Recap of Front-end Development in 2016

• The year of the UI component, and tree of UI components, for building complex UI's.
• No longer mainstream development blasphemy: components being constructed from a single file, potentially contain HTML, CSS, and JS, IN ONE FILE!
• React, Redux, Webpack, ECMAScript 2015 (aka ES6), and Babel gain massive adoption. These solutions rise to the top of all the polls as the most used tech.
• Developers realized, in most cases, HTML 5 hybrid mobile development via webviews doesn't provide enough wins when building native apps.
• React Native and NativeScript start to replace mobile HTML5 hybrid webview development.
• Many abandon Gulp for NPM scripts, but Gulp remains popular.
• SASS remains a popular tool, while PostCSS (+ CSSNext) gains ground.
• Linting/Hinting HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is a thing most developers do (ESlint replaces JShint & JSCS merges into ESLint).
• A trend of developers abandoning Sublime and Atom for Visual Studio Code begins.
• jQuery remains, but usage/interest is declining. jQuery 3 was released, much like a tree falling in a forest that nobody hears.
• Vue.js continues to gain converts. Deservingly so!
• JavaScript functional programming & patterns get a lot of attention.
• Offline development & Progressive Web Apps go mainstream.
• Microsoft shows up and contributes.
• Developing native applications for windows, OSX, and linux using things like NW.js and Electron via web technologies becomes a thing.
• Angular 2 (in the future aka "Angular") gets off the pot and most realize it will never be as mainstream as Angular 1.
• JavaScript broadly remains at the center of software technologies.
• More developers start caring about tooling (e.g. automation) and testing.
• Static site generators are taken seriously.
• CSS Grid excitement grows and the future looks bright.
• NPM gets some competition from Yarn.
• The next evolution of React-like solutions shows up via Preact, Deku, Rax, and inferno showcasing evolution without much API change.
• Mostly people learn to accept JSX, and now they can't imagine not using it.
• A workable CSS module pattern (CSS encapsulation) is actualized and used, thus CSS in JS becomes a viable solution for many.
• More people turning to UI functional/integration testing including concepts like visual CSS & RWD regression testing.
• The days of battling inconsistent browser API's are almost behind us due to a massive decline in usage and development for older versions of IE.
• Most everyone realized they will have to have a multi-device strategy plan when developing for the web
• More developers, from other languages, continue to flood the JavaScript space bringing with them things like type checking and an obsession with class syntax and OOP concepts.
• Front-end devs are introduced to Hot Module replacement techniques and time travel debugging.
• More waiting for a native JavaScript browser module loader.
• Enforcing CSS and JavaScript style conventions becomes more important (considering ES3 to ES6 code and CSS pre-processors syntactical variations)
• A small but noticeable number of developers are starting to choose Elm over JavaScript.
• TypeScript gets some serious use and fanboys.
• http://aurelia.io/ becomes the smart choice for enterprise developers (i.e. support!).
• Webpack gets its act together and solidifies is position over the superior JSPM solution.
• HTTPS, yeah, we're serious about that.
• BASH on windows happens.
• The notifications API gets used and abused for chrome users, but only after you give it permission.
• Firebug officially dead.
• CSS 20 years young in 2016.
• Immutability concepts run rapid.