When I look back to the year we just passed, many things come to my mind about web development. I will speak of only two major achievements or trends which I count most important.

  1. HTML5:  after almost 20 years of complete dominance, HTML is slowly giving away the crown to this younger cousin, HTML5 development. We have already covered this extensively in another blog. HTML5 addressed many weaknesses of traditional HTML and also introduced many features previously possible only with Java. The audio and video handling, the versatile <input> and <output> tags, the <progress> and <meter> tags removes lots of Java dependency too. Yes true, HTML5 is yet to grow into a man but the promises it is making as a child are awesome. In a futuristic move, Apple discarded Java in favour of HTML5.

    HTML5
    HTML5-Early Promises. Image Courtesy: techlitic.com
  2. Responsive Web Design: With around 2000 new Android devices, a dozen more from prominent makers like Apple, Rim and others, there is no standard display option left for personal computing. The internet and web developers responded to this challenge brilliantly by introducing Responsive Web Design or RWD. Using the fluid grid technique among other things, the displays now can fit any display size, irrespective of the operating system or the browser, provided the site supports RWD. Not only it fits the dimension but it also puts the important contents of the site in such a way that you can access the main content without much sliding or swiping. Read our projects and deeper insight here.
Boston Globe responsive web design
Responsive Web Design of Boston Globe. Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

There can be a few things which also deserve mentioning. Adobe came up with PhoneGap, a platform where you can develop app once and can utilise it on many environments. We covered it here in depth here. Windows came up with Windows 8, a fully new interface where almost no external app can make its way to the market.  That gave a new hope to hybrid tablets. In short, it was a very exciting year for developers. But, in all probability, 2013 is going to have its own fairs hare of excitement, challenges and achievements as well.

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Parmod Kumar

Parmod KumarParmod is a web development veteran with a vast expertise of working on industry-leading technologies like Wordpress, JQuery, Javascript, CSS, and PHP. When he’s not busy coding the next big thing, you will find him reading about the latest and greatest in the development industry.

Keeping himself abreast and staying on top of the latest development trends is what he loves the most and his astounding work is a pure testament of that.