By Anton Trukhanov

Web development has evolved quite a lot over the last couple of decades. In fact, all parts of the tech industry did. Today web developers have a rich selection of powerful tools at their disposal, created to make their work easier and more efficient.

JavaScript frameworks and libraries have grown into being the cornerstones of modern-day web development. The JavaScript ecosystem, mushrooming since the mid-2000s, gave birth to a huge number of various frameworks supporting the development of increasingly complex web sites and applications. You could definitely say that frameworks have revolutionized UI development. They allowed developers to save time and build rich-feature solutions with considerably less resources than before. 

But these advantages don’t come without a price. The evolution of JavaScript frameworks seems to be getting out of hand lately, which makes many web developers to look ahead wondering if the era of JS frameworks is running towards the end and new ways of creating websites and apps are about to take in. 

What is the problem with JavaScript frameworks? 

There is an obvious problem with the JavaScript framework ecosystem. The initial JS frameworks and libraries, such as jQuery released in August 2006, were quickly adopted as they contained lots of convenient functions, simplifying and automating multiple different parts of the web development process.

Over time, however, the number of new JavaScript frameworks and libraries have been growing, with their life cycles shrinking at the same time. 

Here are some of the most popular JavaScript frameworks today, in 2021:

• Angular
• React
• VueJS
• KnockoutJS
• Ember.JS
• Svelte
• NextJS
• ExtJS
• Node.JS
• Gatsby
• Express
• Jest
• Mocha

Older frameworks are quickly getting obsolete, replaced by new ones that support even more functions with increased complexity and versatility. 

According to this report, today the life cycle of an average mainstream JS framework only lasts for a couple of years, with “quick ascent as the framework gains popularity and then a slightly less quick but steady decline as developers adopt newer technologies.”

This, along with growing complexity of new frameworks and libraries, inevitably creates a number of serious issues the web development community is dealing with right now. 

What are the disadvantages of JavaScript frameworks?

Even though using JavaScript frameworks for web development has a handful of obvious advantages, the problems with these technologies are getting more and more obvious each year, making the developer community increasingly wonder if this is a dead end.

Let’s take a closer look at the main disadvantages of the modern-day JS framework ecosystem.

- Increasing complexity of web development.

Increasing complexity of new JS frameworks makes it more difficult to develop and maintain web solutions. Hidden incompatibilities of different versions of libraries and frameworks are manifesting themselves more frequently. 

- Rising demands for web developers.

This also puts higher pressure on web developers who have to learn new frameworks all the time as they keep changing, with alternative versions often used by different companies and on different projects. As a result, many developers are now complaining they have a hard time keeping up.

- Reduced innovations.

Universal acceptance of using frameworks and libraries also makes final products created with these tools a lot more standardised and lacking originality. So we can definitely say that JS frameworks today are limiting innovations in web development. 

- Declining performance speed of web sites and apps.
 
Finally, even though using JavaScript frameworks makes web development faster, quite the opposite is true when it comes to the performance of websites and applications built. Large masses of code affect the load time, making websites slower. 

What is the best web development solution? Low-code web development with LANSA. 

So in our opinion, the growing complexity and shrinking life cycles of JavaScript frameworks is a clear sign that it’s time to give way to new approaches. And low-code platforms such as Visual LANSA, which allows you to build and deploy progressive web applications without needing to learn any of the JavaScript frameworks, is the future of web development.

Here is how Visual LANSA empowers web development and saves you from the headaches of having to keep up with the out of control JS frameworks ecosystem.

- No need to learn any JavaScript frameworks.

Visual LANSA allows you to develop entire web apps in our IDE, using the same development approach as any Visual LANSA application. Developers no longer need to learn web development languages, frameworks and libraries. You also don’t need to hire separate developers for front-end and back-end parts of the project. Every developer can create the entire web application from start to finish when developing in Visual LANSA.

- One-stop web development solution.

LANSA allows you to develop both client-side and server-side apps from inside the IDE and easily migrate existing applications written in other languages using our bridge capabilities. All the development tools are conveniently located inside one IDE, making the development process faster and easier than ever before.

- Simple and versatile integration.

Thanks to LANSA’s hybrid low-code approach and the ability to code directly inside the IDE, you can integrate with anything and everything without creating time-consuming work around.

- Rich deployment options.

Another big strength of Visual LANSA is the fact that it supports the deployment across a huge variety of platforms, including IBM i, Windows, the Cloud, and Linux.

- Convenient repository.

All the modules and components essential to your app development are saved in Visual LANSA’s repository, allowing developers to quickly access, use and reuse them, which results in drastically reduced development time and increased efficiency.

How can I get started building progressive web apps with LANSA?

As using JavaScript frameworks gets increasingly problematic, the new generation of low-code web development technologies is rapidly gaining momentum. Visual LANSA, a powerful development environment pushing the boundaries of what we have traditionally considered as low-code, is such a solution. Visual LANSA allows individuals and organizations to build, deploy and maintain powerful web applications with minimal time and effort.

To learn more about Visual LANSA and how it can help your business to start utilizing the latest cutting edge technologies today, contact sales.

LANSA Hybrid Low-Code solutions are fast to deploy and easy to maintain delivering outstanding value for any application development project. Ready to get started?