6 Software Development Trends To Look Out For In 2021

Trends as well as my predictions for the upcoming year

Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash

2020 is finally coming to a much-awaited end and I am really looking forward to seeing what the next year holds for me and my work.

Analyzing this year helped me predict some of the trends that I see happening next year and knowing this beforehand will help me prepare better for these trends.

Below are 6 trends to look out for in 2021:

1. Web apps will feel and perform like their native counterparts

Many of the frameworks such as Vue and React have support for building Progressive Web App(PWA) as well as converting standard apps to PWAs.

However, with the introduction of Web Assembly, one can build a full-fledged web application using other languages such as C/C++ instead of being limited to JavaScript.

Moreover, browsers these days have much more capabilities than they did a few years ago.

Things like push notifications, BlueTooth, and offline modes are present now.

It’s also much easier for developers to write web apps that run on both Android and iOS as compared to writing native code for these platforms.

It is worth noting that most of the consumers will be unfamiliar with the concept of PWA hence we may also see a message or toast in PWA sites to inform.

2. TypeScript will continue to grow

When it comes to application, it may seem like TypeScript and JavaScript serve the same purpose.

However, in the 2020 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 67.1% of the developers loved TypeScript compared to just 58% of that of JavaScript.

In 2021 the language is expected to grow even more especially now that Deno is here.

TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript and drastically reduces codebase as well as leads to a more bug-free program.

One of the ways in which TypeScript is able to achieve this is by being a statically typed language as opposed to dynamically-typed JavaScript.

For those of you who don’t know the difference between a statically typed language and a dynamically typed language, in a statically typed language, variables, parameters, and members of objects (properties) have types such as boolean, number or string.

This makes sure that you don’t enter a string in a variable that’s supposed to store a number and vice-versa. Thus, reducing the chances of a bug popping up.

3. ML functions

Although GPT-3 was very much hyped in 2020 especially its ability to create web pages, however, it still has a long way to go.

In 2021, we may see an increase in the use of Machine Learning to enhance user experience and security.

With Firebase and AWS, one can add some of the cool features that leverage ML such as text recognition without even understanding the algorithm and model behind it.

In 2021, we may see much more personalized web pages that use recommender systems.

Additionally, we may see more chatbots and the implementation of Machine Learning models into websites via a host of libraries such as TensorFlow.js.

4. Increase in Single-Page Applications (SPA)

Many developers find it much easier to full-stack apps by decoupling the frontend and backend(API).

This provides a great opportunity to use a full-fledged SPA to consume the API.

A Single-Page Application(SPA) provides several benefits such as quicker navigations, fast loading times as well as helps build a PWA.

Some of the famous frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular are used to build high performing SPAs.

But one of the main pitfalls of using SPA is SEO.

SPA sites struggle with proper search engine optimization however, there are quite a few ways in which one can manage to have great SEO in SPA. I discuss those ways in my other article given below: A Beginner’s Guide to SEO for JavaScript Web Applications After building multiple sites, here’s what I learned about organic traffic and SEOmedium.com

5. Voice recognition will be able to do more

Due to the ongoing pandemic, people will have relied on things like Google Home and Amazon Echo to ease their lives while they stay at home.

We can do a lot of tasks using Google Assistant and Alexa, and we will continue to see growth in the upcoming year as more sites and apps integrate Google Assistant/ Alexa functionality.

Not only that, we may see enhanced voice assistants in other devices such as fridges and cars.

Although Google has had a voice search option for years now, the feature has gained significant traction in recent years as 20% of the searches done are voice searches.

35.6 million Americans used a voice assistant device at least once a month in 2017, per eMarketer.

6. No-code Apps will become more common

Sites like Wix and WordPress have dominated the no-code market for some time now.

They provide fast, accessible, and stable means to develop websites for people who don’t want to code.

However, traffic of sites like Hashnode has almost doubled during the lockdown period as more and more people have started to write and read blogs.

2021 will be no different.

Sites like WordPress, Hashnode, Dev.to as well as Medium will become more mainstream.

Not only this, Google offers AppSheet which can be used to build mobile apps that are agile and powerful without requiring to code.

These services still won’t take the job of a developer however, they will definitely see a rise in traction next year.

Conclusion

2020 was a much more different year than we’d expected it to be.

Things like smart home speakers and dependence on AI have significantly increased this year and with the introduction of remote work and quarantine, we are expected to see the same next year as well.

Besides this, the web development field has been easier to predict. TypeScript has been on a steady rise for quite some time now and it was expected to grow in the future a few years ago itself.

However, we may see an increase in SPA next year as well as many no-code sites built using services like WordPress and Wix.

We may also see developers adopting Deno instead of Node in their new projects which will definitely push the growth of TypeScript.