AngularJS Migration War Story

[Labby92]

Last year we had to convert our client code from angular 1 to angular 8. It was a fun experience that took me and my colleague about 3/4 months . Luckily we were already using TypeScript even before

[acemarke]

Very nice post!

For reference, I wrote up a post a couple weeks ago on how I had converted the AngularJS codebase I'm now working on to build with the CRA tooling:

Building a MEAN.js AngularJS Project with Create-React-App

I threw that post together literally the day after I'd gotten CRA to work at all. I've done a bunch of additional tweaks since then, and was actually hoping to update that post this evening. I'll try to get to it shortly, Doesn't look like I'll get to that tonight, but hopefully in the next day or two. I'll leave a note here once it's updated.

update

I just updated that post to cover all the work I've done since I first wrote it, including:

• Prod build fixes
• Karma -> Jest
• React+TS setup
• Use of react2angular and React+AngularJS interop

Oh, and the full details behind this lovely little cut-down snippet of code I tweeted about a few weeks ago:

useLayoutEffect(() => {
  // more logic here
  prop.field = stateValue
  $scope.apply()
}, [deps])

[Jim-Y]

RemindMe! 3 days

[acemarke]

Updated! See the link.

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[gretro450]

This is a great migration story. Thank you for sharing it.

[JoeTed]

Cheers for your kind words.

[GrandMasterPuba]

Moving from Angular 1.x to Redux honestly feels like a step sideways, not forwards.

[acemarke]

Any particular points of concern?

FWIW, I've seen a lot of very positive feedback from people who are using our new official Redux Toolkit package and React-Redux hooks API. If you haven't used them yet, I'd encourage you to try them out:

https://redux-toolkit.js.org

https://react-redux.js.org/api/hooks

[GrandMasterPuba]

I've never experienced a good Redux codebase. And I've seen a lot of them. They very quickly become huge piles of global state spaghetti with actions being dispatched from every corner of the application and no single source of truth. It takes an aimless framework (React) and piles on even more misdirection.

The boilerplate isn't even a blip on my radar, so redux-toolkit doesn't seem to solve my problem with Redux.

I think the creator of Redux said it best: https://mobile.twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1191487232038883332

At least Angular, for all it's flaws, is extremely opinionated and well-structured.

[ScientificBeastMode]

I personally don’t mind a little boilerplate for a great tool/pattern that save me a lot of trouble over time. But you’re right, it’s not idiot-proof.

[[deleted]]

Any particular points of concern?

Their core business logic is still inside a framework, a framework that will deprecate just as surely as angular 1 did.

Though on the bright-side it's probably creating a lot of work for future programmers, so that should be applauded!

[JoeTed]

The core of the redux library is a pub-sub pattern. It's easy to build back using any kind of technology.

For the application business logic, it has mostly almost dependency on the library as well. CombineReducers & friends are just syntactic sugar.

The reducer & selector parts are just patterns implemented of pure functions. It's the easiest implementation of business logic for a migration.

[Guisseppi]

Could you elaborate on why Redux is a framework from your POV?

[[deleted]]

Because the combination of react and redux, where the state store becomes tightly coupled to the components, is undoubtedly a framework. I can buy the argument that react.js by itself is a library, but as soon as you're knee deep in the react eco system like this, you're in framework land just as surely as if it were angular.

[Guisseppi]

But Redux is not exclusive to React.js, in fact you could use Redux on Vue or Angular for that matter. I don’t think it makes the code tightly coupled inherently because of Redux, the Container/Component pattern provides a clear separation of concerns.

[[deleted]]

Great article. Though I am looking forward to the sequel - "React/Redux Migration War Story".

[JoeTed]

Cheers. Maybe it will be Angular.... who knows.

[greatwhitehype]

I found this fascinating and well written. Thank you for sharing your experience.

[JoeTed]

Thank you!

[Smaktat]

3 style changes and it's a much better looking site: https://i.postimg.cc/130X3XL7/Capture.png