Navigating the Evolving Web - Part I

In the beginning, the web was ... relatively simple. A site had text and pictures and links to other sites with more text and more pictures. And it was good.

Over time, however, we have all come to expect much more from the world wide web. We book holidays, go shopping, pay bills, access government, plan journeys, trace ancestry, watch movies, and so on ... The web forms an important part of our everyday lives so it is necessarily an important part of business and commerce. In fact, in today's world, businesses large and small succeed or fail based on their relationship with the Internet.

And if the web is important, then so is our choice of how we build it.

Today, few people handcraft a website directly out of the elements of which the web is made (HTML, CSS and Javascript) much the same way that we don't tend to handcraft our furniture or vehicles anymore. Most websites you use are likely built using a 'framework' - a suite of tools, templates and techniques. This does not mean building a website has become easy - the demands placed on a modern website have also increased exponentially.

The challenge facing decision-makers today is which of the frameworks to choose. Each requires a significant investment of time and energy so the decision is weighty. This series of blog posts is not designed to make that decision for you but to assist with that decision-making process.

So, we will look at what are generally considered the top three web frameworks today - Angular, React and VueJS. We are going to look at what they are, where they have come from and what they offer.

But even given that information, how do you actually decide which to opt for...?

Perspectives and Priorities

Any important decision starts with two related considerations - who am I and what are my priorities? Who you are determines your perspective. Your perspective shapes your priorities. We are going to look at each of the technologies under consideration from four different perspectives:

The .NET Team Leader

• How much will my team need to reskill?
• How long (and how well) will this framework be supported?
• How fast is it changing?

The Start Up

• What technology will enable us to move fast?
• ... and to deliver real *impact*?
• What will attract the best talent?

The Job Seeker

• Which skills are most in demand today?
• Which promise job security in the future?

The Learner

• Which topics have the best/most plentiful online resources?
• Which are easiest to learn?
• ... and are related to what I already know?

After looking at the history, philosophy of each framework and the tooling around it we will review what they look like from each of the four perspectives outlined above.

So, which is the best? The answer is, of course, 'it depends' ... on who you are.

First up (next week) - the worlds most commercially successfully front-end framework - Angular...