It’s the season when you can hear the faint sounds of insects outside your window. I love the summer months when I write code in an air-conditioned room with a cold drink in hand, but as an engineer, there’s nothing quite like the long autumn nights when you can leisurely look at new technology documents while feeling the cool night breeze.

This time, I would like to relax a little and look back on the technological trends that have been making waves in the front-end world this year in an essay style.

Switching back to server side

If I were to pick one keyword that symbolizes this year, it would definitely be “React Server Components (RSC).” For the past few years, we have poured our heart and soul into ``how to create rich experiences on the browser side (client).’’ However, the JavaScript bundle size was increasing and the initial loading speed was reaching its limit.

That’s where RSC came in. In a sense, this approach is reminiscent of the good old days of PHP and Ruby: ``Anything that can be rendered on the server should be done on the server.’’ But it wasn’t just a throwback; it was a new paradigm that highly blended client interactivity with server robustness. Next.js’ App Router is leading the way, and many developers are excited about its potential, even as they struggle to acquire a new mental model.

Complicity between AI and coding

Another thing that cannot be overlooked is the transformation of the development experience through generative AI. Copilot suggests more code, and ChatGPT writes complex regular expressions in seconds. AI has gone beyond being a “useful tool” and has become something like a partner in pair programming. I suddenly find myself thinking in the middle of the night that what will be required of front-end engineers in the future will shift from the ability to write code from scratch to the ability to review AI output and design the overall architecture.

The joy of continuing learning

It is often said that front-end technology is being deployed too quickly. I can understand the feeling of being exhausted and thinking, ``A new framework has come out yet again.’' However, if you look at it from a different perspective, there is no playground that is less boring than this one. Every year we are presented with a new toy, and geniuses around the world debate whether there is a better way.

With the sound of insects as background music, I try to follow a tutorial on a tool I’ve never used before. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an autumn night like that? Believe that the person you will be tomorrow will be just a little bit better.