Why and When you Should Use Angular
When you got the idea, you process a lot of analyzing and preparing work before it goes to the development department. And, to make it easier and better, you need to get the plan of it before the producing part and choose what you will use. Here’s an article for everyone who’s making such a decision and think about the Angular.
What is Angular: Overview
So, Angular is a JavaScript framework for frontend developers from Google. Most of you probably already know the difference between a framework and a library. The library does not provide for the creation of an architectural system as a whole. The framework, on the other hand, is designed to build the architecture of the entire application.
Basically, Angular is designed to create complex enterprise applications, namely single-page web applications (Single Page Application).
The Angular framework is implemented with:
modularity;
animations;
routing;
work with backend;
data storage / processing / display;
work with forms and templates, etc.
Angular’s Versions
The first version of Angular, now known as Angular JS, was largely not optimal. However, a huge number of projects still use this version. Later, the development team actually rewrote the project from scratch.
The new version is called Angular 2 or simply Angular without an index. It was radically different from the first, giving the impression of a completely different framework. Projects could not easily migrate from the old version to the new one, so this caused some problems. It was necessary to rewrite everything again.
Angular has become conceptually simpler, more technological, and clearer. After Angular 2 came versions 4, 5, and more recently – version 9. It is worth noting that no drastic changes with the release of version 2 are no longer happening. All versions, from the second to the seventh, are fully compatible. So now there is no need to master everything again.
Angular’s Architecture
This is how basic Angular’s architecture looks like with such components as module, component, template, service, router, pipe, directives:
Let’s go one by one and see why do we have all these components in such architecture:
Module: structural units of application that encapsulate a certain logic. In Angular, these are structures that store certain components, directives, and services, united by a certain logic.
Component: typescript class that stores data and the logic of displaying this data in a template (representation).
Template: a fragment of HTML-code with the addition of special syntax. The template is specified in the component and is part of its configuration.
Service: in Angular are typescript classes that perform tasks related to retrieving, storing and processing data.
The service can organize a channel of interaction between the individual components of the application. It also can encapsulate business logic, various computational tasks, logging tasks, which are better to take out of the components. Thus, the component code will focus directly on working with the view.
Router: designed to switch between screens to display different content.
Directives and Pipes are more specific constructs that are easier to demonstrate in code than to describe in words.
Angular Pros and Cons
Angular’s Pros
Accurate Documentation: Angular has detailed documentation of important information. It lets developers get straight to the hint for the project.
Has a Support from Google: it’s a reason why Angular as platform reliable. Yes, it’s a little text but not the least advantage of Angular.
Considerable third-party components’ ecosystem: thankfully to how famous Angular is, we got a big number of instruments for developing an app with it. As a result, we got an improvement in productivity.
Component-based architecture: thus, after all what we got in the 2nd Angular, developers had to move to the architecture of components from the model view controller (MVC). The advantages here are in replacing and disassembling components, however the reusing of them in other program’s parts. In addition, the independence of the components facilitates the testing of the web program and ensures the smooth operation of each component.
Ivy Reader: the feature that converts everything into JavaScript: from components to templates. We got it with the sixth version of Angular. It also lets an app to load faster cause how it removes unused code from it.
Dependency injection: Starting with the second version of Angular, developers got a divided tree of dependency injectors. It could be changed or restored, avoiding reconfiguring of all components. Injection dependence is a rather controversial advantage of Angular. Simple in English language dependency input means one object establishes the dependence of other items. All of them determine the connection between different components. Also, it shows every change in one part of the code and how they affect another parts.
Angular’s Cons
Poor SEO options: Angular received a lot of bad feedbacks about their SEO’s accessibility. They only see the basic page template. According to some search engines don’t see such diversities. In addition, heavy links to a one-page application are difficult to index. Frequently, developers make more effort for optimization.
Tough to learn: it’s hard to sit and learn it all about Angular from zero. You can hear a lot about how those components are readable, but when you are a junior, it will hard for you to manage all of them.
Adversity with backward compatibility: you can’t just go from AngularJS to Angular. It won’t work. You can read about it in Angular’s documentation and how they resist migration.
Nevertheless, we should not forget that previous Angular’s versions are fully compatible with the reverse.
Kind of Projects Where Angular is the Best Decision
Angular is the best for massive web projects. Here’s why we have such tablet:
There is also, as we can call this framework, a great addition for Angular: NgRx. It could be so useful for your project that we cannot but talk about it! This framework provides control over the creation of explicit programs, maintaining a single state and using actions to express state changes.
If you get any of these ideas and want to build something with angular – we got you! We can do it all, just contact us!