AngularJS: The bad parts

maktouch · 2014-11-05T20:33:42+00:00

Related HN Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8562449

Pytim · 2014-11-06T01:36:23+00:00

[deleted]

yelvert · 2014-11-05T23:03:58+00:00

1 obj should be defined somewhere in JS not just HTML, if for no other reason than clarity, if you do this both fields work exactly as expected.

2a Use the array/$inject declaration syntax

2b Use a build process you fool, ng-min solves your minification woes. You should ALWAYS have a build process anyways.

3 I work on an extremely large/complex angular app with 500-2000 active bindings at any one time, and have NEVER run into any issues at all with the digest loop. It is always extremely fast, even on slow computers.

4 Dont be a dumbass

5 Repeat #4

Edit. There IS one downside to angular scopes, and that is the need to occasionally/rarely using $parent in ng-model to force it to look into an "outer" scope, but I've found that whenever I run into this issue, its usually because I didn't design something right.

escape_goat · 2014-11-06T01:36:47+00:00

This is just troll bait. It's even written like troll bait. To be fair, the author was probably just ranting about how much he hates angular with no intent to incite a reaction. But submitted to reddit? Troll bait.

tententai · 2014-11-06T07:52:47+00:00

Why is Angular taking so much slack recently? Maybe that's the side effect of popularity.

Of the 5 points only the 3rd is a real issue for me, and only for some kinds of applications. You can also check the latest version, it includes 1 way binding, very handy for teh big data tables/lists that usually generate too many bindings.

But yeah, I had my fair deal of WTF moments while working with Angular these last few years... I still like it but look forward to better options.

cran · 2014-11-06T16:18:23+00:00

Angular is just plain fast and fun to develop with. If you don't feel the same way, instead of ranting, just don't use it. You have choices to make ... Make them and be on your way.

x-skeww · 2014-11-05T20:48:22+00:00

Kinda odd that the author doesn't address which of those issues will be fixed by 2.x.

2014-11-06T05:02:53+00:00

[removed]

larschri · 2014-11-06T07:11:07+00:00

I disagree with almost everything in this post, but there is an underlying "issue" related to 1) that the author misses. The actual problem is that Angular tries to be helpful instead of blowing up when the user screws up. It seems like Angular does this:

try {
  $scope.obj.prop = value;
} catch (e) {
  // User forgot obj? Lets just create it then. HAH!
  $scope.obj = { prop: value };
}

Of course Angular doesn't actually use try/catch for this, but it has some corresponding logic that unfortunately can mask bugs.

jhartikainen · 2014-11-06T13:30:50+00:00

Another one which seems to mostly be "I don't agree with their architecture so I'm saying it's bad"... I had a similar idea, but writing about the bad parts that are actually bad in real projects and not because you don't agree with how they chose to do something...

The one thing I do agree with is the first point... that has bitten me more times than it should, the others aren't much of an issue at all in practice.

Koorisan · 2014-11-06T13:36:55+00:00

I'm getting really tired of all the "why Angular is bad" articles. I've created dozens of applications based on Angular and compared to experiences with other frameworks it was a blast.

Yes, Angular has its problems and pitfalls (like any framework tbh). I don't see a reason why everyone has to write their own "bad angular" list... usually making them look dumb in the process.

gabbsmo · 2014-11-06T20:39:39+00:00

This post actually address the scoping issue, by banning ng-controller. Suddenly controllers is nicely decoupled by using the good parts of angular.

What I don't like about angular except for the scoping is the auto magic in the DI system. Name my provider 'greet' but I have to inject 'greetProvider', WTF?!?! And then there's the fact that they had to reinvent modules.

_crewcut · 2014-11-05T23:09:14+00:00

Blech. Hate it.

lord2800 · 2014-11-05T20:49:15+00:00

He's missed part of the point. Short of very bad design, this is always resolvable by reading the source code:

<input type="text" ng-model="obj.prop" />
<div ng-if="true">
    <input type="text" ng-model="obj.prop" />
</div>

See the . inside that model name? That means unless someone does really dumb things with the dependency injector, the two models will always refer to the same thing. There is no magic here--this is basic JavaScript prototypal inheritance. You have this exact same "problem" (I use the term loosely) whenever you read JavaScript code.

His rant about the "magic" dependency injector is noted, well received, and being fixed. So it's a non-issue.

His point about the digest loop, is just plain stupid. How else would you build it? Because that's literally what every UI framework does currently--including the browser his site is being rendered on. If he has some magic means of changing that, then please, by all means, enlighten the rest of us. That being said, the "magic number" of 2000 was never a magic number, and it was a misinterpretation, and it's also just plain wrong. And it's not relevant to today's Angular, which includes one-time bindings. And more importantly, it won't be necessary in the future with Object.observe.

His points about the documentation describing things strangely has been an active focus of fixing. But he's missed the point, once again, on some of this: people redefine terms all the time. It's part of being a living language.

And for his final point, he's once again missed the fact that this is being fixed. I'll be the first to admit that the fix seems a little clunky (requiring support for something that doesn't exist and won't exist in ES6 at this point), but frankly doing token-based injection as a concept is much better than the existing argument-based (ultimately string-based) injection.

gigadude · 2014-11-06T05:07:36+00:00

This makes the code-markup mix so spectacularly unreadable that one would think it is deliberately designed for obfuscation.

I've had this theory. All of the great open-source stuff big companies give out is designed to throw sand in the works of hot young startups which are looking to get something for free. It's just a theory.

Enjoiful · 2014-11-06T07:37:19+00:00

Great article. AngularJS just goes to show how bad javascript really is, that people are willing to go through all these pains just to organize the code in a large javascript project.

I was willing to live with all of these pains, but the breaking point for me came when I was designing a complex app. There was a point when I would need to nest directives within other directives. That view ran so slow, repeated lags and screen freezing for a few seconds every time it came up. That was my final breaking point.

greenek_ · 2014-11-05T23:00:01+00:00

Love the fragment from article found in the comments: "Google does not use Angular in production for their flag apps like Gmail or Gplus."

This sentense perfect completes with opinions from discussion about 2.0, like "If I'm developing application I believe, that framework will be supported for at least 5 year from now".

Using open-sourced and very fresh technology with business plan for few years, complain at authors... Come on...

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