Twenty years of web development, a change is coming!
Tags: javascript, webdev, programming, career
Published: 2020-08-09 10:16:40

I have been working in web technology for more than 20 years. I spent the first five years of my career as a full-stack developer. Back then, we used the term [webmaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webmaster). I would set up servers (which included e-mail and FTP), order domain names, create databases and order SSL certificates. I would code the backend and the frontend, plus open up Photoshop to do a little bit of design and UX from time to time. I was the scrum master and the business analyst plus I would support customers and project manage their websites. These tasks and job titles were all just part of being a webmaster. You crafted the web by yourself, and it lived in a box in the room next door, occasionally you would have to go in and check on it, maybe even restart it.

Later in my career, I saw an opportunity to specialise. Living and working in London, I saw the increasing need for the expert. Recruiters started to ring me, asking about specialist job titles. I very much enjoyed the visual element of working in the browser and JavaScript was growing in power and clearly here to stay. [Macromedia Flash had died](https://flowplayer.com/blog/the-rise-and-fall-of-flash), and [Java applets](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8q8n3k/a-brief-history-of-the-java-applet) were long gone. People were talking about [HTML5 and making huge promises](https://www.dharne.com/why-upgrade-your-website-to-html5/). The title JavaScript developer was being thrown around in my world for the first time and with JavaScript being such a strange language there was an obvious need for experts, I decided to bet my career on it.

Looking back, I was not wrong. I have had a pretty decent career for the past ten years and rarely have I needed a backend skill set. In today's market, you can easily get by being a specialist and JavaScript is all the rage.

However, recently I find myself somewhat bored of the JavaScript world, keeping up with the latest and greatest frameworks and build tools. It just feels like nothing much is really changing. [React](https://reactjs.org/) and [Vue](https://vuejs.org/) are great libraries but I was able to pick up the basics in just a few hours. Frontend for me just no longer feels like the challenge it once was. Nearly all the browsers are running a version of [Chromium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)) and our build tools protect us in terms of backwards compatibility. I no longer need to know the browser quirks and hacks or [the strange nuances of JavaScript](https://github.com/denysdovhan/wtfjs). Today we can simply write ES6 or TypeScript and JavaScript just works.

I feel a change is coming and a big one, words like [serverless](https://aws.amazon.com/serverless/), static sites and cloud computing are popping up daily, people are talking about [writing C++ in the browser and compiling it to WebAssembley](https://medium.com/@cchaconsartori/introduction-to-webassembly-with-c-part-i-64bcfad7ecb4). We have exciting new browser API's like [WebGPU](https://webkit.org/demos/webgpu/), USB, Midi, Web Speech and WebVR. Some exciting things are starting to happen and [potentially JavaScript will die](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript), it will be a slow death for sure. But we need to remember that nothing lasts forever.

Today I hear people say [JavaScript won't die](https://dev.to/vaibhavshah/will-webassembly-replace-javascript-or-will-wasm-make-javascript-more-valuable-in-future-5c6e) and WebAssembley will just be an extension of JavaScript. But what is that based on? I think they say it just to cling to what they already know.

It's certainly exciting times for the web and I guess I have a fear that I will be left behind in the JavaScript world. I feel like it's time for me to break free from the chains of JavaScript. It's time to learn something new.

Where are we headed? I am not sure. I just know that I don't feel like learning yet another JavaScript framework.

I have decided that I will commit to learn [Rust](https://www.rust-lang.org/) and dive into [WebAssembly](https://webassembly.org/). Rust is a powerful language like C++ yet safer. I can use it in the browser and on the server, plus it will be a challenge for me to switch from JavaScript to a low-level programming language like Rust.

My current plan is to focus on several interconnected paths. I will dive into Rust, WebAssembley, [Amazon Web Services (AWS)](https://aws.amazon.com/products/) and of course, Gatsby so I can share my experiences on my personal blog.

I hope you will join me on this journey as we explore some of these new technologies together.