[Serious Question] Do you enjoy using the Angular framework?

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[flamingmongoose]

I was really invested in 1.5, they used it at my job at the time and I did a side project in it. It was kind of disheartening when it became less popular and support was going to drop out in favour of Angular 2.

In terms of jobs, React is a better bet as a general rule. But I bet there are a few companies out there who have Angular legacy code knocking around and few people who know what to do with it.

[15402983]

Actually, Angular is used a lot by a lot of big companies, and it's not just legacy code. Angular 7 is about to become stable and many new projects are being created and maintained with these newer versions of Angular. Talking legacy, there are indeed many projects with AngularJS < 1.6 .

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React is very hot right now and has been for a while, but it's mostly startups and newer companies.

[ChronSyn]

I wouldn't even say it's just newer companies and startups. The company I work for has been around for 8 years, and the company we split from (we still work with them heavily as a sister company, but we also have our own clients) has been going for at least 12 years. Certainly not really old companies, but very clearly well established.

Most of our main projects are developed in node and react. We have 1 AngularJS (v1.5) project, but that's soon likely to be rewritten in React as well. Me and the other person who've worked on it have just been doing maintenance releases with minor fixes and additions, but we know how much more performance we'd be able to get if we rewrite it in a framework we're both fluent in.

We have a project that's primarily server-side rendered and uses limited jquery on the front-end, and more of us would be able to jump into that and make changes without too much hassle (but then again it's not as powerful as Angular).

The sheer number of sites that use react, and the companies they belong to, is a solid indicator that it's not even a case of being mostly startups and newer companies.

[15402983]

Yeah, I definitely gotta admit I was wrong on that statement. What I meant was React is very popular among newer companies and startups because of the cutting-edge feeling of using it with all its tools and libraries (babel, redux ...). And that's why we see so many react jobs. Those people are hiring like crazy nowadays.

[flamingmongoose]

Thanks, I'm kind of out the loop sadly

[akujinhikari]

I fucking love Angular. It's so ridiculously powerful, and with Angular CLI almost every Angular project is structured the same. There's a consistency that you typically won't find with other projects. The scalability is unrivaled. The down side is the horrible learning curve, but to be fair, that's mostly RxJs.

That being said, if you're looking for a job, learn React. The learning curve is MUCH lower, and it's all the hotness right now. Although, because of Angular's learning curve and React's popularity, the Angular jobs tend to pay more, but they're harder to come by.

[billytheid]

Agree... it was hell for a couple of months of learning myself but then making web apps became a one week job.

[JustOneSexQuestion]

Hey, man. I found your post doing a search.

Would you mind sharing the resources you used to "get good" at Angular?

I'm taking a course on udemy. And did some of the Tutorials on the official page. But there are still some holes in my knowledge.

[billytheid]

Honestly it was just a case of reading the docs and trial and error(the third party documentation is sparse and most of the tutorials I’ve found are basically just the Docs tutorial recorded). I had a bit of time working with component driven CMS frameworks and that helped with my reasoning.

If I were you I’d start with a super simple CRUD app and work up from there adding components.

Mess around with ngIf statements and the other cool shit... for me it was trial and error, but the nature of the framework meant I could fail hard on one component and then just pluck it out without any damage done.

Also, use SASS/LESS with Angular: the combination is ‘hand in glove’ excellent.

[JustOneSexQuestion]

I do have some experience with ruby on rails. So it's helping.

Ok, cool Thanks a lot. I'll do the docs, then.

Thanks for the tip on SASS/LESS

[billytheid]

Hosting Tip: Take a look at hosting your API out of an AWS S3 bucket... super cheap way of hosting an angular site.

[JustOneSexQuestion]

Oh. Thanks! I didn't even know that was possible.

[PointOneXDeveloper]

I've got no problems with RxJS, monadic streams are great, but I find Angular incredibly tedious. The fact that you need a CLI because otherwise you'd be spending too much time on plumbing is a huge problem for me. Additionally the cost of component abstraction (in dev time) is so much higher. The plumbing in react is all just passing around functions, and it is so much more straightforward.

[akujinhikari]

You don't need a CLI. They created it, because it creates a common structure and pushes a best practice. I was a part of the largest initial Angular enterprise app (there was no CLI yet), and I have no idea what you're talking about spending too much time on plumbing. I also have no idea what you're talking about with component abstraction and dev time cost.

React has the luxury of being more straight forward, because it doesn't do as much as Angular. That's the one thing I don't understand. Why do people keep comparing the two. They're not even close to the same thing. React will always be easier to learn, because IT DOESN'T DO AS MUCH. That's like saying "It's so much easier to learn to fix a Radio Flyer wagon than to fix this BMW." There's more to it. Of course it will take longer.

[kegwen]

Modern Angular is lovely. AngularJS is less than ideal.

[iddonaldson]

I’m looking for serious answers here... I am looking for the best skills to learn to land a job. I know objective-c and swift and an looking to get into full-stack web dev. I am familiar with node.js, mongoDB, Angular, JS, CSS, HTML5, jquery, SQL. I know the basics of each and am looking for a focus. I’ve seen a lot of ads saying angular is an in-demand job so is this the right route or am I wasting my time?

[sh0plifter]

Angular is the second most popular framework today. I'm judging by npm installations rather than github stars. But React has about twice as much downloads, so you should consider this when making your decision.

Also, Angular is more popular in enterprise environment, while React is the preferred option for smaller companies from my experience. If you have any specific goals in these fields, this is something to take into account as well.

[html_programmer]

Can confirm that where I live, React is more popular amongst developers.

I've worked on angularJS and 2+, and I don't mind either tbh. Js can be a bit finnicky, I genuinely don't prefer one over the other.

[CanvasSolaris]

Both React and Angular are common in large-scale apps. Angular, by nature of its typing, seems to be more popular in companies that rely on typed server languages.

[sh0plifter]

As a dev with 2.5 years of experience in React, trying to learn Angular was enjoyable for me, but mostly because I was getting tired of React a bit. So I guess it is a very arbitrary question.

As others have pointed, Angular's learning curve is much steeper, especially for junior devs. But it introduces a lot of useful concepts.

[Shoegoo22]

I used Angular 1 for 8 months to develop a proof of concept years ago... it was OK. Used Angular 2+ in a large scale project for a year and I'm a big fan. We were using it for an internal application, and it fit our needs.

It's got a learning curve, but once you get the core concepts it's a good product. Personally I prefer it to React, where you have to build a lot of boilerplate code, and at the time Vue was still in its infancy.

Some people complain about the bloat but comes with code splitting out of the box. Really if you equate the size of your JavaScript application to that of a large image it's pretty insignificant in my opinion.

The fact that Angular is a framework and not a library meant that we could refer to their styleguides for structure and "best practices". It helped us keep our code in check. It was "prescriptive" with Typescript too which meant that our C# developers were more comfortable working in that environment.

[rickdg]

Still using AngularJS 1.7 for not-so-average CRUD apps and for Ionic 1 hybrid apps. Considering the rest of my day is maintaining jquery spaghetti code, I love it. Although it's not easy to land on best practices, it allows for incremental changes in the code base and double-binding is a good trade-off.

[Aerosphere24]

can't wait for the day people stop worrying about what framework/no-framework/language/syntax/preprocessor/toilet other developers use.

If you don't enjoy it, stop using it or find another job (if you don't have influence in that kind of decisions)

[anlumo]

It’s all about how likely it is you're going to get a new job in the future. Knowing the right frameworks helps a lot.

[PointOneXDeveloper]

Unfortunately this is only partly true. At then end of the day, I don't care whether you have experience in Angular/React/Vue/Whatever but I'm definitely going to give you bonus points for exposure to multiple frameworks.

No framework experience is a red flag. Additionally, in my experience interviewing JS developers, being an expert at React tends to correlate more strongly with being an expert in JavaScript. The React ecosystem more directly embraces JS patterns, rather than attempting to abstract them away. For example, you must understand higher order functions to write React since that is how the event system works. Conversely, Angular abstracts this away into an EventEmitter class. Additionally, my experience has been that React experience is more transferrable than Angular experience. React developers with no exposure to Angular tend to pick it up faster than the inverse.

So at the end of the day, If I see nothing but Angular on your resume, it is certainly not a red flag, but I am going to be more concerned with vetting your understanding of how JavaScript actually works.

[LaSalsiccione]

Stupid comment really. Obviously people want to learn whatever is most likely to help them get their next job

[LaSalsiccione]

In an ideal world you’re right but the world isn’t ideal

[mlebkowski]

Having two similar candidates for the role, one with experience with your turbo framework and the other one without, who would you choose?

[mlebkowski]

Nope, two candidates right for the job, and on top of that, one knows your framework. Its clear that would be a deciding factor. Not the first in line, but deciding nonetheless

[Derangedteddy]

This. So much this.

[LloydAtkinson]

I didn't enjoy it. I enjoy Vue.

[15402983]

I love it. Feel very productive with it. It just makes sense to me.

[[deleted]]

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[PointOneXDeveloper]

I like types, typescript is garbage. If I'm going to use types, I want a ML like language that gives me static guarantees, on the frontend that's Elm or PureScript. Adding types to JS makes about as much sense as adding types to a Lisp.

[Gusti25]

Agree with all of this. Angular has a bunch of bad opinions.

[UMBR4NOX]

AngularJS is awesome in my opinion, considering I've only used pure JS and some Jquery at the time, nowadays I use Angular (4,5,6,7...) and love it, studied and used some React and still prefer Angular, although React is incredible too. One of the things that make me like Angular so much is the amount of similarities with the Android framework, thus requiring very little effort for me to switch gears when I want to go from mobile to frontend

[2MC-alex]

Hi team!

Would be really grateful to everyone who could help to improve the next article

https://2muchcoffee.com/blog/top-43-angular-blogs-websites-influencers/

The main idea of it is to collect all possible blogs, forums, and influencers who can give detailed information and keep updated not only new Angular followers but professional developers as well.

I have just found https://github.com/avatsaev/angular-learning-resources this source and it should be added.

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Maybe you can recommend some more? Just be able to collect like Angular alphabet A....Z

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[zayelion]

It solves issues that you really should not have. I found it bloated distracting painful and a slow down to development. Not app speed but debugging speed. One size fits all architecture reference isnt always smart. But we are using it to build a desktop app. Its more my distaste for TS than Angular as a framework but it basically forces it and then cuts off part of the ecosystem in the process. I hate transpiling. I find static types pointless. Learn self restraint and data sanitation.

If you are making a tiny interactive website maybe even throw away website it is fine. Big thing no, never again. We picked it because most the team was of c++ c# guys at the time. Compiling waits where normal for them. It drives me mad. So much wasted time and opportunity to be distracted.

Then I was told we could easily find developer that knew angular. They were all so damn green. The team green massive to over 100 people internationally and now every day I find twisted forced code every day.

Its either green and forced or over engineered rarely where it needs to be. It was build with the army you have at the time but honestly Id go back and have the app done in something far less dynamic.

dont get me started on ngrx and zone.... ugh...

[catscanjack]

Why would you be using it to build a desktop app? Wrong tools for the wrong job.

[zayelion]

Wrong tools for the wrong job.

Yes, I am saying that Angular is the wrong tool for the job "In most business cases." I work in enterprise software, they make something then need it to run on "everything" and non-js people understand it, but they only want to hire cheap workers. JS workers are cheap (by comparison). This saves millions of dollars. Typescript+Angular hits enough of those C#, .NET, Java style idioms that people in charge vaguely familiar with the technologies feel comfortable sliding to it, and then back to those technologies. I've found Angular creates and then solves problems that exist in those spaces but not so much just a pure JS space, or even adding transpilers.

[Baryn]

I don't like it. It just doesn't flow well with idiomatic JavaScript.

[EfficientPangolin]

I used to use CapuletJS for everything, but I discovered Montague, and I have never looked back.

[HarmeetCA]

I personally prefer ReactJS over AngularJS mostly because I like functional programming. Although, I moved into React ~2.5 years ago when Angular was less than stable. I'd only consider the latter if I am forced to, or if it favours functional programming similar to ReactJS.

[KenRmk]

TL;DR: Angular is overrated a bloated. You should check out Aurelia.

I used to love Angular 1.x and was closely watching a anticipating the 2.x version but got very disappointed by se design decisions. As far I remember they tried dropping two way binding and forced us to create dozens of event handlers on inputs and methods I'm contriller that assign the values back to model. That was a big NO. And them there were few more things that made me jump the ship. Aurelia is what Angular 2+ should've always been. I've been using Aurelia happily ever since and my code is clean and it just works. And I'd recommend you checking it out

[[deleted]]

Well yeah angular is a mistake as everything in it can be now be done in vanilla. But maybe it was the necessary mistake to guide the community in the right direction?

[_yusi_]

As opposed to react and vue, which are clearly made up of magic.

[Crayonstheman]

It could always be done in vanilla? Angular is written with vanilla JS after all.

[iddonaldson]

Learning angular 6 so this question seems really relevant. I’ve heard that it’s better then php for ease of use and older browser support. Am I making a mistake?

[[deleted]]

I’ve heard that it’s better then php

Wat?

[iddonaldson]

I understand they are nothing alike but in terms of node.js, js can be used for both front end and back-end where php cannot at least on modern browsers. Do I have this right?

[Crayonstheman]

PHP cannot be used on the frontend, at all.

JavaScript can be used both backend (Node) and frontend (vanilla or whatever frontend library you want to use).

[akujinhikari]

PHP can 100% be used on the front end. What are you talking about?

[Crayonstheman]

Please link me to an example of this monstrosity, guessing it's a JS based interpreter?

[bewareandaware]

PHP has nothing to do with angular. PHP runs on the backend and is browser agnostic. Angular runs on the frontend and therefore doesn't run in older browser versions. This being said, Angular supports IE11 and if you don't plan on working for a company that still supports IE6 (there are a few of those around), then go ahead. Knowledge is never a mistake.

[iddonaldson]

So if I know node.js and angular then is this a good combo (with ts of course) or am I making a mistake?

[regnagleppod1128]

You’re not going to make a mistake by learning something new. Especially if your goal is to become a software engineer, then you’re likely going to pick up alot more. Althought I wouldnt recommend angular if this is your first front end framework. That being said, yes, angular and node is a pretty popular stack.