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!

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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!

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