August 1, 2016 at 10:345 most promising JavaScript frameworks in 2016
In this publication, we will review the five most interesting and promising JavaScript frameworks of the first half of 2016. The review brings together various types of libraries that provide different functionality - from creating UI components to isomorphic JavaScript. It will not be a deep and detailed technical analysis, but rather a brief introduction to key features.
Below is a list of our frameworks:
Now, it's time to take a closer look at them.
Let's start with Polymer . It was created at Google and the reason for its occurrence was the desire to use its own web components. If you are not familiar with this term, visit this site . It will open the world of web components to you and help you understand why crowds of web developers consider them the future of the Internet.
Speaking about the future, Polymer uses technologies that are not yet present in modern browsers, such as Shadow DOM , Custom Elements and many others. For everything to work, Polymer offers polyfills. We can say that Polymer is a collection of polyfills and syntactic sugar .
Now let's talk about the available UI elements. It looks like thisPolymer element catalog : The
second element of this table is a paper element, which is a set of visual elements of Google Material Design (for example: controls, layouts, transitions and scrolling effects). Go to this demo page to see how it looks.
A novice walkthrough to help you learn the basics of Polymer and create your first app.
Aurelia was created by a former AngularJS developer and, according to him, “Aurelia has the first of its kind“ adaptive ”data binding, which allows two-way data binding between JavaScript and the DOM (including web components).“ That sounds interesting.
Here is a list main functions:
The documentation is fairly detailed and contains code examples that can help you understand the whole concept. You can also watch the video tutorial, which can be found on the main page.
Aurelia is pretty expandable. Since Aurelia is just a series of components, you can always exchange for those that match your application. You can change the router or the binding system, or the monitoring functionality, in general - whatever you want.
The Meteor framework is the so-called isomorphic JavaScript . In general, this term means "JavaScript applications that work both on the client side and on the server side." Thus, you can write your code once and use it both on the server for static page rendering and on the client.
Meteor is an open source JavaScript framework written in Node.js. Nowadays, it’s hard to find a user who doesn’t frown whenever he sees a web page that reloads every time after changing settings. The good news is that Meteor was originally designed to create real-time applications. User actions or changes to the database cause immediate changes, and this behavior does not require any additional code. That's just how Meteor works.
This framework simplifies the development process by eliminating the need to know a bunch of different programming languages. Front-end, back-end and databases are only managed with JavaScript.
Meteor is easy to learn and easy to dive into. Run a few commands in the terminal and you will get a working application. If you do not believe me, check out thisgetting started guide . In addition, it is possible to deploy the project to the server using one simple command.
As you can see, Meteor is a very friendly framework for novice developers and looking at how it is supported by the community, everyone from experienced to novice should try it.
Webix is a JavaScript and HTML5 framework that helps you build cross-platform web applications with an responsive interface. It consists of more than 70 components, from simple sliders to large widgets. You can find the list of components along with the API on this page .
Webix developers paid special attention to users of mobile devices, providing the opportunity to create an application that will look and work fine, regardless of which device you use. Applications work great on Android, iOS, Windows 8 and Firefox OS. They also added the ability to use Material Design .
The Webix Development Center contains several useful tools. For example, there isSkin Bulider and Form Builder , which allows you to create forms by defining the desired fields, location and automatically generate code for your form. There is even a visual constructor that allows you to create drag-and-drop applications, and then get the generated code. Here's what it looks like:
The documentation page is full of information for developers at various levels. There you will find quick start instructions, tutorials, etc. If you want to start programming as quickly as possible, you can try this playground.
Another framework that was built by the Internet giant Facebook.
One of the most important features is high performance , which is achieved through the use of a virtual DOM. The virtual DOM only displays data. Which makes it easier to identify changes.
Another feature is the use of the JSX language . It is an XML-like language that is optional and does not require the use of React . Go to the project website to see the difference between writing components in JSX and JavaScript. In the first couple it may look incomprehensible, but it is worth paying attention to.
Data stream. Usually, when you use MVC frameworks, you are faced with a situation where views interact with each other, which leads to difficulties in storing data in synchronization and makes your application more complicated.
React would be a good choice if you plan on creating reusable UI components. It is easy to get parts of previously used code and remake it. Go to the documentation page to find out how everything works.
In the field of web development, there will always be a need to follow trends. Today, web components and isomorphic JavaScript are the things to pay special attention to when planning your next project.
I hope this article was helpful and helps you make a decision.
Posted by Ivan Petrenko
- The First Reddit Promotion Service: Reddit Upvotes
Below is a list of our frameworks:
Now, it's time to take a closer look at them.
Polymer
Let's start with Polymer . It was created at Google and the reason for its occurrence was the desire to use its own web components. If you are not familiar with this term, visit this site . It will open the world of web components to you and help you understand why crowds of web developers consider them the future of the Internet.
Speaking about the future, Polymer uses technologies that are not yet present in modern browsers, such as Shadow DOM , Custom Elements and many others. For everything to work, Polymer offers polyfills. We can say that Polymer is a collection of polyfills and syntactic sugar .
Now let's talk about the available UI elements. It looks like thisPolymer element catalog : The
second element of this table is a paper element, which is a set of visual elements of Google Material Design (for example: controls, layouts, transitions and scrolling effects). Go to this demo page to see how it looks.
A novice walkthrough to help you learn the basics of Polymer and create your first app.
Aurelia
Aurelia was created by a former AngularJS developer and, according to him, “Aurelia has the first of its kind“ adaptive ”data binding, which allows two-way data binding between JavaScript and the DOM (including web components).“ That sounds interesting.
Here is a list main functions:
- Written in ES 2016 . No external dependencies other than polyfills;
- Instead of taking a monolithic wireframe approach, Aurelia consists of smaller modules ;
- Using Web Components ;
- Bilateral databinding ;
- Testable ;
- Support for a large number of languages . Aurelia uses ES5, ES 2015, ES 2016, and TypeScript.
The documentation is fairly detailed and contains code examples that can help you understand the whole concept. You can also watch the video tutorial, which can be found on the main page.
Aurelia is pretty expandable. Since Aurelia is just a series of components, you can always exchange for those that match your application. You can change the router or the binding system, or the monitoring functionality, in general - whatever you want.
Meteor
The Meteor framework is the so-called isomorphic JavaScript . In general, this term means "JavaScript applications that work both on the client side and on the server side." Thus, you can write your code once and use it both on the server for static page rendering and on the client.
Meteor is an open source JavaScript framework written in Node.js. Nowadays, it’s hard to find a user who doesn’t frown whenever he sees a web page that reloads every time after changing settings. The good news is that Meteor was originally designed to create real-time applications. User actions or changes to the database cause immediate changes, and this behavior does not require any additional code. That's just how Meteor works.
This framework simplifies the development process by eliminating the need to know a bunch of different programming languages. Front-end, back-end and databases are only managed with JavaScript.
Meteor is easy to learn and easy to dive into. Run a few commands in the terminal and you will get a working application. If you do not believe me, check out thisgetting started guide . In addition, it is possible to deploy the project to the server using one simple command.
As you can see, Meteor is a very friendly framework for novice developers and looking at how it is supported by the community, everyone from experienced to novice should try it.
Webix
Webix is a JavaScript and HTML5 framework that helps you build cross-platform web applications with an responsive interface. It consists of more than 70 components, from simple sliders to large widgets. You can find the list of components along with the API on this page .
Webix developers paid special attention to users of mobile devices, providing the opportunity to create an application that will look and work fine, regardless of which device you use. Applications work great on Android, iOS, Windows 8 and Firefox OS. They also added the ability to use Material Design .
The Webix Development Center contains several useful tools. For example, there isSkin Bulider and Form Builder , which allows you to create forms by defining the desired fields, location and automatically generate code for your form. There is even a visual constructor that allows you to create drag-and-drop applications, and then get the generated code. Here's what it looks like:
The documentation page is full of information for developers at various levels. There you will find quick start instructions, tutorials, etc. If you want to start programming as quickly as possible, you can try this playground.
React
Another framework that was built by the Internet giant Facebook.
One of the most important features is high performance , which is achieved through the use of a virtual DOM. The virtual DOM only displays data. Which makes it easier to identify changes.
Another feature is the use of the JSX language . It is an XML-like language that is optional and does not require the use of React . Go to the project website to see the difference between writing components in JSX and JavaScript. In the first couple it may look incomprehensible, but it is worth paying attention to.
Data stream. Usually, when you use MVC frameworks, you are faced with a situation where views interact with each other, which leads to difficulties in storing data in synchronization and makes your application more complicated.
React would be a good choice if you plan on creating reusable UI components. It is easy to get parts of previously used code and remake it. Go to the documentation page to find out how everything works.
Conclusion
In the field of web development, there will always be a need to follow trends. Today, web components and isomorphic JavaScript are the things to pay special attention to when planning your next project.
I hope this article was helpful and helps you make a decision.
Posted by Ivan Petrenko
- The First Reddit Promotion Service: Reddit Upvotes