Change is constant in the web development industry. With 2022 right around the corner and nearly 2 billion websites on the internet—there are all kinds of things to look forward to. New updates and incremental changes continue to drive the industry towards an exciting new era. Check out last week’s top stories and highlights from the latest headlines.
- Low-Code/No-Code Software Development is Taking Over
- Python and Adobe Update Visual Studio Code Extensions
- New Developments in the World of WordPress
- Takeaways From the Chrome Dev Summit 2021
Low-Code/No-Code Software Development is Taking Over
Low-code/no-code web development platforms enable those with little or no coding experience to build complex websites and applications with drag and drop functionality. The next generation of web developers will most likely be focused more on design rather than technical difficulties.
According to P&S Intelligence, “The global low-code development platform market was valued at $12,500.6 million in 2020.” Data from a report released last week projects growth of “31.3% during 2020–2030.”
The public and private sectors are realizing the limitations of legacy systems built with fourth-generation (4GL) programming paradigms. Fifth-generation (5GL) software is rapidly changing the industry as companies migrate to AI-powered low-code/no-code software platforms en masse.
“The costs of custom web applications and cloud integration are expensive and qualified software engineers are scarce. This growth reflects the increasing digitization of businesses and growing demand for customized applications…Without enough software engineers to meet the demand, companies are now turning to these platforms, which are becoming increasingly powerful.” (M. Woo, The Rise of No/Low Code)
Python and Adobe Update Visual Studio Code Extensions
Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code is one of the most beloved freemium integrated development environments (IDEs) out there. A couple of new updates were announced last week. The new Python extension for VS Code was implemented. This means that “The Microsoft Python Language Server has reached end of life.”
Adobe’s XD Extension was also updated last week. Adobe XD “provides several powerful features for design teams to align, including Creative Cloud Library support.” The November 2021 update coincides with the release of Photoshop 23.0.1.
Adobe’s documentation notes, “With the November 2021 release of Photoshop 23.0.1, we provide fixes to several customer-reported issues.”
New Developments in the World of WordPress
WordPress is still the most popular content management system (CMS) and blogging platform on the web. Friendly competition among developers heats up as we approach the November 30th voting deadline for The WP Awards of 2021. Some worthy last-minute contenders are bringing the goods.
New Plugins:
- LogicHop (Personalization)
- If-So (Personalization)
- Orderable (Restaurant App)
- WPFunnels (Sales Funnel)
- LaunchFlows (Sales Funnel)
Along with a brand new version of the Gutenberg WordPress editor, WordPress added 27 new official themes to the directory. The results will be posted sometime in the first week of December.
Upcoming Events:
- Wordcamp Birmingham (February 4, 2022)
- WordFest (March 4, 2022)
- Big Orange Heart (ongoing program)
- WordPress Gives a Hand (December 20 to September 9, 2022)
Takeaways From the Chrome Dev Summit 2021
People can’t stop talking about user experience (UX). The Virtual Chrome Dev Summit 2021 was all about new dev tools and updates for Chrome (and plenty of vanity metrics). Google made a few major updates to help the average developer create a better user experience.
Core Web Vitals Program: master of ceremonies Ben Galbraith emphasized “the importance of helping developers get the best results they can out of the modern web platforms…one way we’re doing this is the web vitals program.”
Houssein Djirdeh, Developer Relations Engineer, went on to explain, “We’ve started with a complete revamp of the PageSpeed Insights UI…the new UI makes it much clearer which data is “Field Data” coming from real-user experiences, and which data is “Lab Data.” Coming from the Lighthouse report.”
Cross-Browser Compatibility Initiative: as web standards converge, cross-platform compatibility takes center stage. CSS elements like Flexbox, Grid, Position, Aspect Ratio, and Transforms have been updated and Chrome’s dev team plans to continue making incremental improvements in 2022.
The New Responsive Initiative: there were quite a few updates to Google’s UI styling and development tools. Una Kravets, Developer Relations Engineer, spoke on Chrome’s new features for responsive design, “Developers now really have the tools to create customized user experiences…it includes being responsive to the user with user preference queries and modalities like dark mode and prefers reduced motion, being responsive to new form factors like foldable devices which require multi-display functionality and being responsive to other components on the page with container queries.”
All of the updates tie in with the trend towards low-code and no-code programming paradigms. Galbraith wrapped up the keynote speech with some recommendations on places you can go to find the latest and greatest UX standards including the W3Cs website and usability.gov.