Last year a wrote a few predictions for Umbraco – for beyond 2014; a 5-year future.

Reviewing those predictions, many things have happened in the world of web-development, so I would like to reflect on those.

node.js

The idea of switching Umbraco’s “server-side” codebase from ASP.NET to node.js was quite appealing. Out-the-box it would be cross-platform, high-performance, asynchronous – all win!

Then Microsoft announced ASP.NET vNext! Bringing us… Roslyn! KVM! Cross-platform (Mono)! Async! NuGet! All open-source! BOOM!

Scott Hanselman covers all this in his post: Introducing ASP.NET vNext

In a nutshell, ASP.NET vNext has reinvented itself as a killer web-platform for the next decade.

My revised predication would be that Umbraco will (in time) fully embrace ASP.NET vNext.

I’d say that the appeal for node.js is great – especially in that it would open up the playing field to great JavaScript developers.

NoSQL (document database)

I still believe that document-databases are better suited for CMS repositories – flexible structures/data-models, etc. I don’t have a favourite “NoSQL” flavour – (although redis and mongodb do get mentioned a lot in my various newsfeeds).

Would Umbraco ever leave its SQL Server roots? Maybe one day, but I doubt it will happen in the next 5 years – could be one for v12?

Microsoft have announced DocumentDB, but that looks to be exclusively for Azure. At least this means someone in Microsoft recognised the need for document-databases on the .NET stack. Food for thought.

The bifurcation of Umbraco

This prediction remains the same. It’s the area that excites and interests me the most.

To quote from last year:

In terms of Umbraco, I think we’ll see a demand for separating the “front-end” from the “back-office”.

There’ll be teams who will love the editorial experience that Umbraco offers, but are not willing to be forced to use the front-end technology/framework.

Next week is the annual Umbraco UK Festival in London. If you are attending and want to discuss any of these predictions, then feel free to say hello for a chat.