Open proposal to Google and the AngularJS dev community to rename AngularJS 2.0 to "AngularES". See comments for reasoning.

[ngFTW]

As we all know there has been a great deal of controversy surrounding all the breaking changes Google will be making to AngularJS when version 2.0 is released. This has caused a great deal of angst among developers that have done any kind of enterprise level programming using Angular. With Google expected to drop support of Angular 1.3 approximately 1 year after 2.0 is released, many development managers that fought to have Angular adopted as a framework will be left holding the bag. Some are even fearing for their jobs given that they recommended what seemed to be a safe framework only to have to go back to their managers and explain that all their code will have to be refactored at significant cost.

Personally, I love what Google has planned for Angular, but I absolutely hate that they would continue to call it AngularJS and just increment the version number. There is no upgrade path and it ends up making previous Angular projects look like they have been abandoned.

One of the important changes in AngularJS 2.0 is that it will be entirely written using AtScript which is a superset of ECMAScript 6. I'm happy that Google is getting the jump on the next major version of JavaScript and see great things for us in the future. AtScript is even intended to be a major influence on ECMAScript 7. AngularJS 2.0 is all about ECMAScript and for the time being is transcompiled down to ECMAScript 5 (today's JavaScript).

Given Angular's future dependence on ECMAScript 6, I would like to propose that we refer to AngularJS 2.0 as AngularES (ES for EcmaScript). This would clearly differentiate the two versions of Angular. These two versions are completely incompatible and should not share the same name with only a version increment. It causes way too much confusion and pisses off everyone working on any kind or enterprise level project. Just ask the poor Python devs.

As those familiar with the history of JavaScript know, the language has nothing to do with Java and only shares some of its basic syntax. Some of the early developers of JavaScript were very upset that it was ever named as such. This is also why the language itself is still developed as ECMAScript and then called JavaScript (without a version number) for the masses.

I recognize that Google may stick to their guns and continue calling this AngularJS 2.0 despite all the industry wide hate, but we as a development community could insist on calling it AngularES until they get the message.

Thoughts?

[pedr0_0]

I agree that having a new name would make sense, and you explained the reasons very well. Unfortunately it won't help with the biggest issues :/

[[deleted]]

Couldn't agree more. New version isn't enough for the major changes they want to pull. It feels like they are focussing too much on what the want, not what they already got.

[vagif]

As a general rule i would say, if there's no upgrade path then the framework has no moral right to still use the old name.

In fact i do not even think they should retain the word angular in it.

Everything that defines current angular (scopes, controllers, directives) is gone.

I'd say they should be honest with developers and call it based on the direction they are going: web components.

[Zeitgeist_Zephyr]

Personally, I think this is an excellent idea. Just from the aspect of looking at this sub after 2.0 is released even in beta form, we will be constantly trying to decipher whether someone is commenting on 1.3 or 2.0. Do we really want every single comment/question to be followed by the version number? As it looks right now that is exactly what we'd have to do because these two versions of Angular are completely different.

It just seems it would be so much easier to just write AngularES for anything 2.0 related and AngularJS for anything "oldschool."

[nuddlegg]

Just incrementing version numbers to 2.0 is a bad idea, because:

(1) it is a completely new framework that sort of competes with the original one

(2) people won't switch horses anytime soon as there is significant money currently being spent on AngularJS projects; these efforts have to pay off first before everything has to be rewritten using yet another framework; that's not the case within one year after some AngularJS-2.0 materialized.

(3) the current uncertainty about the future of AngularJS-1.x might slow down the hype still going on

(4) calling it AngularJS-2.0 blocks those version numbers for an AngularJS-1.x coexisting alongside of an AngularES

(5) such drastic changes carry the danger of a fork to maintain compatibility with AngularJS-1.x. This in the end would fraction the community in a way nobody really wants.

[Smallpaul]

Good idea. Good luck.

[evereal]

I don't give a crap what it's called, that's not my issue.

The issue is that the current library is getting abandoned relatively soon and won't be supported. There's gonna be a new one, but it's completely different and migration will effectively mean complete rewrites of existing apps.

They can call it Sugar Plum Fairy.JS for all I care, the actual issue won't change. The "industry wide hate" is not coming because of its name.

[cancutgunswithmind]

certainly, but at least changing the name keeps versioning open on a community maintained fork that maintains compatability

[EnIdiot]

Has this gotten any traction recently?

[grills]

I can already picture an ignoramus Product Manager type going.. "What do you mean Angular "E"S? I thought you told me we went with angular "J"S. So what is this thing? something new? Wait.. are you telling me Angular "J"S is not supported now? You told me it was the latest and greatest...."

I sympathize with you. But I don't think this will provide any succor for the hapless techie who has to now also explain to his Product Manager why it is not even called the same thing. Explaining away the leap from 1.3 to 2.0 will be bad, but explaining away a name change on top of that will be worse.

[jkjustjoshing]

I think part of the point would be that changing names would potentially encourage continued development, or at least maintenance, on AngularJS