I have started using Javascript everywhere and loving it. I am building everything targeted at the web world, with secondary experiences for mobile and desktop following the pattern used for web.
Javascript, along with Vue, Vuetify and Quasar have changed the way I used to think about applications per se. With the ease of adding mobile (Cordova) and desktop (Electron) features to Vue apps, I have started solely focusing on web-first experience.
- I can now afford to not think about desktop-first apps. Most of the applications I build need some kind of sharing amongst users anyway, which is an excellent use case for web-first apps
- I can plan offline using PWAs rather than local DBs that need to talk to centralized DBs. With Internet being a necessary commodity (even for developing countries like India that I target), my target audience do not seem to mind when I propose such a design
- The main cause of worry for users is performance. PWAs (not to mention SPAs) are really effective in changing the way web applications are perceived
- Most importantly, I can start using mobile-specific features with Cordova (or even directly with Javascript running in Chrome), and that has been a big game changer in sharing code across apps and reducing significant costs for applications
What I achieve today by myself or through a small outsourced team is nothing short of amazing. The timeline required to build sophisticated apps has reduced by more than 1/5th - yes, that to an extent may show where I started from. But, I strongly believe that is a direct impact of -
- significant improvements in toolsets
- frameworks like Vue and libraries like Vuetify
- omni present Javascript (and Typescript)
The future will be most likely non-developers creating applications through Alexa or using meta-programming, or just drag-dropping to glory. Until that happens - it is a wonderful time to be alive and to be a creator of stuff :)
