Since 2010, when the initial version of AngularJS was released, to today’s Angular 5 as a stable release, Angular as a front-end web application platform has been rapidly growing in patronage and capabilities.
Read Latest: Angular 9 To Release Soon: What You Need To Know
Angular is a structural framework from Google for dynamic web apps, specifically for single-page web applications. It started as AngularJS as a JavaScript-based web application framework that binds the HTML with the JavaScript; AngularJS is based on Angular MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture. The later versions Angular (2 to 5), work based on Typescript and based on MVVM (Model View-View Model) as the architectural pattern. Angular framework ever since the beginning was and still is a popular framework for web application development!
In this fiercely competitive landscape of SPA applications, the position of Angular as a script based framework has only consolidated further. This is testified by the application of Angular by major websites like Netflix, YouTube, AT&T, PayPal, and Microsoft.
Enterprise web development teams expect to continue to do more with less investment and effort while reliability is assured. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are the compelling means to achieve that goal.
The focus of this article is the discussion of merits and benefits related to Angular for web development and Angular for mobile. As the latest adopted release, Angular 5 (released in November 2017) is a front-runner as a front-end development platform.
AngularJS (A.K.A Angular 1) was created in the year 2009 by Google. It was one of the most effective JavaScript frameworks to create dynamic web applications. Subsequently, Angular 2 and Angular 4 were also released (3 was skipped), with more capabilities added to the framework.
Significantly, the support of Typescript from Angular 2 onwards makes Angular framework different from its predecessor. Angular 2 supported Typescript 2.0, whereas Angular 4 supported Typescript versions 2.1 and 2.2 (Typescript latest version being 2.7). However, Angular 4 is backward compatible with Typescript 2.0.
Eventually, Angular 5 made its release in the month of November 2017. Angular 5 as an advanced version of the Angular framework supports Typescript (a syntactical superset of JavaScript) and works with multiple platforms across various media such as web, desktop and mobile applications of various types and versions.
Angular's latest version that received wider adoption is 5 and is the subject of discussion here. Overall, the Angular framework is used by millions of developers, a fact that could make the availability of skilled developers possible. Many enterprises, startups, and other businesses even hire Angular developers to get the latest technology on board.
In some references, the term Angular is used synonymous with any version of Angular. It would suffice to understand that AngularJS is the initial version of Angular (version 1.x) and supported only JavaScript and all subsequent versions 2 to 5 work with Typescript.
Angular framework provides a framework that could require complex syntax to provide highly interactive applications; so Angular could be more suitable for more complex applications typically used by Enterprise class applications.
Several large well-known companies such as Barnes & Noble, US Bank, Fitbit, Microsoft, and Google itself in many instances use the Angular platform for their Web Development.
Source: Stackoverflow Developer Survey 2018 (Angular was declared the 2nd "Most Popular Technology")
Angular framework (the latest release 5) was developed keeping in view the expanding horizons of the web development in order to have a common framework, particularly for dynamic web apps. There are at least five major reasons why it is worthwhile moving to Angular 5:
Familiarity: There are a few reasons that make Angular familiar to the developer community. AngularJS is JavaScript based and the subsequent Angular releases are based on Typescript; the core concepts being similar make it familiar. Besides many Angular developers working for big Angular development companies are familiar with C#.NET or JAVA; the typing concept in this framework is on similar lines. The component model in the subsequent releases also makes it familiar to the development community, demonstrated by a patronage running into a million.
Angular 5 is a faster, lighter and easier to use framework that can help build numerous applications. Apart from bug fixes from the previous versions, this one has several new features such as Build Optimizer, Ahead of Time (AOT) compiler, new HTTP client, internationalized date/time/currency, watch mode compilation, Universal transfer API, and DOM support.
And how can all this help businesses?
All of the above points and additional points below help Angular development for large enterprises as well as SMB organizations.
Angular 5 is many steps ahead in terms of framework features and support compared to its predecessors:
Angular brings much value to mobile app development by way of improving user impressions about the app or the web page.
App Loading time has been a prime factor for any platform. The Angular framework provides as many as 11 component libraries (including components for Angular UI framework and Angular Mobile framework) is the most popular front end frameworks. The PWA enablement (combined with Service Worker) in Angular makes it not just a powerful tool but also makes it possible to create highly performing UI for any app. Service Worker API runs processes in the background and even allows the admissions of features, which don’t need any involvement of the web page and/or the user-interaction. Now with this API, the app utilizes caches to serve its users better and can even showcase offline mode functionalities.
Angular 5 comes with Material Design components in the framework that are compatible with server-side rendering. This is a UI component framework (by Google in 2014) that is a whole new thought in UI layout and components. The result is the UI that vibrates the app with life and a far superior user experience.
It is not just the bad performance and an unappealing user experience but also the irrelevance of the content to the user over time that causes increased App abandonment. With the performance and user experience taken care of by the Angular framework the focus can be entirely on getting the right content and constant feed of information that is current and hot, and eventually pushing the App abandonment down.
This step can be motivated by several advantageous features brought to the table by Angular 5 such as support of Typescript, PWA, the increased speed, advanced IDE, wider platform support, and MVW framework. Switching to Angular 5 from earlier versions is a compelling proposition from many points of view. It must be noted however that Angular can coexist with Angular 5 (or even earlier version like 2 or 4).
In order to reap the benefits of moving to Angular 5 from Angular, it is better to migrate based on the various upgrade recommendations and guidelines made by the Angular team. According to these guidelines, migration to Angular 5 requires preparatory steps such as adhering to Angular style guide, using module loaders, migrating to Typescript, and using component directives. Angular also provides a tool called ngUpgrade; this can be used to adopt step-by-step migration as it supports the coexistence of JavaScript and Typescript. Angular team suggests many steps in order to make an effective use of ngUpgrade. The guidelines also suggest some steps that are required to make Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compiler work with hybrid apps.
Ever since the birth of Angular as a dynamic app framework in 2016, Angular team has been releasing a regular stream of Angular versions, such as JS, 2, 4 and 5 in a span of few years approximately. The current release is 5 and Angular 6 is just made available at the time of writing this whitepaper.
As the world of technology is evolving with unifying concepts such as Internet of Things (or IoT), Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence, there is a need for the technology platforms to keep pacing with the trends and advancements; Angular could be no exception to this. Reportedly, version 6 is focused lesser on the framework aspects and more focused on the toolchain. It may be worthwhile moving to this new framework but details must be worked out first. That is perhaps a matter for another discussion!
Since a few years, many competitive application platforms such as React and Vue have emerged with a fairly attractive adoption rate. In comparison, Angular has not just stayed in the race but also has a bettered feature list and performance. Especially for large applications, Angular has always been reliable in terms providing the structure, depth, and scalability; even the smaller apps that may require depth and features eventually could compel considering Angular as the favorite.
Also read: Angular9 vs Vue3: Which is the best choice for 2020?
Angular team from Google is putting efforts to make it better and the progress can be observed by comparing the initial release of AngularJS to the latest version. Angular 5.0 is packed with some amazing features along with its core ones like dependency injections. All these updates make Angular a faster, lighter and an effective platform. Indeed, Angular is a super-heroic framework that is beneficial to both developers and users.
This is a checklist that architects at large organizations could follow to make their teams more productive.
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Welcome to the exciting world of Angular! There is more to know about this and immensely benefit from its adoption. Should you wish to know more about Angular 5 please do call or chat with our Angular Consultant!
