State of Developer Ecosystem in 2020 and Native CSS Masonry Explained | Front End News #006
Tags: frontendnews
Published: 2020-11-16 06:09:18

> **NOTE:** This is issue #006 of my newsletter, that went live on Monday, November 9th. If you find this information useful and interesting and you want to receive future issues as they are published, ahead of everyone else, I invite you to join the subscriber list at [frontendnexus.com](https://frontendnexus.com/).

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Hello and welcome back!

The last week was under the sign of the US elections and the entire tech world seems to have stopped to see what will happen and ponder on the upcoming changes. We're also approaching the end of the year, a time when the industry does retrospective studies. Like the 2020 State of Developer Ecosystem report from Jet Brains, our main headline today.

As usual, you can head over to the [web version](https://frontendnexus.com/news/006/) if you prefer reading this in your browser instead of your email client.

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## Jet Brains' 2020 State of Developer Ecosystem

Jet Brains is one of the big names in the software development market and they've got a finger in about every pie in the industry. I am using one of their products - PhpStorm - for my daily job.

They've been paying a lot of attention to their userbase. This is the fourth year they've compiled a report regarding the state of the developer ecosystem. Their info comes from nearly 20.000 developers and the raw data is even available for public download.

Here are some key items from this report, with a focus on web development:

- JavaScript is the most used overall programming language
- React is the most popular JavaScript framework
- More than 50% of the participants have contributed at least once to open source projects
- 60% of the participants have no pets
- 14% of the participants are below 21 years old, 49% between 21 and 29, and 25% between 30 and 39 years old.

Of course, there's a lot more than that in the full report, which you can find using the link below. Enjoy reading!

- [The State of Developer Ecosystem 2020](https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2020/)

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## Native CSS Masonry Layout In CSS Grid

I talked about the upcoming specs for the native CSS masonry layout in the previous issue of the newsletter. However, specs can be dry and hard to understand for many developers. That's why I'm glad to present to you Rachel Andrew's introduction to this new feature, which was published in Smashing Magazine.

The best part about this is that the examples can already be tested using Firefox Nightly. It used to take years for specs to be implemented. What a great time to be a CSS developer.

- [Native CSS Masonry Layout In CSS Grid](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/native-css-masonry-layout-css-grid/)

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## Browser news

It's been quiet on the browser front as well. The only notable thing this week is a notification from Brave.

### Brave

November marks one year since the launch of Brave 1.0 in 2019. In celebration, the team behind the Brave browser released an announcement, covering some of the most important milestones achieved over the last 12 months.

The most important achievements are the 20 million monthly active users and 7 million daily active users. The full release is available on the Brave website, via the link below.

- [Brave Passes 20 Million Monthly Active Users and 7 Million Daily Active Users](https://brave.com/20m-mau/)

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## Software updates and Releases

### AWS SAM CLI v1.7.0

The AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) is an open-source framework for building serverless applications. It provides shorthand syntax to express functions, APIs, databases, and event source mappings.

- [https://github.com/aws/aws-sam-cli/releases/tag/v1.7.0](https://github.com/aws/aws-sam-cli/releases/tag/v1.7.0)

### Mammoth v1.0

TypeScript Postgres query builder

- [https://nullbyt.es/a-new-typescript-postgres-query-builder/](https://nullbyt.es/a-new-typescript-postgres-query-builder/)

### Meraki UI Components

A collection of Tailwindcss components that support RTL languages and are fully responsive based on Flexbox and CSS Grid.

- [https://merakiui.com/](https://merakiui.com/)

### ngx-bootstrap v6.2.0

Integration of Bootstrap 3 or Bootstrap 4 Components with Angular

- [https://github.com/valor-software/ngx-bootstrap/releases/tag/v6.2.0](https://github.com/valor-software/ngx-bootstrap/releases/tag/v6.2.0)

### Node v15.1.0

Most used JavaScript runtime environment

- [https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v15.1.0/](https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v15.1.0/)

### NodeBB v1.15.0

Node-based forum solution

- [https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/releases/tag/v1.15.0](https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/releases/tag/v1.15.0)

### Socket.IO v3.0.0

A solution for real-time, bidirectional, and event-based communication.

- [https://socket.io/blog/socket-io-3-release/](https://socket.io/blog/socket-io-3-release/)
- [https://github.com/socketio/socket.io/releases/tag/3.0.0](https://github.com/socketio/socket.io/releases/tag/3.0.0)

### VS Code v1.51

A streamlined code editor with support for development operations like debugging, task running, and version control.

- [https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_51](https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_51)

### XRegExp 4.4.0

Augmented (and extensible) JavaScript regular expressions.

- [https://github.com/slevithan/xregexp/releases/tag/v4.4.0](https://github.com/slevithan/xregexp/releases/tag/v4.4.0)

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## Wrapping things up

That's it for this week. Have a great and productive week, keep yourselves safe and I will see you next time!

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> **NOTE:** Here is a sneak peek at the cover and main headline for issue #007. If you want to get it the moment it is published, I invite you to join the subscriber list at [frontendnexus.com](https://frontendnexus.com/).

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/63o20qzt031qtwsocaxj.png)