A New Framework a Day Keeps A Developer’s Sanity Away 🫠🥲
When I look at this meme, it doesn’t hit a chord of nostalgia for me. You ask why?
Well because unlike other memes which may fade out of trend, this particular meme never changes. Why??
Because it’s not a meme, it’s fact 😭
Every minute, day, week, month and year, it seems like new JavaScript frameworks are springing up out of nowhere.
And while the developer community is showcasing its amazing talents with an outpour of support, creativity, and open-source, a framework is not a library - it is not something that can be fixed and internalised in an organisation.
A framework needs stability, performance, and it needs to stay strong after many years and even hopefully, decades.
This is why we see popular libraries and frameworks being backed by big-tech because they have seen what it can do and they have the bandwidth to support its life cycle.
And what better choice than Angular which is a robust, highly scalable web framework - which is a favourite among enterprise app developers!
Where Angular stands amidst the war of frameworks
Angular has been around for more than a decade now. Its first version, AngularJS was released in 2010, and was later completely rewritten in 2016 with TypeScript, making it the most favourable choice for all kinds of web apps.
As you can see, we do have quite a handful of frameworks available for frontend. Remember - it does not have to be huge and complicated to be called a framework! Anything that abstracts the complexities away from developers so that we can focus on building and deploying features is a framework. And even though there are many available, there are only a few that are considered popular and industry-standard - React, Vue, and Angular.
Why do we need frameworks?
Because they make building stuff easier - that’s the hard fact. Building frontend apps has always been hard. Today’s “sites” are no longer just static. Of course there are millions of static sites out there and they are needed for various purposes, but interactivity is at the core of modern frontend. That’s why they are called web “applications” and not just websites.
With all this, imagine building a multi-layered, cross-functional application that has hundreds of thousands of internal web pages, apps, and tools built-in.
Building this out in native JavaScript is a sure way to put ourselves into tech-debt.
This is where frameworks come in - they come with a lot of batteries, functions, and features built into the package so that you can simply “import” these into your codebase, thereby building out components and segregating your application architecture in a neat way.
Why is Angular Thriving?
Before we dive into this, the natural question arises - why not React or Vue?
It is agreed that these two have had considerably high interest among the developer community recently, and React is backed by Facebook so it is a no-brainer choice among many.
But the question is also about feasibility, stability, and robustness. While React and Vue are both debatably strong in these areas, one area where Vue ranks higher than React is the true community-led development. Vue comes with a sleek syntax, much more straightforward and easy to use than React and building both MVPs and long-term enterprise apps are easier. And Angular leaves these two in the dust with a lot of extra horsepower in its engine.
Why Choose Angular in 2024?
There are a multitude of reasons to choose Angular and I’m listing them all here -
Strong Backing
A framework is not just about syntax and concepts! Nope. There are also things like principles, thought process, and system-design-led development methodologies. This is where Angular is a solid go-to framework. Angular is backed by the OG big-tech of all tech companies - Google 😎
And if this hasn’t already convinced you to break into the world of Angular, let me convince you a bit more 😃
The Angular Iteration
From AngularJS in 2010 to revamping itself as Angular 2.0 in 2017, today the latest stable version is now Angular 17 - released on December 13, 2023! Yep, just a few weeks ago. That means it has gone through a very speedy yet stable iteration, taking feedback and releasing more and more amazing features over the years.
This speaks volumes about the vibrant community behind Angular. And it’s a hundred percent “mature” framework - something that I personally haven’t been able to say about any other framework yet.
The One Man Army Ecosystem
Being a mature player in the field means that Angular comes with more than a decade of knowledge bases, forums, communities, blogs, documentations, tutorials, and much much more. And in this sense, Angular is a one-man army that takes on the enterprise web world with a sense of deadly calm.
Angular comes with its own CLI - a beautiful collection of nifty tools and scripts that get the ball rolling within no time.
This CLI includes creating a new app, testing entire components and modules, generating custom profiles, etc. No other framework or library comes close to the amount of in-built features available within Angular.
This is in stark contrast to React and Vue which heavily depend on external libraries for testing. In fact, this external dependency has created the ground for many testing frameworks making these ecosystems ripe for instability and uncertainty.
Robust Two-Way Binding
Angular is the only framework to introduce and implement two-way data binding for its components. This means that whatever feature or data implementation occurs amongst the components is immediately communicated with the browser and the browser responds back too. This synchronisation with the “Model” and “View” components helps with seamless data sharing across components and browser environments. This also means that changes occur instantly without a complex need for data management or explicitly writing a separate onChange function like we do in React.
File Based Component Architecture
This feature, initially introduced by Angular is now remixed and refurbished across other libraries and frameworks as well. Dividing components into their own files makes it unbelievably easier to manage components even after years of deployment into production.
This method also erases confusion and helps manage the entire codebase very easily.
Be wary - do not cut an apple with a sword!
With all the positives going for Angular, it is definitely a wise choice for building modern apps in 2024. But a word of caution - a wise developer chooses the framework or library AFTER analysing the requirements for the app. There are a multitude of solutions available in the developer world but we must be the one to decide whether we need a kitchen knife or a Swiss army knife, or maybe a sword after all 😁
If you liked reading this article, I have made a video on Angular to reflect this article. Watch it now
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Top comments (1)
Thanks for sharing !