Web Development vs Mobile Development

[Madi]

With the trending rise and popularity of software development, many people especially young men all over the world become interested in a way or another in becoming developers. The term software development got too many alternatives that make it hard for any one seeking a development job to have a job title. A software developer got many names like android/ios developer, web developer, programmer, software engineer, backend developer and the list goes on.

However, with the rise of smartphones and tablets, many people are joining the mobile development path while the number of web developers is still a high one but it definitely got affected by the massive switch for mobile development.

What you seek and wish to learn is totally up to your preferences and your supposed capabilities however for a person like me, I feel that seeking a career in mobile development is way riskier than web development. We all remember just few years ago how popular were old mobile software like ebuddy (Symbian) and now the technology got completely annihilated and those ebuddy developers had to either quit the job or start learning the new popular the environment of the currently dominating operating systems (Android and ios). On the other side, web developers who started web development in the late 90s or the beginning of the 21th century are still web developers. They of course continue to learn new technologies but these technologies were already built before on a very solid conceptual base. Look at HTML at its first release and HTML5 now, the improvements that HTML5 have don't make successful web developers just go and abandon their knowledge of HTML4 or XHTML. HTML4 btw is still widely popular and usable (div classes for example were replaced by article, nav, footer and so on but I still prefer using div at some cases)

What I am saying above doesn't demote the importance and brilliance of mobile apps development by any means, I am just thinking that web development is a safer path in case you want to have a stable career going on.

Would be very glad and happy to hear your comments and thoughts.

 

[Azareal]

Android is a fairly popular mobile operating system. Even if one popular android derived system crashes, there's likely to be others popping up or sticking around.
I don't really think that "mobile development" will disappear. It may become a lot less popular in the future when the whole hype around mobile apps and so forth die down, as we're currently in the mindset of "there must be a mobile app for everything".

I can't walk into any restaurant without instantly seeing a dozen advertisements for whatever mobile app that they've created. It's obnoxious.
Why would I download an app, just to check out your site? Just make a responsive design and call it a day.
The thing with web development is that the hype died down quite a while ago. Sure, the HTML5 revolution is somewhat great for making our lives easier, but no one outside the web developer world really sees it.

One of the problems with the web development world is backwards compatibility. Everything must be backwards compatible in order to support sites that either can't update or don't care about updating from HTML3 and so forth. This means that the browser vendors are always having to make compromises with HTML, JavaScript, etc.

Another thing is that despite people going on about the "power of HTML5!", it still lacks many features which makes it hard to compete with native.
Something off the top of my head is the complete inability to load modules from within JavaScript or any other form of real dependency management.

Async, Defer, etc. attributes are not decent dependency management. Neither is hacking something together ontop of AJAX.

 

[Madi]

Android is a fairly popular mobile operating system. Even if one popular android derived system crashes, there's likely to be others popping up or sticking around.
I don't really think that "mobile development" will disappear. It may become a lot less popular in the future when the whole hype around mobile apps and so forth die down, as we're currently in the mindset of "there must be a mobile app for everything".

I can't walk into any restaurant without instantly seeing a dozen advertisements for whatever mobile app that they've created. It's obnoxious.
Why would I download an app, just to check out your site? Just make a responsive design and call it a day.
The thing with web development is that the hype died down quite a while ago. Sure, the HTML5 revolution is somewhat great for making our lives easier, but no one outside the web developer world really sees it.

One of the problems with the web development world is backwards compatibility. Everything must be backwards compatible in order to support sites that either can't update or don't care about updating from HTML3 and so forth. This means that the browser vendors are always having to make compromises with HTML, JavaScript, etc.

Another thing is that despite people going on about the "power of HTML5!", it still lacks many features which makes it hard to compete with native.
Something off the top of my head is the complete inability to load modules from within JavaScript or any other form of real dependency management.

Async, Defer, etc. attributes are not decent dependency management. Neither is hacking something together ontop of AJAX.

Considering the backward compatibility of web development you are definitely right. It is very annoying to still keep working and make considerations for outdated browsers like IE6 or even IE8 that really doesn't know the majority of new HTML tags and CSS rules (and sadly IE8 is still a bit popular round the world)

But for the web development, a restaurant makes an app because currently it knows that such an app could potentially increase its sales thus its implemented for pure market business not for any tech coping or innovation and by the moment mobile apps go to death, these restaurants are to switch to whatever pop up as a new revolution in smart gadgets. So end users like these restaurants definitely won't be challenged or harmed, the true challenge will be on the shoulders of the current mobile app developers while those web developers are going to increase their knowledge in the current fields and its updates (Responsive design will never die imo).

 

[LeadCrow]

Yes and no, for various reasons.
'No' should have the favour of folks who favour the 'vendor lock-in' power to secure position, instead of 'affinities'.

YES:
Mobile development is principally technical, somewhat anonymous and there's no shortage of skilled workers worldwide.
On the other hand, web development builds its financial strength on personal affinities (that resist competition). Secure an affinity with influencers, governments or organizations (local and national), and contracts will keep flooding in along with references and free promotion.

NO:
Mobile development generates dependency on the original contractors, to maintain mobile apps.
Web development on the other hand leaves a final product built on widely accepted standards that make it very easy to drop the original contractors and leave maintainance either minimal or in the hand of others (promising either better pricing or technicals).

 

[saurabh mathur]

Web development-It refers to task associated with developing websites for hosting.This process includes web design, web content development. It is the creation of dynamic web applications and are building, creating, maintaining the websites.

Mobile development- It is the set of process and procedures which are involved in writing the software for small, wireless computing devices. They denote the act or process by which a mobile app is developed in the mobile devices.