#build vs prebuilt component library

[werbooz]

Component Libraries: Should You Build Your Own or Use a Prebuilt One?

Component libraries are a vital tool in web application development in maintaining uniform design, shortening the time taken to develop web applications and improving reusability of the code. Some developers find this dilemma; should they create a component library or use an existing one? In addition, they help reduce the struggle while building well-designed and interactive websites because of the availability of animation-oriented UIs such as Accentricity UI among others. Now, let’s get more to the point in order to help you find the right way.

What is a Component Library?

Component libraries are collections of reusable UI elements such as buttons, forms, modals, and more— and are intended to reuse the components across several projects. Such libraries not only guarantee a consistent look of an application but also save time and costs during its implementation because the elements have been already coded. So, there's no need to build components from scratch.

Prebuilt Component Libraries

Prebuilt Component Libraries

Prebuilt component libraries are the ready-made collections of different UI components that are specifically designed and optimized for common use cases that developers can face during development. Some well-known examples include:

Material-UI (MUI):

A library based on React and it follows Google's Material-UI design, MUI allows a comprehensive set of components customization.

Ant Design:

It's an UI design system framework for enterprise-level products, ant design offers built-in themes and a rich set of UI components.

Bootstrap:

It's an widely-used CSS framework that provides basic components and a responsive grid system.

Pros of Prebuilt Libraries :

Rapid Development: Prebuilt libraries save a lot of time of the developers by providing pre-designed reusable components that you can quickly integrate into your project.

Standardized Design: They help ensure a consistent user experience across different screens and features.

Community Support: Many prebuilt libraries come with robust community support, providing a wealth of tutorials, plugins, and enhancements.

Cons of Prebuilt Libraries

Limited Customization: Customizing components to fit your unique design can sometimes be difficult, leading to constraints on flexibility.

Performance Overhead: Many prebuilt libraries come with extra features you may not need, which can bloat your codebase.

Pros And Cons of Prebuilt Libraries

Animation-Centric Libraries: Bringing UIs to Life

In recent years, a new category of libraries has emerged, specifically focused on providing built-in animations and smooth UI transitions. These libraries not only offer pre-designed components but also emphasize adding dynamic, interactive features to web applications.

Here are some popular examples of animation-focused libraries:

Lottie

Category: Animation Integration Library

Lottie:The industry standard for motion design

What it Offers: Lottie allows you to render animations created in Figma or Adobe After Effects as JSON files using the built-in plugins. These animations are then rendered natively on the web, offering high-quality motion without a heavy performance impact.

Why It’s Useful: Lottie is perfect for apps or websites requiring rich, scalable animations that are lightweight. It’s commonly used for logos, loading animations, and subtle UI effects. Unlike other component libraries, it focuses purely on bringing visual design elements from tools like Figma & After Effects into the web environment.

Accentricity UI

Category: Hybrid Component and Animation Library

What it Offers:

 Accentricity UI combines traditional UI components with built-in support for smooth animations and transitions. It offers a wide range of components like buttons, forms, modals, and navigation menus, but with an added layer of predefined animations, making it easier to create interactive, dynamic interfaces.

In addition to these standard components, Accentricity UI provides responsive behaviors and subtle animation effects like hover states, fade-ins, and sliding transitions that enhance user engagement. The library's components are fully customizable, allowing developers to easily adjust animation timings, easing functions, and durations to match the look and feel of their brand, ensuring both visual appeal and performance across devices.

Why It’s Useful:

Think about it, what would be easy for a dev? Making a custom component with tons of animation which the dev has to write from scratch and polish it before the deadline or use a library, where the dev can make use of the library with the built-in support to combine the custom designed elements with smooth animations and transitions offered by the library.  

It’s particularly helpful for developers who want the convenience of a prebuilt library but need polished, built-in animations to enhance user experience without writing complex animation code from scratch.

Framer Motion

Category: Animation-focused Component Library (React)

Framer Motion

What it Offers:

Framer Motion is a powerful library for React that allows you to create fluid animations and micro interactions with minimal effort. It supports interactive features like drag, scroll, and spring-based animations, which makes it ideal for interactive & highly animated UIs. It also provides easy-to-use APIs for gesture-based animations and layout transitions, offering developers extensive control over complex animations while maintaining simplicity in implementation.

Why It’s Useful:

Framer Motion combines the simplicity of component libraries with the flexibility of advanced animation frameworks, making it easy to enhance user interfaces with dynamic visual effects. It’s a great choice for React developers who want to integrate animation without compromising performance or adding significant overhead. With its built-in optimizations for smooth rendering, Framer Motion ensures high-quality animations that enhance both usability and visual appeal.

Should You Use Prebuilt Animation Libraries?

The role of animations is really important in web applications to enhance the UX(user experience), by making interfaces feel more fluid and interactive makes user's remember the website due to its great experience. Since users are constantly getting used to smooth effects, micro-interaction and dynamic feedback, animations are no longer viewed as a good to have feature but are rather considered as a must have feature. Prebuilt animation libraries like Framer Motion and GSAP (GreenSock Animation Platform) simplify this process by providing powerful, flexible tools that allow developers to integrate complex animations without having to manually manage every aspect of motion or dive deep into animation theory.

Advantages of Animation-Centric Libraries

Advantages of Animation-Centric Libraries

Ease of Use

Prebuilt animation libraries abstract away the complexities of coding animations from scratch. Without manually writing keyframes, easing functions, or browser-optimized transitions, developers can simply use predefined APIs to implement fluid animations. This drastically reduces development time, as many animation details are handled by the library, letting developers focus on building features and interactions rather than tweaking animations for performance or cross-browser compatibility. For example, with a few lines of code, animations can be applied to any UI element, making the development process much more efficient.

Advanced Features

Many animation libraries offer advanced features that go far beyond basic transitions like fade-ins and slide animations. These include timeline control, scroll-triggered animations, physics-based interactions, and even 3D transformations. For instance, timeline control allows developers to create synchronized sequences of animations, which can be used to create smooth, coordinated interactions across multiple elements. Scroll-based animations enhance user engagement by triggering effects as the user scrolls, perfect for parallax websites or content reveal effects. Physics-based animations, such as spring-based drag-and-drop or object bouncing, add natural, realistic movement to interactive elements, elevating the overall experience. Additionally, 3D transformations provide extensive control over how objects rotate, scale, or move in three-dimensional space, something that is cumbersome to achieve with native CSS alone.

See What Happens Next

[mobileappdevelopmentcqlsys]

React Native or Native: Which Is Superior for Developing Apps?

In today’s digital ecosystem, mobile applications are pivotal for engaging users and driving business success. One of the earliest decisions developers and business owners must make is choosing the right technology for their mobile apps: React Native or Native development. Each option brings distinct advantages and trade-offs depending on the project's needs, budget, and long-term goals. This blog explores the strengths and limitations of both approaches to help you determine which is superior for your app development journey in 2025 and beyond.

Understanding the Basics: What Is React Native and Native App Development?

React Native is a popular open-source framework created by Meta (formerly Facebook). It allows developers to build cross-platform apps using JavaScript and React. With a single codebase, developers can deploy apps on both Android and iOS, significantly reducing development time and cost.

On the other hand, Native app development refers to building mobile applications specifically for a single platform—Android or iOS—using languages and tools provided by the platform vendor. For Android, this usually means using Java or Kotlin in Android Studio; for iOS, it's Swift or Objective-C in Xcode.

Performance: React Native vs Native App Development

When it comes to performance, native apps generally have the upper hand. Because they’re built using platform-specific languages and APIs, native apps offer smoother animations, better response times, and faster execution. This is especially important for apps that require heavy processing, advanced graphics (like AR/VR or gaming apps), or deep integration with the device hardware.

React Native apps, while impressive in reach and flexibility, rely on a JavaScript bridge to communicate with native modules. This can introduce latency and performance bottlenecks in high-performance applications. However, for many standard use cases—such as e-commerce, social networking, or booking apps—React Native performance is sufficient and increasingly optimized with tools like Hermes engine and JSI (JavaScript Interface).

Keyword tip: Businesses often search for terms like React Native vs Native performance, making it a core comparison factor in decision-making.

Development Speed and Cost: Why React Native Wins

If you’re working with limited time and budget, React Native app development services may be your best bet. With a single codebase for both iOS and Android, developers can create apps faster and cut costs significantly, sometimes up to 40–50% less than building two native apps.

Furthermore, code reusability, live reloading, and modular architecture in React Native enhance development speed and team collaboration. For startups or MVPs aiming for rapid time-to-market, React Native offers a compelling solution without compromising on functionality.

In contrast, native development requires separate teams, toolsets, and codebases for each platform, effectively doubling the effort and cost. While this might make sense for enterprise-grade or mission-critical apps, it can be overkill for simpler projects.

User Experience and UI: Native Still Leads

Native apps are known for delivering a superior user experience. Since they���re built for a specific operating system, native apps can take full advantage of the platform’s UI guidelines, gestures, animations, and components. The result is an app that feels more integrated and intuitive to the user.

React Native tries to replicate native UI components but can sometimes fall short, particularly with platform-specific design elements or highly customized interfaces. While libraries like React Native Paper and NativeBase offer prebuilt components, native still excels in creating pixel-perfect, fluid UIs.

That said, React Native UI is constantly improving, and for many common use cases, it provides a satisfactory and visually pleasing experience. However, for apps where the user interface is a core differentiator, native development has the edge.

Maintenance and Updates: React Native Simplifies It

From a maintenance perspective, React Native simplifies updates due to its unified codebase. Bug fixes, feature updates, and performance improvements can be rolled out simultaneously across both platforms, streamlining app management.

Moreover, tools like CodePush allow for over-the-air (OTA) updates without requiring users to download a new version from the app store. This is a major advantage for agile teams that need to iterate quickly.

Native apps, however, need platform-specific maintenance and updates, which increases the workload and risks inconsistent feature parity between platforms.

Access to Native APIs and Device Features

If your app requires extensive use of native APIs, sensors, or background services (such as Bluetooth, GPS tracking, biometric authentication, or background video processing), native development offers direct access and better control.

React Native, while offering access to many native modules through libraries or custom bridging, can sometimes lag in supporting the latest native APIs immediately. In such cases, native development provides a smoother path to integrate cutting-edge features.

However, React Native has made significant progress in this area with tools like React Native Reanimated, React Navigation, and community-driven modules that support a wide range of native features.

Community Support and Talent Availability

React Native benefits from a massive and active open-source community. With thousands of contributors and extensive documentation, finding React Native developers is relatively easy, and solutions to common issues are readily available.

While native app development also has strong community support, especially for Android and iOS individually, it may require more specialized expertise, which can increase hiring costs and development time.

From a talent acquisition perspective, React Native offers broader flexibility. Developers familiar with JavaScript and React can transition into mobile development more easily than native development, which demands platform-specific knowledge.

Long-Term Scalability and Security

For apps requiring high scalability, robust security, and tight hardware integration—such as banking, fintech, or healthcare apps—native development is often preferred. The performance stability, access control, and OS-level security features make native apps better suited for enterprise-grade solutions.

React Native apps can scale well too, especially with proper architectural planning and the use of native modules. However, security can be a concern if the JavaScript layer isn’t handled properly. Obfuscation, secure storage, and regular audits are essential when using React Native in sensitive domains.

When to Choose React Native

Choose React Native app development if:

You need to build apps for both iOS and Android quickly.

Budget and time constraints are important.

The app doesn't require complex animations or high-performance hardware access.

You're building an MVP or prototype to test the market.

You want faster iterations and simplified maintenance.

When to Choose Native App Development

Choose native app development if:

The app requires maximum performance, such as 3D games or AR/VR apps.

You need to integrate deeply with device hardware or native APIs.

Security and scalability are top priorities (e.g., in fintech or healthcare).

UI/UX customization is a critical part of your user engagement strategy.

You have the resources to maintain separate codebases for iOS and Android.

Final Verdict: Which Is Superior?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. The superior approach—React Native or Native—depends entirely on your project’s goals, complexity, and constraints. React Native is a great choice for startups, cross-platform solutions, and rapid development. Native development, on the other hand, remains unbeatable for performance-critical, secure, and UI-intensive applications.

Partnering with the right mobile app development company is key to evaluating your needs and choosing the best technology. Whether you opt for React Native or native app development, ensure that your chosen team has deep expertise and a clear understanding of your industry requirements.

[viswatechynology]

Software Development Kit

Software Development Kit :

SDK stands for software development kit (sometimes called a devkit). As the name suggests, it’s a set of tools and instructions developers use to build apps. SDKs save developers from having to do every tedious bit of coding themselves. They help standardize the development, so apps can work more easily on different hardware, operating systems, and in cooperation with other apps.

So, why does this matter if you’re not a software developer? Because your app’s architecture is directly related to its business value, and when you choose what components to use (Stripe vs. PayPal for payments, for example), your choice should be informed by SDKs. Here, we’re providing a basic rundown of what SDKs are, how they work, and how to compare them by quality.

Software Development Kit (SDK) Definition and Examples

An SDK is a toolkit that app developers use to build apps using some prebuilt components instead of having to build each of those components themselves. SDKs are designed to work with specific operating systems, hardware, or computing languages.

Read More

Here’s a real-world analogy — if you’re trying to build a bookshelf, an SDK would be everything in the box you get from IKEA: prebuilt parts, tools, and instructions on how to put it all together. To build a desk without an SDK, you’d have to go into the forest and chop down your own lumber using an ax you built yourself.

For example, if you’re creating a mobile app, you’ll need to download Apple’s iOS SDK. This gives you access to whichever iPhone tools you want to use in your app, like connecting to the camera, the Siri interface, or enabling push notifications. Likewise, if you want to implement Auth0’s platform on both your mobile and web apps, you’d download the iOS SDK, Android SDK, and web SDK.

What’s in an SDK

Virtually all SDKs contain a few basic ingredients:

Code libraries: This is the raw code that developers plug in to make the app do what they want it to do.

Application programming interfaces (APIs): These allow the app to easily connect to other services (more on this later).

Integrated development environment (IDE): This is the interface through which developers do their programming. It includes a compiler, which translates the high-level programming language of the SDK’s source code into a lower-level language that can be used to build applications.

Documentation: These are the instructions that explain how developers should use the code. Clear, thorough documentation is an important criterion for a good SDK.

Read More

A debugger: Debugging automatically corrects minor errors, smoothing out the app development process.

Code samples: These get developers started by giving them some examples of the code in action and helping them use it in simple ways.

Some SDKs also include tutorials and other support tools.

Types of SDKs

Most apps are built with a variety of SDKs; for example, a 2019 study found that the average Android app uses 18.2 SDKs. Some SDKs optimize an app for a specific device or operating system, and some let developers insert various tools.

SDKs by hardware: SDKs aren’t just for web and mobile apps; they’re also used for programming in the Internet of Things (IoT). So if you purchase a set of solar panels, for example, the hardware provider might include an SDK, so developers can program them as desired.

Mobile device operating system: As we mentioned, designing an app that works on both Android and Apple phones requires an SDK for each.

Programming language for web apps: Developers need SDKs that let them build web apps in the programming language they choose, like Python, Ruby, JavaScript, or PHP.

Open source SDKs: These SDKs are free to use and invite developers to modify them as they choose. This can confer advantages when it comes to customizability but may also introduce security risks.

Proprietary SDKs: Unlike open source SDKs, proprietary or commercial SDKs require a license to use and don’t permit developers to change the source code.

SDKs Versus APIs

It’s easy to be confused by the difference between an SDK and an API, but the distinction is both simple and crucial.

APIs are the parts of code that communicate between two pieces of software. So, if you’re building a ride-sharing app, you need APIs that connect it to a user’s phone and messaging capabilities, payment platform, and GPS. All these elements might have different back ends, but an API lets them communicate and provide a seamless user experience.

The majority of SDKs contain APIs, so developers can build apps that are designed for easy connectivity. Without APIs, connecting apps is a little like that famous scene from Apollo 13.

Read More

But it’s not as simple as saying that APIs are components of SDKs since you can use an API without an SDK. And in some cases, developers have to choose between using an SDK or an API to handle integration with a particular service. The advantage of an SDK is that it’s simpler and faster to integrate (like the IKEA desk; most of the work is already done for you). The advantage of an API is that it’s leaner (not full of code libraries for functionalities you don’t need), and there’s more room for customization (if you build your own desk, you can design it to whatever dimensions you’d like).

The Elements of a Good SDK

If you’re building an app, chances are you’ll use SDKs for some of your functionality, like payment, messaging, or authentication. Those components are extremely difficult for developers to build in-house, and any errors can lead to major security issues. When you’re choosing which provider to use for those services, you’ll compare prices and features, but you should also be comparing their SDKs.

Here’s what to look for in a good SDK:

Lightweight: You want an SDK that does what you need it to do with as little code as possible. Otherwise, a mobile app can eat up too much space on a user’s phone, and the apps will run more slowly. If you’re replatforming or rearchitecting a legacy app, it’s worth looking at how much code your existing solutions use and whether an SDK would be more lightweight. For example, Auth0 customer Kiva was able to eliminate over 20,000 lines of legacy code by switching to Auth0 for authentication.

Good documentation: Two SDKs could be virtually identical, but if one has thorough documentation that shows developers how to use it, and the other leaves them on their own, then they’re hardly equal. In fact, this issue is one of the most common reasons Auth0 customers give for choosing us over our competitors.

Read More

Customizable: Some SDKs are resistant to customization, meaning you can only implement them with their out-of-the-box settings. That’s an issue if your developers want to tweak a product for their unique needs or insert original branding or graphics.

Secure: It’s essential to use SDKs that come from trusted sources to ensure that you’re not unwittingly inserting malicious or otherwise unwanted code into your app. In SafeDK’s report, “58% of the examined apps still have at least 1 SDK that accesses private user data.” In the age of data privacy laws, this collection may get your app into legal hot water.

Easy to use: A good SDK should provide tutorials and sample code and also let developers connect to a trusted community or support services if they run into any problems.

[viswatech]

Software Development Kit

Software Development Kit :

SDK stands for software development kit (sometimes called a devkit). As the name suggests, it’s a set of tools and instructions developers use to build apps. SDKs save developers from having to do every tedious bit of coding themselves. They help standardize the development, so apps can work more easily on different hardware, operating systems, and in cooperation with other apps.

So, why does this matter if you’re not a software developer? Because your app’s architecture is directly related to its business value, and when you choose what components to use (Stripe vs. PayPal for payments, for example), your choice should be informed by SDKs. Here, we’re providing a basic rundown of what SDKs are, how they work, and how to compare them by quality.

Software Development Kit (SDK) Definition and Examples

An SDK is a toolkit that app developers use to build apps using some prebuilt components instead of having to build each of those components themselves. SDKs are designed to work with specific operating systems, hardware, or computing languages.

Read More

Here’s a real-world analogy — if you’re trying to build a bookshelf, an SDK would be everything in the box you get from IKEA: prebuilt parts, tools, and instructions on how to put it all together. To build a desk without an SDK, you’d have to go into the forest and chop down your own lumber using an ax you built yourself.

For example, if you’re creating a mobile app, you’ll need to download Apple’s iOS SDK. This gives you access to whichever iPhone tools you want to use in your app, like connecting to the camera, the Siri interface, or enabling push notifications. Likewise, if you want to implement Auth0’s platform on both your mobile and web apps, you’d download the iOS SDK, Android SDK, and web SDK.

What’s in an SDK

Virtually all SDKs contain a few basic ingredients:

Code libraries: This is     the raw code that developers plug in to make the app do what they want it     to do.

Application programming interfaces (APIs): These allow the app to easily     connect to other services (more on this later).

Integrated development environment (IDE): This is the interface through     which developers do their programming. It includes a compiler, which     translates the high-level programming language of the SDK’s source code     into a lower-level language that can be used to build applications.

Documentation: These are     the instructions that explain how developers should use the code. Clear,     thorough documentation is an important criterion for a good SDK.

Read More

A debugger: Debugging     automatically corrects minor errors, smoothing out the app development     process.

Code samples: These get     developers started by giving them some examples of the code in action and     helping them use it in simple ways.

Some SDKs also include tutorials and other support tools.

Types of SDKs

Most apps are built with a variety of SDKs; for example, a 2019 study found that the average Android app uses 18.2 SDKs. Some SDKs optimize an app for a specific device or operating system, and some let developers insert various tools.

SDKs by hardware: SDKs aren’t just for web and mobile apps; they’re also used for     programming in the Internet of Things (IoT). So if you purchase a set of     solar panels, for example, the hardware provider might include an SDK, so     developers can program them as desired.

Mobile device operating system: As we mentioned, designing an app that works on     both Android and Apple phones requires an SDK for each.

Programming language for web apps: Developers need SDKs that let them build web apps     in the programming language they choose, like Python, Ruby, JavaScript, or     PHP.

Open source SDKs: These SDKs are free to use and invite developers to modify them as     they choose. This can confer advantages when it comes to customizability     but may also introduce security risks.

Proprietary SDKs: Unlike open source SDKs, proprietary or commercial SDKs require a     license to use and don’t permit developers to change the source code.

SDKs Versus APIs

It’s easy to be confused by the difference between an SDK and an API, but the distinction is both simple and crucial.

APIs are the parts of code that communicate between two pieces of software. So, if you’re building a ride-sharing app, you need APIs that connect it to a user’s phone and messaging capabilities, payment platform, and GPS. All these elements might have different back ends, but an API lets them communicate and provide a seamless user experience.

The majority of SDKs contain APIs, so developers can build apps that are designed for easy connectivity. Without APIs, connecting apps is a little like that famous scene from Apollo 13.

Read More

But it’s not as simple as saying that APIs are components of SDKs since you can use an API without an SDK. And in some cases, developers have to choose between using an SDK or an API to handle integration with a particular service. The advantage of an SDK is that it’s simpler and faster to integrate (like the IKEA desk; most of the work is already done for you). The advantage of an API is that it’s leaner (not full of code libraries for functionalities you don’t need), and there’s more room for customization (if you build your own desk, you can design it to whatever dimensions you’d like).

The Elements of a Good SDK

If you’re building an app, chances are you’ll use SDKs for some of your functionality, like payment, messaging, or authentication. Those components are extremely difficult for developers to build in-house, and any errors can lead to major security issues. When you’re choosing which provider to use for those services, you’ll compare prices and features, but you should also be comparing their SDKs.

Here’s what to look for in a good SDK:

Lightweight: You want     an SDK that does what you need it to do with as little code as possible.     Otherwise, a mobile app can eat up too much space on a user’s phone, and     the apps will run more slowly. If you’re replatforming or     rearchitecting a legacy app, it’s worth looking at how much     code your existing solutions use and whether an SDK would be more     lightweight. For example, Auth0     customer Kiva was able to eliminate over 20,000 lines of     legacy code by switching to Auth0 for authentication.

Good documentation: Two SDKs could be virtually identical, but if one has thorough     documentation that shows developers how to use it, and the other leaves     them on their own, then they’re hardly equal. In fact, this issue is one     of the most common reasons Auth0 customers give for choosing us over our     competitors.

Read More

Customizable: Some SDKs     are resistant to customization, meaning you can only implement them with     their out-of-the-box settings. That’s an issue if your developers want to     tweak a product for their unique needs or insert original branding or     graphics.

Secure: It’s essential     to use SDKs that come from trusted sources to ensure that you’re not     unwittingly inserting malicious or otherwise unwanted code into your app.     In SafeDK’s report,     “58% of the examined apps still have at least 1 SDK that accesses private     user data.” In the age of data privacy laws, this collection may get your     app into legal hot water.

Easy to use: A good     SDK should provide tutorials and sample code and also let developers     connect to a trusted community or support services if they run into any     problems.

[pixelproductions]

10 Useful Things That Front End Developers Should Learn In 2020

Front end developers are in high demand, find out what skills leading front end web design and development experts use the most.

2020 is here with us and from the look of things, it is going to be a great year for front end web design and everything to do with front end development. Unlike the recent times where front end developers in their space just had to something on jQuery, HTML or CSS, front end developers need to take the bull by its horns and face the dynamic ecosystem of skills necessary for developing libraries, tools and frameworks so that they can master the craft.

Delving into the past, it is evident that the past couple of years has blessed individuals in the front end development space with some amazing new frameworks and libraries including VueJS, Svelte and ReactJS that make use of JavaScript for powering up to major web applications. As a developer, you will find this article quite interesting while it sheds more light on some of the few core things you should strive to focus on to up your developing game in case you are an entry-level front end developer or already have a grip of things. Nowadays, there are many IT job opportunities for those who want to apply.

Here are the top 10 things to get you started this year.

JAMstack

This is a combination of JavaScript, API and markup. This combination is an interesting approach of developing apps and websites for purposes of bettering their performance and at the same time scaling down the costs involved. It functions to offer a developer a better experience while providing higher security. This makes learning this an interesting objective because all of them don’t depend on a webserver to function. For instance, if you take a look at a monolithic app that has some reliance on Node.js or Ruby back end or any site that is developed with such a server-side CMS as WordPress or Drupal, you will realise that all of them are not JAMstack developed. However, to learn working with JAMstack, some of the following best practices are crucial:

Automated builds: The use of automated builds is near perfect because every instance of markup is prebuilt with programs like cloud services or webhooks.

Instant cache validation: You definitely have to find a way of learning anything to do with instant cache validation because at that point any site goes live, it should be your responsibility to ensure that your CDN has the capacity to handle any form of instant cache purges for any kind of change to get visible.

Serving your project on a CDN: Since there is no need for a server, you can serve the whole of your project on a CDN, which gives you the ability to unlock performance and speeds that are unbeatable.

Atomic deploys: It would be in your best interest to avoid any case of inconsistent states by redeploying a large number of files in a large project. This practice will come in handy since it waits for every file to be uploaded just before any changes finally go live.

GraphQL

2020 should not pass before you get your way around working with GraphQL. This is despite the fact that for a long time now many people have considered REST as the effective measure for the design of web APIs since it offers concepts like stateless servers. This is because RESTful APIs are seemingly inflexible because they do not easily adapt to any changing clients wishing to access them. That is why Facebook developed GraphQL to fight the challenges that many developers face while dealing with RESTful APIs in the process of web development. The program will enable developers to send a query to its server with the data requirements, which would then return corresponding data with JSON object.

Testing

As an entry-level front end web developer, you should learn on the importance of testing because no code that is untested should go into production since they are mandatory in commercial projects. There are different tests you should keep in mind including:

Integration tests, which test any form of interaction between components.

End-to-end tests, which are instrumental in testing full-blown user flows in browsers.

Unit tests, which are essential in testing functions in isolation or a single component.

Soft Skills

As a front end developer, you might e tempted into overlooking the acquisition of skills but mark you they are just as important because they help in not only communication with team members but also help in the understanding of the technicalities of things. The most common soft skills you should learn to acquire in 2020 include:

Patience.

Problem-solving.

Teamwork.

Empathy.

Open-mindedness.

Communication.

Time management.

Creativity

Accountability

Git

This a form of a standardized version of control in web development. Therefore, it is only necessary that as a front end developer you strive to know and understand some of the basic concepts and workflows in order to effectively work in all sizes of teams plus understanding the underlying concepts. Some of the popular commands to know include:

git add

git config

git clone

git commit

git init

git branch

git push

git pull

Frameworks

There is a need for developers, especially those making use of JavaScript frameworks to focus on Vue and React since, in the recent years, these two have seen tremendous growth, especially in enterprise projects because the past year has sen two giants, VueJS and ReactJS starring a number of stars as compared to Svelte and Angular.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

PWA will soon catch up since more and more businesses and companies are choosing to go the PWA way over choosing native apps because they get a richer mobile experience from them. This has been mainly bolstered by the fact that PWAs are becoming more reliable because they can work without an internet connection with instant loading capabilities. These PWAs are also engaging in terms of user experience with that native-app feeling. This means that users can easily utilise the use of service workers for functionalities offline plus a full-screen experience that is enabled by a web-app manifest.

Code Editors/IDEs

VS Code by Microsoft will seemingly continue prevailing in 2020 as the go-to editor just as it did in 2019 for most front end developers. This is because the editor offers developers such IDE-like features as highlighting and code completion with the ability to extend infinitely through its extension marketplace, which is what makes the editor more appealing. Therefore, some great extensions to take note of include:

Prettier.

ESLint.

npm.

Vetur.

Live Sass Compiler.

JavaScript (ES6) code snippets.

Beautify.

Liver Server.

CSS Peek.

Debugger for Chrome.

Static Site Generators

These generators effectively combine the power of single-page applications and that of server-side rendering, which is very instrumental in initial load time and SEO. Therefore, if you believe you are serious in the front end developing, then you should consider projects like Gridsome and Nuxt which are Vue-based and Next and Gatsby, which are React-based. These projects will definitely draw some heat in 2020 since they come with such features as module bundlers, markdown support, integrated test runners and more.

Clean Code

The ability to write clean code is increasingly becoming more desirable and in high demand in many organisations. This means that learning the fundamentals of clean coding in order to strategically place yourself in 2020. Clean code should not only be pleasing to read and elegant but also focused. This means, as a clean coder, you will have to learn to:

Create codes that speak for themselves without the need for comments.

Create codes with functions that have few arguments and small in nature.

Create names for classes, methods, functions and variables that are meaningful.

All these things should have you encouraged to get busy to see to it that you have successful developing in 2020.

[t-baba]

The CSS Grid Layout vs CSS Frameworks Debate

With cutting-edge CSS standards like CSS Grid Layout and Flexbox, coding a webpage layout is no longer such a pain.

If you add to this that browser support for both Grid and Flexbox is pretty good too, then the question is bound to come up: Why should I learn and use a CSS framework in my development work?

In this article I will focus on Bootstrap, since it's arguably one of the most popular among all the CSS UI libraries available out there.

In my view, there are still a number of reasons why it does still make sense to learn and use Bootstrap today.

Here's a few of them for you.

What Is CSS Grid?

Rachel Andrew, a well-known speaker and writer on all things CSS Grid-related, defines it as follows:

Grid is a grid system. It allows you to define columns and rows in your CSS, without needing to define them in markup. You don’t need a tool that helps you make it look like you have a grid, you actually have a grid!

The implementation of this CSS standard gives developers the much needed ability to build page layouts with native CSS code, with no dependency from the HTML markup except for the presence of a wrapper element that works as your containing grid. Just imagine the flexibility and the potential for creativity in web design!

For instance, you don't need custom classes or extra rows in your markup to build this simple layout:

Here's the HTML:

[code language="html"] <div class="grid"> <header>Header content</header> <main>Main content</main> <aside>Sidebar</aside> <footer>Footer</footer> </div> [/code]

As for the CSS, this is where you're going to build your visual layout. All it takes in this simple case is a few lines of code:

[code language="css"] .grid { display: grid; grid-template-columns: repeat(12, 1fr); grid-template-rows: 50px 150px 50px; }

header, footer { grid-column: span 12; }

main { grid-column: span 8; }

aside { grid-column: span 4; } [/code]

That's it, you're done! Not bad.

What Is Bootstrap?

At the time of this writing, 3.6% of the entire Internet uses Bootstrap:

On the Bootstrap's website, you'll find this definition:

Bootstrap is an open source toolkit for developing with HTML, CSS, and JS. Quickly prototype your ideas or build your entire app with our Sass variables and mixins, responsive grid system, extensive prebuilt components, and powerful plugins built on jQuery.

In other words, Bootstrap gives you ready-made components that allow you to whip up a beautiful webpage in no time.

Just write the appropriate markup, and your app looks great out of the box.

Bootstrap makes it also super easy to customize its look & feel to your liking and lets you pick and choose the bits you need for your project.

Why Bootstrap When We Have Grid?

The biggest complaint about Bootstrap has always been code bloat. The reasoning was that it included lots of extra CSS code that remained unused in your projects. The second biggest complaint was that Bootstrap components were styled in every detail and this could present some problems when it came to override some CSS rules.

Starting with the latest version of this popular front-end component library, both criticisms fall to pieces: Bootstrap is totally modular, therefore you just include what you need. Also, the Sass files are structured in such a way as to make it very convenient to customize the original styles to your needs.

Today, the main reason against using Bootstrap is the fact that with CSS Grid, CSS has a grid system of its own, which doesn't have any external dependencies and once learned enables devs to build all sorts of layouts with relative ease.

Although I'm a CSS Grid fan, I think Bootstrap has still its place in front-end development and will have for some time to come.

Here are at least three reasons why.

Continue reading %The CSS Grid Layout vs CSS Frameworks Debate%

by Maria Antonietta Perna via SitePoint https://ift.tt/2KwMLT3