Catching up with modern PHP standards

With Magento 2, a new architecture is introduced which is superior to Magento 1 from a programmers view: Using techniques like AOP (or in Magento 2 terminology: Plugins with a capital P), Dependency Injection, unit testing and composer, Magento catches up with the PHP community by embracing modern PHP standards. This involves a huge change in the Magento community - allowing bad coders to mess around less, and allowing good coders to gain more visibity.

Cleaning up the attic

Unit testing will be required more and more, so that Magento modules with unit tests will be favored over Magento modules without tests. This will phase out slowly Magento modules that are not testable due to bad code quality.

Currently the Magento 1 extension market contains a lot of badly coded modules that create nasty problems like XML overwrite conflicts and block clashes. With Magento 2 these problems can be solved by unit testing and sticking to Dependency Injection and Plugin hooks. The upcoming Magento Marketplace (aka MagentoConnect v2) will introduce automatic testing.

E-commerce is shifting to ...?

Because of Magento 2 being completely different from Magento 1, the question can be raised whether Magento 2 will be as big as Magento 1 (or bigger). We are not clairvoyants, but we can definitely state that the e-commerce market will be shifting in 2016: Shops will migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2, but some others will also migrate away from Magento towards other e-commerce solutions like Shopify or Sylius but also online solutions like Shopify and 3dcart. Who knows what will happen?

Extension prices might go up

One worrying thing is the extension pricing: The new Magento Marketplace will introduce a revenue system that also includes a fee to be paid to Magento. This either means that extension developers will make less money and will search for income elsewhere or it means that prices will go up. It is hard to predict which way it will go, but it will definitely change.

Less specific Magento code

The introduction of composer as part of the core architecture also invites all Magento developers to reuse non-Magento code. In the end this will result in less Magento-specific code and more generic PHP libraries to be used in Magento. Business logic can come from universable PHP applications, while Magento modules only take care of the integration with Magento. Less code means less bugs.

More trends

Without doubt, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There will be many more Magento 2 features that can become trends in 2016, but the major point is that Magento 2 will change the landscape. To all of you who haven't seen Magento 2 in action: Start playing because there is much to see!

Magento 2 Seminar

On January 22nd 2016, Yireo will organize a Magento 2 Seminar together with Dutchento and many other Dutch partners. Are you Dutch? Are you using Magento? Then you should not miss this event: Tickets are available at http://magento2seminar.yireo.com/.