Web Development Trends for 2006.
Curious
about what technologies and techniques are going to be popular in the
coming months and into the next year? Well, our crack team of editors
here at dashes.com (that is to say, me) have assembled a list of
up-and-coming trends that you should keep an eye on. Call it vocational
education for people building Web 2.0.
Some of the overall areas of focus are integration (as always) and
front-end technologies that have highly visible impacts on end user
experience. People won't pay for a service or rely on it if it doesn't
have a robust back-end infrastructure, but they'll be happy to pay for
it if the front-end is attractive and at least seems usable.
Here, then, is a random assortment of new web development trends to be ready for in 2006. . . .
- Marketing:
Okay, this one's not a technology. But geeks really need to
learn how to explain their skills, the benefits of their skills, and
the business advantages provided by those benefits. Knowing half a
dozen programming languages won't help you if you can't communicate
with the people who want to hire you. And your
language/platform/development environment of choice won't succeed
unless you do a great job of evangelizing it and promoting it to
others, including non-technical people.
First, be an expert with a technology. Second, be even better at
explaining the value of that technology. If you can do those things, it
doesn't matter which of the items you pick off of the list above.
The Bottom Line
If you have a friend who's looking to change jobs, or know a
disgruntled person who's been laid off and Lou Dobbs has convinced him
to blame Indian engineers for it, send them this list, and check back
with them in a few months to see if they've taken the time to learn
some new skills. No whining, just go do some reading. Buy some O'Reilly
books or Google up some docs online, and then get hacking. By the time
you're good enough to start posting your sample applications, employers
will be searching for your blog just to find the talent they need.
Got more ideas of what should we should be studying up on? Feel free to comment. [Anil Dash]