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

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• Wes: All Courses - Use the coupon code ‘Syntax’ for $10 off!

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