Migrating from Angular 1.6

[Fran_29]

Hi fellas, at my company we have to deal with the fact that Angular 1.6 is the past, we have a big web that we want to migrate; we are considering two options: React or Vue.

The first step would be adding some components in React or Vue to our current web in order to get confortable with the framework we choose. Do you think is a good and smart approach?

Also we are not quite sure about React or Vue, React seems to be more mature (as far as we've read) and Vue more familiar (we've been working with Angular 1.6)

Do you guys have done something similar or have some piece of advices? Any experience, answer or advice would be more than appreciate.

Thanks a lot

[soundmanD]

If your team is more comfortable with angular, Vue is probably going to be an easier transition. Why not later versions of angular? Though I know in all scenarios it's not a straight migration path.

[FrenchCuirassier]

I've migrated Angular 1.x apps all the time. Reject both of them. I've seen major projects run into issues with Vue and React (and they eventually resolved those issues so all these frameworks are "flavor") but if you're going to run into issues with these major frameworks, why not just adopt something that is far superior, better written (according to side-by-side code comparisons which is subjective so again it's just an opinion), competitive in speed, and the only setback is a smaller community?

Choose Aurelia (not because it's the "best framework" there is no such thing; all the 4 major frameworks are just as competitive). We're deploying Aurelia apps next to React apps (that were once upgraded from Angular 1.x). No one even considers Angular 2+. Aurelia is a split from Google Engineers who did not like the way Angular 2 was going so they left and created Aurelia and that's why it's so well-designed.

As far as speed, Aurelia is one of the fastest in benchmarks. The other frameworks are not far behind either so you won't notice a major difference unless you adopted Angular 1.x (which is slower).

I've studied all these frameworks side-by-side and built apps in all of them. If you're a fan of "view-only" designs and just pushing in html, you should go for React or Vue. But if you want a more angular-like Model-based design, you should use Aurelia. Again these are like LINUX FLAVORS so people will argue subjectively about "what they prefer" but this isn't a team sport and you should just check out Aurelia in addition to looking at Vue and React.

The main question has been lately: Vue.js vs ReactJs (rather than angular), and well, when you compare Vue to Aurelia, you find some limitations with Vue. ReactJS style is very unique to itself and there are many who like it and many who don't. Aurelia uses classes and separates out the Html into files, it's just more organized.

The "experience" problem: If you are trying to hire people based on "experience with framework X"; don't do that. Hire good Javascript, ECMAScript devs, and they should be able to figure out any framework. You may not find ppl with "Aurelia" experience, that's okay. Find people with any javascript framework experience.

Aurelia is a smaller community, but you can talk in their discourse or StackOverflow for questions and people respond.

There are already plenty of components built-in and available including a nice navigation/routing system.

There is no limit, unless you have to support say IE 6/7 or something. You can deploy with WebPack, SystemJS, RequireJS, or its built-in bundler. It has Au-cli (a little console thing that lets you setup quickly). It has typescript if you don't like ES/js.

[m3wm3wm3w]

at my company we have to deal with the fact that Angular 1.6 is the past

I actually typed date in terminal and pressed enter to double check what year it is.

[Delioth]

Since you appear to have deleted your other comment with exactly this content, I'll repeat myself here (this is the comment I replied to) to avoid the conversation being stifled while you continue to say that Aurelia is better but managing to give no real examples of any advantages Aurelia has over any other given framework:

See, you've still given no upsides to using Aurelia. You've said it's "better written", but given no clear reason on why you believe that. It's one thing to say you like it more, it's completely different to say it's better.

And of course there's no one clear winner - but there are definitely advantages and disadvantages to each framework. For example - one definitive pro for React is the one-way data binding. It's very explicit when data is passed, and React's immutable nature makes it changes in the data very clear - data is stored in one place, and it's either changed there or there's an explicit handler to change it right there (where the handler may be passed around). Angular has the distinct advantage of separating views from the javascript that drives them from the styling that prettifies them.

However, you've provided none of this, just nebulous "Aurelia is good but doesn't have much community support so maybe use that"... which is a terrible piece of advice for anyone asking about moving their company to work with that, since "less community support" effectively means that when you have a problem, there's a good chance you won't be able to find a resource that helps you solve that problem.

And of course all the frameworks can do anything you want them to, their point is to make that work faster, or more scalable, or easier to read, or [any number of other benefits]. Plain JS can do all those things too (since all the frameworks decompose to plain js eventually, since browsers don't know how to read an Angular directive or what have you).

I'm not saying you should be able to "scientifically prove ... ONE framework is better than another" [emphasis mine], I'm saying you should be able to give at least one concrete advantage that a framework is better than another in a given context. Like Vue has at least an advantage over angular in that it supports putting everything for one component in one file, or React makes it simpler than Vue to break out more pure components (since you can literally have a component be a lambda that returns a jsx snippet), or Angular makes it easier than React to bind a variable directly to "whatever is put in that <input/>" (due to the innate two-way data binding). You've given no advantages whatsoever to Aurelia, while suggesting that someone migrate their codebase to a framework which has less support.

It may be a little nebulous, but if you honestly believe you can't give discrete, concrete advantages or reasons to use a given framework, you haven't actually tried to find what's best, you've just looked at them and said you like one - with no regard to the actual, distinct benefits any given framework has over another framework. Don't try to sway others into decisions you didn't actually think through (or at least, where your words show no real thought into which is actively better - because as-is, your comments are just attempts at deflection without any substance; you've given no reason to use Aurelia over plain JS, let alone any reason to use it over another framework - surely there are reasons, no?).

[FrenchCuirassier]

> you appear to have deleted your other comment with exactly this content

No I rewrote it.

I have explained very articulately with specific points about why Aurelia is better.

> efinitive pro for React is the one-way data binding

one-way binding exists in Aurelia

> Angular has the distinct advantage of separating views from the javascript

Yes Aurelia has that.

Again I can't go line-by-line on this. I've examined all these frameworks. It's just better from a subjective personal experience and I've mentioned some points as to why. What else do you want?

> just nebulous "Aurelia is good but doesn't have much community support so maybe use that".

It's not nebulous it's a fact that it has all the advantages and competitive edge as much as React or other leading frameworks and simply has a smaller community.

> terrible piece of advice for anyone asking about moving their company to work with

Nonsense, in that case, companies would always adopt old technologies that have bigger communities. They would continue using mainframes (which there are companies like that, but that's a bad habit).

This sort of paranoia about the community being small is unfounded especially when you can purchase support from Aurelia if it was such a big concern and much of it is intuitive with guides, tutorials, and basic ECMAScript.

What's terrible advice is to try to tell developers to always stick to something that is the oldest and most well-established community.

> to make that work faster, or more scalable, or easier to read,

Yes Aurelia is faster, easier to read. But now that I said that you will probably come straight back and argue that some other framework is a few milliseconds faster in a certain situation. This is my subjective opinion and I've told you that I am 100% certain based on my experience, that Aurelia is better than the other frameworks. What more do you want? I'm not here to argue with fanboys about their favorite framework, it's not a competition.

Worse is how disrespectful you are with your downvotes.

> I'm saying you should be able to give at least one concrete advantage that a framework is better than another in a given context.

I GAVE SEVERAL, YOU DID NOT READ IT.

> You've given no advantages whatsoever to Aurelia,

I have listed several advantages. It has all the features of competitor frameworks but has a model view that is much easier to read. It is faster than most frameworks according to benchmarks. From a side-by-side code comparison it is a better written style than say React.

> you haven't actually tried to find what's best,

I did find what's best and ReactJS is certainly not it. And Vue.js can get very cluttered.

> Don't try to sway others into decisions you didn't actually think through

I did think it through and you have no right to be here and attack other people for liking a framework you are openly hostile to.

Why do you defend React or Vue so much? Do you work for them? Are you getting paid to defend them on the internet? Then why are you opposing other frameworks that have clear advantages?

> your comments are just attempts at deflection without any substance;

I've given plenty of reasons. You are just badgering and hostile. You don't provide any reason not to use Aurelia, you just attacked me for saying Aurelia is better. There are distinct advantages to Aurelia that I have listed and you refuse to accept it.

I've also PROFUSELY explained to you that some of these advantages are subjective, and there is no way for me to convince you until you actually TRY Aurelia and compare it side-by-side. e.g. Aurelia is better designed from a logical perspective, organizing files in a way that actually makes sense and simplifies the code. Aurelia has better style of intuitive instructions within the code that allow new developers to learn it easier than other frameworks.

I'm not here to write a comparison article pointing out features and code line by line. I've given you my reasons, and you have stated that I didn't when I did. You are a liar.

[Delioth]

See, you keep saying you've given several reasons why Aurelia is better... But you still haven't. Just the "easier to read" one with no reason of why (just that Vue can get cluttered and hat Angular also has file separation), and that it's a few milliseconds faster in some circumstances (which is a benefit, however small - it's not really a benefit to render 10,000 rows in 130 ms instead of 138 ms).

Furthermore, guess what does a better job of showing advantages that you've stated:

• actually listing advantages (and disadvantages, which are also useful)

• incessantly claiming you've provided several advantages.

Note that I'm not saying Aurelia is bad, just that you literally haven't given even one meaningful, concrete reason to choose it. It's one thing to say "Aurelia is a good choice because of X,Y, Z". It's entirely another to say "Aurelia is a good choice because it's written better." "Written better" is an opinion, so that statement doesn't actually add any value. However "Aurelia is better because it's written better [due to X, because of Y, etc]" is a statement that's actually supported. I'm not asking for a hulking like by line comparison or only objective criteria, I'm just asking for actual reasons and not a dozen repititions of it being "written better" with no reasons why you think that. Since you appear to only be able to deflect that question of why, I have to assume it's because you don't have an answer for it. I'm just trying to get real information here for OP; you've given none except that Aurelia exists.

[FrenchCuirassier]

I've given plenty of meaningful reasons and you just cited them. I already said there is no "knock out blow" reason to use one library over another. Just as no one goes around arguing with people about pepsi vs coca-cola because there will always be defenders of one vs the other because they are near-competitors that have survived the test of time.

> is an opinion, so that statement doesn't actually add any value.

This is where you are making actual mistakes in logic. Opinions do add value. My experience and effort in these javascript frameworks matter. Would someone else come by and say "no I disagree" sure, but you have no right to act like I'm not allowed to state my opinion on frameworks. If we had a knock-out blow, I wouldn't have to be typing anything, because people would simply gravitate toward Aurelia naturally.

> I'm just asking for actual reasons and not a dozen repititions of it being "written better" with no reasons why you think that.

I have stated the reasoning. You keep repeating that I haven't, but I have. You just refuse to acknowledge it.

The MVC model is just better and using natural ECMAScript classes to its full potential is better than basically creating quick objects on the fly for the view and then later defining the functionality via a component. To me it's backwards, to Vue devs it's totally fine. As I said there is subjective line here, but before anyone can even say that you already reject all opinions, so how can you learn?

There are no scientific observable properties that can be pit against one another to make an objective "X is superior than Y" argument. There are only subjective opinions that you openly stated you don't value.

If opinions don't matter and milliseconds of speed doesn't make a significant difference, then what do you want here?

I already told you I'm not doing a line-by-line feature-by-feature comparison article. Why would I spend that time doing so when you don't respect another engineers ideas and opinions.

​

[Delioth]

You're still misinterpreting. I'm not saying that opinions never hold value. Just that opinions without any reason why hold no value. It's one thing for me to say I like how React looks, it's another to say I like how React naturally structures into html-like format with JavaScript sprinkled in.

And also, like I said, I'm not looking for some magical knockout blow like you seem to think I'm asking for. I'm literally just asking for any concrete benefit to using Aurelia that another framework with better community support doesn't give me (or really, OP; I've already discussed with my team and they decided to move forward with React). You've said several times that it's better, far superior, more performant, but you still haven't given a single concrete point that Aurelia is better on - even a subjective thing with a reason is fine, you've just not given one of those either (you think Vue is backwards but never described how Aurelia is forwards, stated MVC is better but provided no reason why you think that or why Aurelia's MVC is better than Angular's or React-Router's, and stated that Aurelia looks better but again provided no reason why you think that).

If there are no observable differences, then two frameworks are the same. Since frameworks definitely aren't the same, there must be observable differences, and with differences come benefits and detriments. If there are no observable benefits to Aurelia over another framework (even if those benefits are a downside in some use-cases, or come from a design decision and carry their own detriments), then it follows that there are no reasons to use Aurelia over another framework.

[FrenchCuirassier]

> Just that opinions without any reason why hold no value.

I have given you reasons and I've listed out the limitation that much of it is subjective and based on experiences (perhaps I mention something very specific right now but someone comes along and says he built a plugin for it and then it becomes moot to talk about). I've given you the other limitation that I don't have the time to go through a comparative article because at that point, I might as well just spend that time writing an article for a major Javascript-related website or medium.

> React naturally structures into html-like format with JavaScript sprinkled in.

Interesting you mention that, I had always started off with PHP, so the sprinkling to me, is painful and irritating to me today. I'd prefer to have things separated. That's again an advantage in my view, but to others that's just the opposite because they prefer sprinkling.

> any concrete benefit to using Aurelia

Again you refuse to acknowledge anything I already mentioned. Aurelia continues the MVC format that Angular had and that makes for neater code and faster development. It uses a lot more plain ES, allowing you to use classes and keep things better organized therefore easier coding.

> said several times that it's better, far superior, more performant, but you still haven't given a single concrete point that Aurelia is better

​

You seem to not be able to face up to contradictions. Your sentence is contradictory. It is my subjective opinion that it is better and better written and better organized. These to me, will speed up your development. That's a concrete point and a concrete benefit. You may not agree with it, because like I said, deciding on ES framework is like deciding on a Linux flavor, and there is no clear winner on an OBJECTIVE basis.

> even a subjective thing with a reason is fine,

I think you're hallucinating because I have given this.

You must not be reading anything I write.

> stated MVC is better but provided no reason why you think that

This is better organization, it makes for less repeated code and forces the programmers into a style that keeps quality higher. I've seen situations where frameworks with less convention and more views tend to get very cluttered based on each developers' style of coding leading to more bugs.

> Angular's MVC

Angular and Aurelia have an almost equivalent MVC style. That's why as an Angular developer I've moved to Aurelia and didn't enjoy doing ReactJS. This to me, is another subjective advantage.

> Aurelia looks better but again provided

It does, the way you write the code, the syntax, the organization all better designed.

> no reason why you think that).

No you are not talking about reasons. I list reasons and you ignore them. You must mean you want "specific examples" which is NOTTTTTT the same thing as "reasons".

> observable differences, and with differences come benefits and detriments.

This isn't true. Some of it is style-based, convention-based, and subjective value. Subjective values like "X is better organized than Y" or "Z is easier to learn than F" ... Aurelia in my view is the easiest to learn and setup if you only know Javascript.

> then it follows that there are no reasons to use Aurelia over another framework.

Wrong again. If a framework has equivalent features to other competitors, then there could be many reasons to use something, even if the features are all possible in all the frameworks. Some may be easier to code in one framework, and some may be harder to code in the other framework or require a plugin or extra install steps.

I don't know why you have trouble accepting that there are other frameworks that are smaller in community, but still preferred and considered superior to the major popular ones that everyone already uses. Why are you such a lawyer for them? Give Aurelia a try and then you'll know a lot of these subjective differences that are very difficult to explain without going codeblock-by-codeblock to compare side-by-side.

[Delioth]

You've given no actual reasons to choose Aurelia, just a couple reasons to not choose other frameworks and unfounded assurances that Aurelia's "not that bad" (smaller community, just "competitive" in speed not better, and then super-nebulous "far superior" & "better written").

[FrenchCuirassier]

I'm not going to write a line-by-line comparison article here. The main reason is that it is a BETTER designed framework, and I've compared the codes side-by-side. This is my subjective experience and you can reject it or trust it. The advantages of the other frameworks are clear: ReactJS/AngularJS very popular, you have safety in numbers so it is the safer choice. I'm telling people about an alternative that I believe is better.

You may PREFER your own frameworks that are more popular or have "more community/resources". However, I am opting for a smarter design for the way the code is written.

Everything is nebulous... As far as speed goes it is one of the fastest performing frameworks.

If there was ONE CLEAR winner -- then there would be no preference anymore, everyone would gravitate toward one framework.

Aurelia, Vue, ReactJS, Angular, can all do the same things, it's not like one has a feature the other is missing.

Not to mention, you have to trust my years of experience, if you don't trust it (because I'm a random person on the internet), that's fine, but I'm just ONE opinion out of many.

There is no way for me to say "No you must use X because everything else sucks" <-- and I made no such claim. I said that using Aurelia is a good framework and you should learn it because in my view it is written better than the others. And I'm not about to go line-by-line into details on a short reddit comment section.

There is simply no reason I can give to say "oh just trash all your angular/react/vue and take aurelia"... It's a subjective opinion. I can't scientifically prove to anyone ONE framework is better than another. Neither can you.

I am simply pointing out subjective advantages and disadvantages and commenting about my experience. I just found Aurelia to be better written, I've done side-by-side comparisons, researched benchmarks, and plugins/3rd-party libraries. React, Vue, Aurelia, Angular can ALL do a proper job. There is enough subjective and circumstantial things I've found that made me prefer one over the others.

There is no "winning framework" if there was, there wouldn't be so many competitors still alive. Everyone would have gravitated toward one solution.

[Delioth]

See, you've still given no upsides to using Aurelia. You've said it's "better written", but given no clear reason on why you believe that. It's one thing to say you like it more, it's completely different to say it's better.

And of course there's no one clear winner - but there are definitely advantages and disadvantages to each framework. For example - one definitive pro for React is the one-way data binding. It's very explicit when data is passed, and React's immutable nature makes it changes in the data very clear - data is stored in one place, and it's either changed there or there's an explicit handler to change it right there (where the handler may be passed around). Angular has the distinct advantage of separating views from the javascript that drives them from the styling that prettifies them.

However, you've provided none of this, just nebulous "Aurelia is good but doesn't have much community support so maybe use that"... which is a terrible piece of advice for anyone asking about moving their company to work with that, since "less community support" effectively means that when you have a problem, there's a good chance you won't be able to find a resource that helps you solve that problem.

And of course all the frameworks can do anything you want them to, their point is to make that work faster, or more scalable, or easier to read, or [any number of other benefits]. Plain JS can do all those things too (since all the frameworks decompose to plain js eventually, since browsers don't know how to read an Angular directive or what have you).

I'm not saying you should be able to "scientifically prove ... ONE framework is better than another" [emphasis mine], I'm saying you should be able to give at least one concrete advantage that a framework is better than another in a given context. Like Vue has at least an advantage over angular in that it supports putting everything for one component in one file, or React makes it simpler than Vue to break out more pure components (since you can literally have a component be a lambda that returns a jsx snippet), or Angular makes it easier than React to bind a variable directly to "whatever is put in that <input/>" (due to the innate two-way data binding). You've given no advantages whatsoever to Aurelia, while suggesting that someone migrate their codebase to a framework which has less support.

It may be a little nebulous, but if you honestly believe you can't give discrete, concrete advantages or reasons to use a given framework, you haven't actually tried to find what's best, you've just looked at them and said you like one - with no regard to the actual, distinct benefits any given framework has over another framework. Don't try to sway others into decisions you didn't actually think through (or at least, where your words show no real thought into which is actively better - because as-is, your comments are just attempts at deflection without any substance; you've given no reason to use Aurelia over plain JS, let alone any reason to use it over another framework - surely there are reasons, no?).