What to Expect in Web Development and JavaScript in 2023

What makes web development so appealing to more and more people every year? One of the reasons is the constant evolution of existing web technologies and the emergence of new ones, which allow many to find their path in the IT industry.

Even though we are very busy with improving and diversifying DHTMLX offerings for web developers, we still find time to follow the main trends and novelties on the web landscape, and in JavaScript in particular. Similar to the previous years, we are ready to share with you the most interesting findings from turbulent 2022 and make forecasts for 2023. Moreover, you will also learn about the principal achievements of the DHTMLX team over the last twelve months and our plans for the future.

Programming Languages: JavaScript Maintains Leadership but TypeScript is Not Far Away

It is rightly said that the only constant in web development is changing, but for many years this rule does not apply to the ranking of the most popular programming languages. JavaScript continues to be the King of the web. According to the latest Redmonk’s analysis, JavaScript leads the popularity race, leaving behind strong competitors such as Python, Java, and gradually rising TypeScript.

Source: RedMonk Programming Language Rankings 2022

But despite its widespread use, it is hard to call JavaScript the most loved and desirable programming language. The state of things based on these important criteria is clearly shown in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2022

Source: Developer Survey 2022

TypeScript has been around for a decade, developing from one more controversial coding technology into a true salvation for many web developers. TypeScript brought significant improvements to the developer experience and helped mitigate numerous shortcomings of JavaScript.

Microsoft publicly supported a proposal to bring the type syntax from TypeScript to JavaScript back in March 2022. It is too early to say whether this idea will work out or not, but many developers miss this feature in JavaScript.

The State of Frontend 2022 survey includes the question on the prospects of TypeScript addressed to 3703 frontend professionals from 125 countries, and you can see from the results below that the trust of the dev community in TypeScript is growing.

Source: State of Frontend 2022

The majority of respondents (43%) believe that TypeScript will be a full-fledged replacement for JavaScript or at least will be equally popular (27,6%) and there is little faith that it will be forgotten any time soon (1%). We also share this optimism about the potential of TypeScript and it is one of the reasons why DHTMLX products support TypeScript. And there are all prerequisites to assume that TypeScript will continue chasing JavaScript in 2023.

JavaScript Frameworks: Shifting in Traditional Balance of Power

The State of Frontend 2022 survey will also help us analyze changes taking place in the area of frontend frameworks. In recent years, it has become less surprising to see that the common "Big Three" (i.e. React, Angular, Vue) is slowly taking new forms.

Source: State of Frontend 2022

Participants of the survey most often preferred React (76,2%), Next.js (43,1), and Vue (28,9%) for their projects in 2022. If the presence of React and Vue raises no questions, some of you may wonder what’s so special about Next.js?

Next.js works on top of React, and these frameworks may seem quite similar. Next.js significantly improves some essential React features and adds new ones. But the main distinguishing trait of Next.js is the ability to use server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG) techniques in the same app.

Source: State of Frontend 2022

No wonder Next.js is also presented in the list of frameworks that the respondents want to learn in the future. In this category, it goes 3rd (33,5%) right after already loved by many Svelte (49,2%) and another promising React-based framework named Remix (36,2%).

We can assume that React, which is expected to adopt server components as a stable feature in one of the upcoming updates, and React-based frameworks will continue to be popular choices among web developers in 2023.

Bun: New Name in JavaScript Ecosystem or Another Temporary Thing?

In 2022 the web development community first heard about the new ambitious project named Bun. It is a new JavaScript runtime environment designed by the company Oven to become a worthy alternative to Node.js and Deno.

Bun is promoted as an all-in-one tool equipped with a native bundler, transpiler, task runner, and npm client. But the key peculiarity of the new runtime is said to be an exceptional performance. And when you take a look at the benchmarks provided by the Bun development team, the numbers seem truly impressive.

Source: Bun website

So what makes Bun so fast? There are two primary reasons for this:

1. Bun is written in the Zig language which provides manual memory management and ensures a lack of hidden control flow,

2. It relies on the JavaScriptCore engine that is a bit faster than the V8 engine used in Node.js and Deno.

Although Bun is called experimental software even by its creators and is currently available in a public beta version, it has sparked great interest among developers. The GitHub repository of the project has already received 37k stars!

It is hard to say for sure whether Bun will be a success or end in nothing, but we should certainly keep an eye on this intriguing project in 2023.

Container Technologies Become Indispensable for Developers

Today, many web developers can hardly imagine their work without containers. Container technologies (or simply containers) are software units that serve for packaging the code of your app together with all dependencies into a single package so it can run in any environment. The most popular examples of this technology are Docker and Kubernetes, which have been around for more than a decade. It is noteworthy that the respondents of the Developer Survey 2022 named Docker and Kubernetes the most loved and wanted tools.

Source: Developer Survey 2022

Here comes a logical question: why are developers so eager to use containers in their projects? The statistics provided by Statista show the list of the main benefits of container technology in 2022.

Source: Statista

In general, container technologies enable developers to build and deploy apps faster and more securely, thus containers will hardly lose relevance in 2023.

Current State and Prospects of CSS Technologies

Now let us shift a little bit away from programming and check on the latest tendencies in CSS. For this purpose, we turn to the results of the latest State of CSS survey containing interesting insights into a wide range of topics.

The survey says that the most recognizable and widely used CSS features are Flexbox gap, filters & effects, and variables. There are also some new features that are now on everybody’s lips: parent selectors (:has()), container queries (@container), and subgrid.

Source: State of CSS 2022

As for CSS frameworks, right now everything comes down to the rivalry between Bootstrap and Tailwind. Bootstrap has been the main choice of developers for a long time, and the accumulated popularity helps to stay on top. But it seems like it's only a matter of time before Tailwind will take the lead.

Source: State of CSS 2022

There are also many other interesting observations provided in this survey. For instance, more than half of the survey participants (62%) use CSS for web apps. When it comes to integrating CSS into JavaScript code, developers often resort to styled components and CSS modules. Sass and PostCSS are named the main utilities used for augmenting CSS. CSS nesting turned out to be the most desirable feature that is currently missing in CSS. Approximately 57% of survey participants are happy with the general state of CSS.

Taking into account a great demand for CSS nesting, we can expect that this feature may be adopted in 2023. The long-awaited subgrid feature should grow in use. Many interesting color-related features are being added to CSS. We’ll probably be able to make the most of wide gamut colors and device independent colors as well as manage them via the color-mix() function by the end of the next year. So let us wait and see what will happen in CSS during the next 12 months.

DHTMLX Offers New JavaScript Components for Productivity Management

Productivity software does not lose its relevance even in times of crisis. The DHTMLX team decided to support this trend by expanding the opportunities for web developers in this area with two new JavaScript libraries - To Do List and Event Calendar.

The DHTMLX JavaScript To Do List is designed for building feature-packed checklists to manage and prioritize day-to-day activities on a web page. It has a user-friendly UI that can be easily configured and customized via a flexible API. The list of the main features includes abilities to assign participants, specify due dates, use tags, set task behavior, and utilize the keyboard for convenient navigation.

Example of DHTMLX-based To Do List

The DHTMLX JavaScript Event Calendar is a great choice for quickly integrating a personalized day planner similar to popular online services like Google calendar. In fact, it is a lightweight and developer-friendly alternative to the more complex DHTMLX Scheduler. It offers the essential functionalities for organizing appointments out of the box and a simplified way for styling your calendar with CSS variables.

Example of DHTMLX-based Event Calendar

Both of our new products share similar APIs and UI design approaches, thus it should be really easy for web developers to use them in a single productivity app. Moreover, the To Do List can be smoothly integrated with our advanced Gantt chart component for more effective project management.

For those who are interested in the possibility of building comprehensive enterprise-grade apps with DHTMLX, we introduced the new planning bundle containing new products together with Gantt, Scheduler, and Kanban components at a nice price.

We should also mention the most notable updates delivered for other DHTMLX products in 2022.

The new version of our JavaScript scheduling component was probably the most anticipated release of the last year. This quality-of-life update helped to make this library more developer-friendly thanks to significant changes under the hood. With these enhancements, we simplified the way new features will be added to Scheduler in future releases.

One of the key distinguishing features of our JavaScript diagramming component is the availability of the code-free Diagram editor. That is why we enriched this auxiliary tool with a pack of new capabilities to make it more user-friendly and effective in visualizing data of any complexity. The most notable novelties in the editor are the radial auto-layout algorithm, hotkeys for time-saving styling of shapes, group distribution and alignment of shapes, and snap lines for arranging diagram items on the grid with great precision.

DHTMLX Diagram Editor

The JavaScript spreadsheet library became more functional regarding data management and structural flexibility on API and UI levels. For instance, now it is possible to manipulate data using multiple searching and filtering options. If necessary, you can change the spreadsheet structure on the fly for displaying data in the desired way by merging or unmerging cells and applying column auto width. We also added the ability to insert hyperlinks into cell content for making your spreadsheet more informative without taking extra space.

Salesforce continues gaining popularity as one of the leading cloud service and SaaS providers with a record high revenue of almost $26.5 bln in 2022 in its fiscal year (according to Statista) motivated us to help developers make the most of DHTMLX top products in Salesforce apps. We created step-by-step guides on how to combine our Gantt and Scheduler components with Salesforce LWC. Moreover, there are also video tutorials on the matter that can be found on our YouTube channel.

Our dedication to delivering high-quality UI components for business in 2022 didn’t go unnoticed by many developers who used DHTMLX in their projects. Their positive feedback allowed us to gain recognition from popular software review platforms such as G2, GetApp, Capterra, and Software Advice.

In 2023, we will do our best to justify the trust of our clients and help more developers all over the world by providing the right tools and solid technical support for creating efficient web applications of any kind.

Growing Software Security Threats

In 2022, the problem of software security acquired critical importance due to the increased level of cyber crimes. For instance, you probably remember the turmoil caused by the Log4j vulnerability.

Each year it becomes a real challenge for organizations to ensure proper security for confidential info used in enterprise software targeted by cybercriminals. There are also some factors that have significantly expanded the attack surface in modern software solutions: сloud adoption, remote working, third-party infrastructure integration, etc. The ongoing battle between security experts and computer fraudsters is also notable for the increased use of AI technologies from both sides. That is why, according to Gartner, general expenditures on information security and risk management tools and services are predicted to increase by 11.3% to reach more than $188.3 bln in 2023.

The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) named cyber threats that emerged and materialized during 2021 and 2022:

Source: Threat Landscape 2022

Here are also remarkable predictions on cybersecurity for 2023 from Gartner’s top analysts:

• Geopolitical polarization will continue paving the way for increased risks of supply chain attacks.

• Data-centric security will be essential for helping businesses to avoid data leakages.

• Organizations will actively use the zero trust security model in their risk management, i.e. increase protection against unauthorized access by continuously validating every stage of digital interaction.

• The DevSecOps (Development, Security, and Operations) methodology will become business-critical. It is focused on the incorporation of security measures at every phase of the software development lifecycle.

• Security operations (Secops) with selective automation can be useful for security professionals to enhance proactive and detective capabilities.

• With the growth of the attack surface, endpoints will be even more desirable targets for malicious attacks. Thus they require adaptable protection approaches such as endpoint detection and response (EDR) and managed threat detection (MTD).

• Human-operated ransomware is predicted to pose a bigger threat. Such issues are handled more efficiently with the combination of detection and response techniques such as XDR (Extended detection and response).

The 2023 State of IT report forecasts that significant security tech investments will be prevailing in the following areas:

• Hardware-based authentication

• Cloud workload protection

• Operational technology systems security

• Security solutions powered by AI / machine learning

• IoT security solutions

We should also mention positive changes in how security challenges were handled in the open source space last year. GitHub communities did a great job to secure dependencies and eliminate vulnerabilities in their projects compared to 2021.

Source: Octoverse 2022

GitHub offers a range of free tools and resources to help developers in achieving their security goals: Dependabot, Advisory Database, code scanning, Security Lab’s office hours, and secret scanning. Not long ago, GitHub also introduced thenew private reporting toolenabling researchers to report vulnerabilities found in public repositories directly to their maintainers and continue strengthening the security of open source projects in 2023.

GitHub Grows and Evolves in Many Ways

Apart from security improvements, we would like to highlight some other bright moments that facilitated GitHub development in 2022 using the annual Octoverse report. Last year, 20.5M+ new developers joined the platform, bringing the total number of developers on GitHub to 94M (27% year-over-year growth). We can also say about the increased productivity of developers on GitHub when seeing 227M+ merged pull requests, 31M+ closed issues, and 263M automated jobs run on GitHub Actions. The GitHub Copilot tool also helped to increase the productivity of developers, and the results of the following research vividly prove it:

Source: Octoverse 2022

In total, 85.7M new repositories were created (20% growth) and 413M contributions were made to GitHub in 2022. Interestingly, almost 90% of Fortune 100 companies use GitHub and 30% of them have open source program offices (OSPO) to coordinate their open strategies in this direction. Many large projects on the platform are supported by big tech companies, thereby making open source more financially sustainable. These factors encourage more people to contribute to open source. And lastly, GitHub now has $1 billion in annual recurring revenue compared to $200–300 million back in 2018.

How Imminence of Economic Recession Affects IT Industry

The tense geopolitical and economic situation prevailing in 2022 is very likely to affect almost every global industry, including IT, next year. That is why many companies started taking some precautionary measures such as reductions in non-essential spending and re-evaluating vendors or contracts to be prepared for the looming threat of economic recession in 2023. But we can also notice some positive changes for tech vendors.

According to the 2023 State of IT report, most companies (51%) are determined to increase their year-over-year IT spending for this year.

Source: 2023 State of IT

The main factors for IT budget growth are the need to update outdated infrastructure, increased priority on IT projects, employee growth, and increased security concerns. Many businesses are positive about their individual prospects next year and expect a rise in revenues.

The report also unveils the main spending areas of companies related to software solutions for the next year.

Source: 2023 State of IT

First of all, companies will focus on addressing their security concerns. Productivity software also traditionally remains one of the main priorities for businesses. As a long-time provider of UI components for building productivity apps, we can confirm that customers continue to show great interest in this kind of software solutions.

Despite the global economic difficulties, many companies pursue plans to boost budgets not only for common IT expenditure items but also to push ahead withnew technologies such as 5G, edge computing, VR, blockchain, etc. But at the same time, they should be ready to face possible problems associated with supply chain/distribution, increased product cost, shipping delays, and more.