Contents
What is the JavaScript Zeitgeist 2013?
JavaScript Zeitgeist Statistics
Top 10 Most Interesting Topics Searched By JavaScript Developers Last Year
What you can do with the JavaScript Zeitgeist rankings?
JavaScript World Championship of the Nations of the Innovation Award
What is the JavaScript Zeitgeist 2013?
JavaScript Zeitgeist is an initiative organized by the JS Classes site every year. It is basically the same as PHP Zeitgeist but for searches done by JavaScript developers on the JS Classes site
Its purpose is to evaluate what were the most important new technologies JavaScript developers have been looking for in the last year.
The JavaScript Zeitgeist initiative ranking is listed in a special page of this site. It lists the ranking of the top 100 new keywords that became relevant on each year.
JavaScript Zeitgeist also includes the rankings of the previous years since 2010 when the JS Classes site was launched.
JavaScript Zeitgeist Statistics
The JavaScript Zeitgeist works in a similar way to Google Zeitgeist but its data is not retrieved from Google. The data comes from searches done on the JS Classes site.
It takes all the searches done by the users of JS Classes in the site and builds a ranking of the top 100 keywords that became relevant in 2013 which were not listed in the previous years editions of the JavaScript Zeitgeist.
In 2013, it were done 13653 searches. 2559 were done by logged users. 11094 were done by anonymous users. It is a much smaller number of users when compared to PHP Classes that was searched over 487,000 times in 2013.
JS Classes also as much less registered users, 15,271 against 1,232,088 registered users in PHP Classes. 2,862 registered in JS Classes last year. 5,055 users logged in the same period.
Top 10 Most Interesting Topics Searched By JavaScript Developers Last Year
Similarly to the PHP Zeitgeist, the top 100 JavaScript Zeitgeist 2013 were grouped according to common topics, so we can see which are the dominant trends. This list is sorted approximately by order of frequency of the topic related keywords.
1. Image Processing
Processing images and other graphic aspects like for instance colors was the top most interesting types of components. Generating special types of graphics also continues to be in great demand, like for instance, charts, bar codes and QR codes.
2. Data or File Formats and Conversion
Tools and libraries to process or convert files in certain formats was another top dominant topic last year. JavaScript developers seem to be interested in libraries to export Web pages to PDF image or formats. Converting currency values also seems to continued to be an hot topic.
3. Form Validation and Processing
HTML form validation and processing libraries also continue to be a hot topic. Special form inputs like calendars and AJAX upload controls also seem to be in great demand.
4. Visual Effects
One kind of components that seems to always be high in demand from JavaScript developers are those for implementing visual effects on Web pages.
6. Web Site APIs
Web site APIs also seem to continue to be one of the most interesting topics searched by JavaScript developers. Several site APIs continue to be of great interest like Paypal, Facebook and Google Apps.
7. Third-party Libraries and Plugins
Certain libraries have gained great interest from JavaScript developers over time, especially those that can be extended with plugins. Last year some libraries gained more interest, like D3, Node.js, Backbone.js and asm.js.
8. Databases and Reports
Despite most developers use JavaScript on the browser side, they have great interest in store and retrieving data in databases on the server side, like MySQL. Components to present reports from data retrieved from database continues to be special interest.
9. HTML5
10. Mobile
What you can do with the JavaScript Zeitgeist rankings?
Like with PHP Zeitgeist, the main use of these rankings is to understand what technologies are gaining more recent interest, so you can get ready for the demands of the market for JavaScript developers.
Just take a look at the rankings and see what technologies each top searched keyword is related with, so you can have an idea about what you should study.
The other less obvious purpose of the JavaScript Zeitgeist is to help developers participating in the JavaScript Programming Innovation Award to get some ideas for innovative classes for purposes for which there are not yet any solutions in the site.
If you are interested in participating in the Innovation Award to eventually earn prizes and recognition, you may want to take a closer look at the JavaScript Zeitgeist ranking to start getting some ideas for innovative classes.
Just to the JavaScript Zeitgeist page and click on the top keyword links there. If it goes to a search results page without results, it may be a good idea for an innovative class.
JavaScript World Championship of the Nations of the Innovation Award
Starting this year of 2014, there is a new initiative based on the JavaScript Innovation Award. It is a championship on which developers of each country team to win colectively by country.
It works like this. Each nominee of the JavaScript Innovation Award earns points. Adding the points of all nominees of each country, a ranking by country is built. The country that accumulates more points in each year will win the nations award.
All nominees of the winning country will win a special country. This is the same initiative that also goes on in the PHP Classes site. Read the announcement article to learn more about the details.
