2020 In Review

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about 2020 in review — predictions, hits and misses, hot tech, what they worked on, and more!

LogRocket - Sponsor

LogRocket lets you replay what users do on your site, helping you reproduce bugs and fix issues faster. It’s an exception tracker, a session re-player and a performance monitor. Get 14 days free at logrocket.com/syntax.

Freshbooks - Sponsor

Get a 30 day free trial of Freshbooks at freshbooks.com/syntax and put SYNTAX in the “How did you hear about us?” section.

Show Notes

01:43 - Predictions from 2020

• CSS Subgrid
• CSS Houdini
• CSS features not supported in older browsers yet
  • Scrollsnap - IE 11 and up. Lot’s of mobile issues.
  • position:sticky - no IE at all
• NPM tink
  • Installer-less npm
  • Load packages at runtime into a shared cache across all projects
  • Intelligently download the parts you need
• Yarn PnP / Yarn 2
  • Hard links to eliminate package duplication
  • Shared cache across all projects
• Pika & Snowpack
• Deno
• React
  • Suspense in more libraries
  • Suspense for Server Rendering
• Meteor
  • New ownership. v1.9 just dropped with lots of promise for future growth
• Svelte 3
• Vue 3
• Apollo
  • 3.0 came out
  • Fine grain cache control
  • Hooks API
  • Custom logic over how things are read and merged
  • New dev tools
• Next.js
  • 10.0 came out
  • Images!
• Gatsby
  • A single useQuery (made possible by suspense)
• Serverless
  • Going to get easier
  • Begin
  • Next.js / Now Functions
• Headless CMS Thunderdome
  • Sanity
  • WordPress
  • WPGraphQL
  • Keystone
  • Strapi
  • RedwoodJS
  • Blitz.js
• Cypress
  • End to end testing
  • We got Firefox support in 2020
• Modulz
• Exports to JS component
• Figma
  • Was already amazing in 2019
  • Constantly improving and adding new features
  • Can import from Sketch
  • Auto Layout
• Spline

42:24 - What other tech was hot in 2020?

• ES Modules is king
  • We’re ready in the browser
  • Node shipped stable
  • Deno has it
  • Snowpack
• Bundlers and tools
  • Snowpack
  • Vite
  • Rollup made gains
  • Rome
  • GraphQL got way easier
• Battle of the Types
  • Typescript
  • Flow
  • Reason
  • Rust
• Wasm
  • Viable to use
  • Starting to exist in more real ways

52:53 - Working from home

• Remote work is hotter than ever
• Starlink is coming
• Webcams - Cam Link
• Discord
• Remote Pairing
  • Live Share - I used VS Code with Jed from Keystone
  • Tuple

57:13 - Code libraries

• React Query
• Alpine.js
• Stencil

59:25 - Personal / Professional updates

• Hard year for productivity
• Published more than 100 episodes of Syntax

Links

• Syntax 216: Tech To Watch In 2020
• Adam Argyle
• https://ishoudinireadyyet.com/
• Syntax 212: Pika Pkg
• Fred Schott
• Level Up Tutorials: Deno 101 For Web Developers
• React Suspense
• Sapper
• How to Supercharge Your Productivity with GraphQL Tooling by Scott Tolinski
• Wes’ Master Gatsby Course
• Syntax 308: Gatsby vs Next.js in 2021
• Syntax 299: Hasty Treat - Bundlers in 2020
• https://github.com/ffmpegwasm/ffmpeg.wasm

××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ×××

• Scott: Innr Bulbs
• Wes: Pendleton Weighted Blanket

Shameless Plugs

• Scott: All Courses - Sign up for the year and save 25%!
• Wes: All Courses - Use the coupon code ‘Syntax’ for $10 off!

Tweet us your tasty treats!

• Scott’s Instagram
• LevelUpTutorials Instagram
• Wes’ Instagram
• Wes’ Twitter
• Wes’ Facebook
• Scott’s Twitter
• Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets