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During this webinar we delivered you both the promising and the scary news for software development in 2021. Here’s a brief recap!
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The current landscape + the tech stack for any application in 2021

Here are the most popular and growing technologies used today for web apps, mobile apps, and backend.
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Web apps

Web apps today are usually built using a combination of a programming language like JavaScript and a framework like Angular, React, or Vue.js. It does not matter which technology you choose; they are simply different flavors of the same capabilities.

The newest technology in town to keep an eye on is the framework Vue.js. Created in 2014, Vue.js is growing rapidly worldwide. One reason for this trend is that Vue.js was created to improve on the shortcomings of Angular. If someone knows Angular, it is easy to adapt to Vue.js. However, the framework React still holds a massive lead over the use of Angular and Vue.js.

One technology that has been a big winner for web apps since the past three to four years is TypeScript. Using TypeScript should be a company’s default. If a developer does not have TypeScript in their tech stack, they are doing something deeply wrong! TypeScript is it is essentially JavaScript that scales, to verify if JavaScript code is fake or safe before it is run. JavaScript is cool and fast, but without TypeScript to back it up, you only discover a problem when the user is actually using the app! TypeScript on the other hand checks the code before it is executed, allowing you to make fixes beforehand.

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Mobile apps

Many mobile apps today are created using hybrid development with native rendering for each platform.

Use of the framework React Native (by Facebook) is still growing. React Native is basically the framework React but adapted for building native apps on mobile devices. This means that millions of JavaScript coders can now develop mobile apps. Companies are now asking themselves the question: “if my developer can now make mobile apps, why don’t I just turn my web app into a mobile app?”

It is important to note that React Native should still be used with TypeScript.

Swift (by Apple) is also a contender on the market since it began taking off two to three years ago. It offers essentially the same thing as React Native: to code an app once and run it on both iOS and Android. There has been the idea that Swift is becoming obsolete for this reason, but in reality it has only expanded the market.

Flutter (by Google) is also taking off as a mobile framework, used in combination with the programming language Dart. An app can be developed with Dart, but the final product can run natively on both iOS and Android.

Other widely used frameworks for mobile app development are Angular, React, and Vue, as well as Ionic. Ionic is declining in use because many web developers are turning into mobile developers.

One technology to watch is Swift UI (by Apple). It offers a LEGO-like way of developing mobile apps and has been skyrocketing in popularity since its release in 2019.

In addition, we also have Kotlin (by JetBrains) to write native mobile apps and Java Android (by Google) to write Android apps. In the Android world, use of Java is declining, while use of Kotlin is increasing. However, they are miniscule compared to the giants of the framework world like React Native.

Other technologies involved in PWA (progressive web apps) and web techs (which can write for both web and mobile apps) do not make things like Kotlin obsolete; they simply make the market pie bigger and bigger.

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Back-end apps

Backend tends to be quite a conservative environment. 
Main technologies include:

• Java with Spring Boot
• C# with .NET (core)
• Python
• PHP with Laravel
• TypeScript with Node (DENO)
• Java Android by Google
• Kotlin Android by JetBrains
• PWA (Progressive Web Apps)
• Functional programming with Scala
• Distributed database technologies

There are several things to note about these technologies and how they are used today:

As always, it is best to avoid JavaScript in the backend and to instead use TypeScript.

Python is the most-used programming language in the world. This is for several reasons: it is extremely easy to learn; it is open source, and it is tied to data science (which took off like crazy). Most libraries today are Python-driven; use of JavaScript has been completely surpassed by Python use.

With Laravel, PHP experienced a resurgence of popularity last year.

Functional programming is on course to surpass object-oriented programming (OOP) in popularity, due to the way functional programming simplifies programming work.

OOP is still the most dominant way of programming. However, it is less predictable and therefore less efficient. Here is a simple way to understand how OOP works: “If you give me X, depending on the day, I might give you Y or Z or any output that you can’t predict.”

Meanwhile, functional programming works in this way: “If you give me X, I will give you Y, at any time. Even five years from now, I’ll still give you a Y for your X.”

The purity of this framework, in which the output depends on the input, saves developers a lot of mental energy, and makes a job in functional programming very appealing. For example, Scala is a functional programming language and Java is an OOP language. If you offer a Java developer a Scala job, they will rush to take it.

Distributed database technologies allow companies to have their data split among different environments. Cloud technologies are responsible for distributing the data. This makes applications more resilient. Some of the most popular databases today include PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and MySQL.

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Trends and technologies to watch for

From cloud trends to scaling technologies, keep your eyes sharp for developments in these technologies.

Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open-source platform that helps you scale any kind of app using a container technology. Normally you build a technology (such as an app or database), put it in a container like Docker, and ship it to a certain environment (like AWS or Azure). When you have high user traffic, you can simply hand over the process to Kubernetes, which will create as many containers as needed to support the workload.

Kubernetes and Docker are now split but are used together. We predict that Kubernetes will only become better and better. That is why it is important to check if a DevOps engineer knows Kubernetes. If so, they will automatically understand what Docker does and how to use it.

Python!
As touched on above, the technology is simply awesome and is here to stay for a long while.

Cryptocurrencies
Keep a close eye on the blockchain behind it. On the development level, it shows great promise.

Cloud Trends
Today, companies of all sizes are using the cloud to store data and run applications.

There are three main players in cloud trends today: Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.

Microsoft has made some great improvements to Azure. But AWS still dominates a solid one-third of the market due to its massive capabilities. All other cloud technologies are simply following or creating services based on AWS. A developer proficient in AWS can be a big help!

AWS offers an unbelievable range of applications and functions you can cover, such as:

• Computing
• Six different services to store and manage containers and ship them with Kubernetes.
• Eight different databases
• Five technologies with which to build a mobile web app
• Security, identity, and compliance
• VR and AR: a plethora of machine learning technologies: to build a face recognition tech, connect a programming language to a machine learning tech
• Customer engagement
• Internet of things
• Game development

Other up-and-coming technologies to watch for include:

• Cyber security
• IoT & Security
• DevSecOps
• Data Science
• Augmented Reality (AR)

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The low-code and no-code revolution

The low-code and no-code revolution is a scary reality for many developers that is just beginning to encroach on them.

What if developers weren’t needed anymore?

What if designers were the new developers?
The only thing your clients would need is a designer or team of designers.

Furthermore, what if data analysts were the new developers?
This emerging trend is a game-changer! Coding will be replaced with drag-and-drop development, so web applications would only need a designer and a data analyst to make!

One example is Not Real Twitter, a faux-Twitter platform built with AirDev that operates just like its namesake.

If developers will soon become obsolete, what does this mean for you as a recruiter? For your client? For your candidates? Our next webinar will deliver you some insight for how to approach your clients and identify which situations call for no-code development, and which still need a developer. You can sign up here.

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What’s next?

In this webinar and blog recap, we touched upon the current dominant technologies in mobile apps, web apps, and backend for 2021. We also mentioned which technologies deserve a closer eye as they develop over the next few years.

The next webinar will be a continuation of this: looking at the implications of the low-code and no-code revolution on the future IT world.

Until the low-code and no-code revolution arrives at the tech industry’s shores, it is still crucial to have a solid repertoire of tech knowledge. Our one-day or three-day masterclasses will take you to that next level in the recruitment game. Sign up here.

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Check out the visual notes of this webinar: