options, it allows several nodes to run in parallel and communicate with each other, then a cluster module balances loads to distribute requests among servers evenly. In addition, its event-loop system enables the server to respond to the most pressing requests. Plus, the Node.js child processes are fast and share the same origin by interacting with one other.</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;">2. Microservice friendly</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js is a simple framework that is a well-recognized solution for microservice architecture among developers. Not only do they have the ability to grow their Node.js application horizontally by adding more nodes to the existing system, but they can also scale it vertically by adding resources to individual nodes. Thanks to that, as the new microservices are added, it gets easier to build on top of the old ones. Or tailor apps to user interest, age, geography, language, and other parameters, resulting in more efficiency and more customization. Therefore, it serves as a perfect base for developing sophisticated corporate applications with better scalability.</p><h4>3. JavaScript V8 engine</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js's popularity is attributed to its ability to provide incredible performance in a time of a large quantity of data processing. Node.js web app development tool makes it possible to write code directly in machine code, which simplifies and speeds up the implementation process. Node.js uses Google V8's JavaScript engine to run JavaScript code, which is immediately compiled into machine code. In other words, the Node.js framework's backend technology and runtime environment gave support to non-blocking I/O operations and made the code execute faster.&nbsp;</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;">4. Node.js is module-based</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Every aspect of Node.js is performed using separate modules that correlate to a certain function. You may choose to use a different module for networking, I/O file systems, and data buffering. Editing one aspect of the program is as simple as accessing the appropriate module and tweaking that code. A good option for servers with sophisticated functionality when you use a single project. You may choose a certain developer to be in charge of each module. This gives you the capacity to scale and better controls the process.</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;">5. Automation</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Automate repetitive tasks, update shared data, and schedule activities in a framework. Developing a web application is a breeze when you have a giant collection of interface and functionality templates readily available. Specifying needs is all you need to do, and the framework will take care of the rest. Even though it will be less advanced, the product will be similar enough to fool some newer designers.</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;">6. A single-threaded request management system</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">A thread typically consumes an additional 2MB of data, in addition to the resources needed to link threads. Node.js uses a single thread to execute more than ten thousand requests at a time - taking the burden of extra loading off your shoulders. The processed data is considerably lighter than it would be with other languages since the number of threads is limited. The flow is more smooth as well. Thanks to that, Node.js may be used to construct a wide variety of web projects, including single-page applications, microservices, chat rooms, online games, APIs, and data streaming programs.</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;">7. Database support</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js has an advantageous single-thread architecture, which makes it ideal for processing input-output (I/O) data. When you're done, you'll have a basic and lightweight server that responds to certain URL requests by sending backfiles. Node.js supports relational and NoSQL databases, as well as any other database formats. However, it is helpful to utilize MongoDB first. JSON objects help make it easier to implement JavaScript-based backends like Node.js.&nbsp;</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;">8. Full support</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">The Node.js community is both active and ever-contributive and is working toward Node growth and advancement. According to Stackoverflow, almost 51.4% of professional developers utilize Nodejs for frameworks, libraries, and tools. Over 700,000 built-in features and modules are available in NPM (Node.js Package Manager). And, due to its “make your own rules” open-source approach, it is believed that we will see an even more prosperous and robust ecosystem in the future. As a result, Node.js developers can rely on their tools being supported for a long time.</p><h4>9. Good for testing</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">The Node.js ecosystem, with its rich array of third-party packages, provides the capability to test and debug with competence. Node.js applications that utilize different automated testing tools/frameworks, including Lab, Code, Jasmine, and AVA, will all benefit from a robust testing environment. Moreover, you may utilize testing libraries like Chai, Mocha, and Jest to ensure that your consumers have a flawless, error-free experience.</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;">10. No learning curve (easy to adjust)</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js developers may write both frontend and backend code in JavaScript, thanks to Full-Stack Privilege. The seamless deployment of programs is made possible by this software, and the learning curve is also shortened. Let’s top that with the fact that developers have the freedom to <i>write as they want since</i> Node.js lets them construct things from scratch with fewer limitations.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>Limitations of Node.js</h3><h4 style="text-align:justify;">1. Ineffective management of excessive CPU use</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js works for light to moderate computation (CPU-intensive programs are not recommended.) Furthermore, it is less efficient at doing large calculations since it does not enable multi-threaded programming. In short, the major advantage of the language would become a big disadvantage and lead to a drastic slowdown in end-product performance.</p><h4>2. Quality issues: inconsistent API&nbsp;</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Due to its non-opinionated nature, Node.js tools are prone to structural problems, as some of them aren't coded to very high standards yet. Because the API is always in flux, it is a burden for developers, who must regularly alter their current code to maintain compatibility as well as for beginners who could have trouble creating apps from ground zero. As a result, a decrease in productivity may occur.</p><h4>3. Asynchronous nature</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">The difficulty of maintaining it is caused by the fact that it is asynchronous, making apps laborious to maintain and confusing to comprehend.&nbsp;</p><h4 style="text-align:justify;">4. Poor key typing</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js enables you to write JavaScript without a web browser on the server. It has weaker typing constraints and may execute implicit type conversion at runtime, which might lead to surprising results.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="business-use" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Using Node.js apps (in business)</h2><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js allows for several concurrent requests to be served concurrently, ensuring rapid response times. It is thus excellent for client-side web application development. Node.js may be used as your server technology, allowing you to increase productivity by enabling developers to utilize the same language on both the front end and back end. For single-page apps, we may employ JavaScript runtime environments more commonly than any other back-end technology. A cross-functional and more efficient development team allows for cheaper development expenses.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">You may reuse your code between the front- and back-end portions of your application, which will help speed up the development process and market release time. Node.js is a common choice for online application development, as it is the primary motivation for web developers. Node.js's popularity is surging, thus the extensive resource library that exists is only becoming larger.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js is a great solution for contemporary apps that must handle huge volumes of data and that require minimal latency. Node.js-based real-time applications are known as such systems. The web app backend may be launched using JavaScript with the help of a runtime environment. It’s a valuable tool for use in e-commerce since it allows you to create a unique thread for each request, as well as ensure optimal speed. This is the ideal option for apps that process significant amounts of data in real-time and operate across several devices. Node.js applications offer higher speed thanks to two primary reasons: the ability to multitask and the usage of the V8 JavaScript engine.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js is an open-source platform that supports full-stack development using an event-based application development approach. The option of Node.js, though it has other platforms to compete with, is a popular and quick method for developing real-time web applications with a wide community of Node.js developers and a wealth of Node.js talent. Node.js also has performance advantages and other aspects worth knowing about for web apps.</p><p>Choose Node.js If you want to build:</p><ul><li>a single-page application that performs well</li><li>a web application that provides a stream of material</li><li>applications that can quickly process the information on the Web</li><li>a multi-user web application that is life</li><li>online games hosted on web browsers</li></ul><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="use-not" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>When NOT to use Node.js&nbsp;</h2><p style="text-align:justify;">There are specific scenarios where web server technology, which is otherwise flexible and revolutionary, is unsuited. Let’s take a closer look at three scenarios that do not work well with this JavaScript runtime environment.&nbsp;</p><h4>1. Applications that require powerful processors</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">Heavy-duty apps are the first thing that springs to mind when designing an app. Node.js uses an event-based, non-blocking I/O model, making use of a single CPU, which consequently blocks all incoming requests while the CPU is processing. Heavy CPU workloads will cause incoming requests to stall and negate the usage of Node.js's biggest advantages. The event loop included in the connections does not provide good CPU distribution for large queries, therefore performance suffers.</p><h4>2. Server-side applications supported by a relational database</h4><p>Rails' toolbox for relational database development is much more robust and efficient than the one from Datastax, making it a superior choice for development.</p><h4>3. CRUD (or HTML) applications for simple data entry</h4><p style="text-align:justify;">While Node.js may be an option for other purposes, using it for CRUD apps is a poor choice because it uses the same API as the server. The popular SQL operations of creating, reading, updating, and deleting are commonly performed by CRUD applications. Node.js will be a tiny bit more scalable, but don't assume your traffic will increase just because Node.js is used. Thus, usage scenarios of this sort, where data is delivered directly from the server and a separate API is unnecessary, make Node.js unneeded. In scenarios like these, you can utilize the Ruby framework since it handles CRUD operations well.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="why-use" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Why use Node.js in 2021?</h2><p style="text-align:justify;">Node.js's most powerful skill is enabling scalable network applications that can manage numerous connections at once. If conventional web-serving methods necessitate the creation of a new thread for each connection, Node.js can handle all connections with a single thread.&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i>Node.js is frequently used for projects that require JavaScript to be utilized actively on both the front and back end. Already, it provides insight into the core goal of Node.js as it applies to web development projects. Node.js is suitable for building web-based components for several types of projects – these are the most frequent ones.</i></p><p>In short, Node.js is suggested to write event-driven, non-blocking servers. Not only that, but you may utilize its developmental benefits to swiftly create a minimal viable product to put on the market to evaluate.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Still, despite being widely applicable, Node.js is not a one-size-fits-all framework. It's tailored to the demands of a few precise endeavors. Node.js was not conceived to address the “computing power scaling” issue. However, it was established to address the I/O scaling issue. So, for all non-CPU-intensive applications, Node.js is the finest available technology.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">If you want to use Node.js for constructing your piece of software, you should reevaluate your selection if you need to use a threading model. You should also keep in mind that there are poor-quality packages in npm that are free to utilize in your Node.js application. Node.js will never be "the ideal option" for use scenarios in which blocking the event loop is a problem (take asynchronous parsing XML, for instance)</p><p>Node.js is a good choice if you already have experience with JavaScript and OOP concepts. Most web developers, who are already experts in JavaScript and object-oriented programming, don't need to acquire additional knowledge to get comfortable with it. To boot, Node.js offers a bridge to the development of the front and back end. Communication problems and knowledge gaps are reduced with this consequence. Because teams are only responsible for one codebase and one deployment, they may focus on one project at a time.</p>

Why use Node.js in 2021? Pros & Cons | Codete Blog

Why use Node.js in 2021? Pros & Cons

Frontend Developer who mostly works with React but likes to delve into backend, mobile, and DevOps topics from time to time. He likes to „hack” any hardware that surrounds him. In his free time, he loves to travel and enjoy good food and beer wherever he happens to be. 

Krzysztof Bezrąk

<p style="text-align:justify;">Preact is definitely worth taking a closer look. With a total size of 3kb, you don't have to worry about your JavaScript library/framework consuming a significant portion of your app's overall JavaScript size. Is it, however, <i>the best option for your project</i>?</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Let’s dig into the basics of Preact (vs React).&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Table of contents:&nbsp;</p><ol><li><a href="#whatispreact"><u>What is Preact?</u></a></li><li><a href="#reactvspreact"><u>React vs Preact - pros and cons</u></a></li><li><a href="#projectuse"><u>Should you consider Preact in your next project?</u></a></li><li><a href="#switchingtopreact"><u>Bonus: How to Switch from React to Preact?</u></a></li></ol><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="whatispreact" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2 style="text-align:justify;">What is Preact?</h2><p style="text-align:justify;">Preact, a performance-focused lightweight alternative to React developed by Jason Miller, was created to build a JavaScript framework that was compact but offered the same API and functionalities as React. A brief statement on Preact’s homepage surely catches the eye, claiming it a<i> <strong>“</strong></i><strong>fast 3kB alternative to React with the same current API”</strong>.&nbsp;</p><blockquote><p style="text-align:justify;">Preact is very similar to React (think a React clone package) that has the same contemporary API, components, and virtual DOM as React, JSX, React DevTools support, HMR, and SSR are all in there. And, because Preact components are compatible with React, there is no need to worry about performance degradation. I will add from myself that it also runs smooth like butter.</p></blockquote><p style="text-align:justify;">What’s more, according to the MIT license, the software is <strong>open-source</strong> and freely available on the internet for anyone to use. Preact's community isn't in fact as large as other JS web frameworks, which is interesting because its initial releases occurred in the middle of 2015.&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">What’s interesting, Preact still tops the podium, despite React's recent size reductions.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="reactvspreact" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>React vs Preact - pros and cons</h2><p style="text-align:justify;">In recent years, React has become the most popular front-end library available. <a href="https://github.com/facebook/react" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>On GitHub</u></a>, it has 173K stars and is maintained by Facebook. GitHub, Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix are just a few of the firms that employ React in their products.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">By adding features that operate together, React aims to evolve the component model. Functional components making use of hooks are now the preferred way to write React components, as well as component error boundaries (fault-resilient components), portals, and a modern context API. The fact that all of these elements are integrated into a single library and designed to operate effectively together means that they naturally interact with one another.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Still, despite React's enormous popularity, some developers say that it bloats the application's bundle. Let’s take a minute to verify this concern with an amazing tool, comparing the size of bundles, <a href="https://bundlephobia.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>Bundlephobia</u></a>. We can note 128kB for the react + react-dom bundle, even <i>after it has already been minified</i>. Because of this, our app’s bundle starts with 128kB in size before we've even written a single word of code. A little heavy, don’t you think?</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><i>What’s the point of weighing clear bundles</i>, you may ask? Be aware we tend to lose performance with every kilobyte of JavaScript the browser must download, process, and execute (think: weak mobile signal or limited device memory). As a result of an inconsistent internet connection, the user experience might be negatively affected, resulting in poorer SEO rankings and overall conversions.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">That’s why more and more large organizations utilize Preact to power their products, even though it is not as widely embraced as React. Think Groupon, Uber, Lyft, Hashicorp, Housing.com, and Uber all use Preact today. Preact is also compatible with practically all modern browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Internet Explorer 11+.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">&nbsp;</p><h3 style="text-align:justify;">Preact vs React - an upgrade to an easier life?</h3><p style="text-align:justify;">Although Preact is just 3kB after being minified and gzipped, it still promises to outperform React. Still, keep in mind that <strong>Preact is not meant to be a 1:1 reimplementation of React</strong>. There are a few distinctions (which can be obviously shushed down by utilizing preact-compat, a thin layer over Preact that strives to achieve React-alike compatibility). Yet, React itself is platform agnostic and has tons of dev tools, while Preact is meant just for the browser.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">So, what are the main arguments for <i>going Preact?</i></p><ul><li>Size: Small size, lightweight</li><li>Efficiency: Effective memory usage</li><li>Understandability: Understanding the codebase shouldn’t be much different from the typical React one.</li><li>Compatibility: Preact aims to be largely compatible with the React API.&nbsp;</li><li>High performance: Preact is one of the quickest virtual DOM libraries available. Not only is it minimal in size, but it also has a straightforward and predictable diff implementation, which makes it quicker.&nbsp;</li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p><h3 style="text-align:justify;">React vs Preact: Let’s talk about the differences</h3><p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>1. There is no such thing as </strong><i><strong>full React to Preact compatibility</strong></i><strong>.&nbsp;</strong></p><p style="text-align:justify;">Preact's biggest flaw is that it isn't React. Jokes aside - because of this, there’ll always be a bunch of the newest React features which are not supported by Preact, with no guarantee that those will ever be implemented. There’s little to no chance that you will encounter that issue on the first day of your app development - still, when you find one of the “missing” features, believe me, <i>you’ll know</i>. Preact implements some of the latest React functionality outside of the main framework, but it comes at a price of bundling preact-compat, which adds another 13.5 kB to the app size.</p><p><strong>2. Innovation or stability: pick one (and one only)</strong></p><p style="text-align:justify;">In contrast to React, portals developed outside of Preact will not <i>respect</i> the component tree's mounting order. Thus, surprises and improper coding can appear multiple times. All that is because of purposely limiting the scope of Preact’s core library. Also, a lot of "property of undefined" errors will be returned by the library, rather than by dev-friendly error messages and cautions. So, if you seek proven solutions, opt for battle-tested support provided by billions of React reports (think Facebook), which assures your app is far more resilient to crashes.</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>3. Don’t judge by slogans: app performance&nbsp;</strong></p><p style="text-align:justify;">The most off-putting difference while comparing Preact vs React is obviously <i>the 3kB slogan</i>. Here, the choice between Preact's 3kb and React's 45kb seems obvious. Still, to remain lightweight, Preact does not aim to include every single feature of React. The ugly truth is React optimizes real-world app performance in many ways that Preact does not. I recommend you do the following: replace React with Preact (Pure <i>or</i> Compat - they’ve different performance characteristics) in a medium-sized React app, then compare the performance. And then decide.</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>4. Removal of PropTypes</strong></p><p style="text-align:justify;">PropTypes aren't used by everyone, hence they're not part of Preact's core (which is why they've been removed). If you still want to use PropTypes in your project, you can do so via preact-compat library, which greatly increases the size difference.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="projectuse" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Should you consider Preact in your next project?</h2><p style="text-align:justify;">The answer to that question depends on your app. If you care about performance, this is exactly what Preact has to offer. It helps maintain a strict performance budget for their project and puts performance as its top priority.&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Still, the price for migrating from React to Preact is that you will most likely have to forego some functionalities, or at the very least require some configuration to use some of the features that ship with React (preact-compat). Unit testing is an example of this.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">Bear in mind that if you have tests for your components (and you should!), most of the time moving them to Preact isn’t as straightforward as just replacing react with preact package. If you happen to use Testing Library, there happens to be a <a href="https://preactjs.com/guide/v10/preact-testing-library/"><u>Preact adapter</u></a> created already. Another thing to notice about Preact is the lack of Synthetic Events. Preact's browser support target does not require this extra expense, therefore Preact handles events using the browser's native addEventListener. This often results in a codebase that requires less maintenance and performs better, but it might be an issue with some external libraries and tools.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">It may also be argued that the absence of these features is what makes Preact the superior choice of the two, as it results in a very minimal codebase. Because of its small size, Preact is suitable for use cases such as a self-contained web widget/embed or a Progressive Web App and apps where performance is a priority.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">React may be used to create complicated apps as well as large-scale apps with changing data. Another advantage of React is its fantastic ecosystem. A short search on Github reveals that there are numerous React packages for diverse use cases, even though the Preact plugin community is increasing. While it might be possible that all these awesome tools are compatible with Preact (especially when you use preact-compat), most of them aren’t tested to be compatible with Preact, and you’ll never be sure until you’ll try it yourself</p><p style="text-align:justify;">As I previously stated, it all depends on your use case; if you want to build a little app that does one thing really effectively, Preact can be what you need. Just follow the example of Uber's engineering team who wrote an essay describing <a href="https://eng.uber.com/m-uber/"><u>how Preact (instead of React) was used to build the app’s mobile version, which performed better due to its compact size</u></a>.</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><strong>I'd consider Preact for a use case like an embedded widget, but I'd probably choose to React for an app that I expect to maintain and build over the long term.</strong> When it comes to building hefty things, React is a good choice. There's no purpose in constructing an app with Preact and having to import 10–15 modules due to compatibility; at this point, I believe you should just create with React.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">On the other hand, the Preact package is ideal if you're starting from scratch with your application. It is recommended to use preact/compact if you are migrating an existing application or rely significantly on React's ecosystem.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="switchingtopreact" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2 style="text-align:justify;">Bonus: How to Switch from React to Preact?</h2><p style="text-align:justify;">The Preact team did an outstanding job assisting developers in moving from React to Preact. The key here is the <strong>“preact-compat” package</strong> that acts as a compatibility layer between both libraries. This allows you to keep creating React/ReactDOM code without having to change your process or codebase. Aliasing allows you to leverage the React ecosystem in your application. So now, you can finally import and use any React modules and libraries in a Preact project. Isn't that amazing?</p><p style="text-align:justify;">So, how can you incorporate preact compatibility into your existing React code?</p><p>1. Install preact-compat with npm.</p><p>2. The next step is to alias preact-compat. You can do that by adding the following resolve.alias configuration to your webpack.config.js</p><pre><code class="language-javascript">const config = { 
   //...snip
  "resolve": { 
    "alias": { 
      "react": "preact/compat",
      "react-dom/test-utils": "preact/test-utils",
      "react-dom": "preact/compat",
     // Must be below test-utils
    },
  }
}</code></pre><p style="text-align:justify;">By following this method, we basically inform our webpack that if it encounters an import from "react", it should replace it with an import from preact/compat. The same is true for the other packages listed in the setup. Remember, you must include the above code in your webpack config file. More bundlers can be found in the <a href="https://preactjs.com/guide/v10/getting-started/#aliasing-react-to-preact" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>official documentation</u></a>.&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">And if you want to start an app from scratch, I recommend you go straight for <strong>Preact CLI</strong>, a command-line tool intended to help you start writing Preact code with little or no build configuration. What’s crucial, it does not require prior expertise to get started, making it the most popular method of using Preact. All you need to know is <a href="https://preactjs.com/guide/v10/getting-started/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>briefly explained here</u></a>.</p><p style="text-align:justify;">&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align:justify;">All in all, Preact employs the same API as React, the same lifecycle functions, and the same methodology. So, if you’re already building with React, Preact will be a breeze! And even if there won't be any chemistry between you two, it's still worth a try.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>More learning materials:</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://preactjs.com/" target="_blank"><u>PreactJS website</u></a></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQptGQlGXqA" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><u>Jason’s Miller talk on the origin of Preact</u></a></li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p>

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