What is angular and why it is so popular
Choosing the right technology for your upcoming web development project can be insanely tricky. I mean look at the plethora of frontend framework options available around. Of course, having so many options is a good thing but sometimes it turns out to be pretty overwhelming as well. And trust me, the struggle is real! Well, the following blog post is neither about different frontend frameworks nor it compares them. In fact, this one, in particular, tends to focus on only one, i.e. Angular framework.
Built on typescript, Angular has paved its way for success through several versions and updates, the latest one released was in May 2021 – Angular 12.0.0. Basically, this one is a component-based framework mainly used to conduct seamless frontend development among scalable web apps. Why is Angular pretty much in hype? Well, since this one features a wide range of libraries, routing, and client-server communication, I say why not!
I recently happened to stumble upon a post stating When an industry giant introduces a new product, everyone anticipates it to be flawless. Consumers’ high expectations paired with genuine curiosity make them more demanding, but if a new solution satisfies their criteria and delights them with an exceptional journey, interested parties become devoted customers. That is precisely what happened with AngularJS, which was released in 2010, and its entire rewrite, Angular, which debuted in 2016. In fact, it is also emphasized on some of the top websites built using Angular such as Gmail app, Upwork, Paypal, Forbes, Delta, Netflix and whatnot.
The following post focuses on What is Angular and how is it beneficial or what is the sure-shot reason behind its immense popularity.
Meet One of the leading Frontend Framework Angular
Do you know how important HTML is when developing a dynamic website? Angular is no different when developing web apps. Angular is a bot more than HTML as it surely results in creating expensive, readable and speedy development of web applications.
Angular in technical abbreviations is an open-source javascript frontend framework mainly used to develop single-page web applications. Since its inception, the framework was written in Javascript with a pure intention to decouple the logic of an application from DOM manipulation however, now it is used in developing single-page apps, dynamic web applications and whatnot! Initially, the framework was used to transform HTML based documents into dynamic content. Slowly and steadily, the framework evolved and now it has become one of the prominent technology offering great performance and speed in one go.
First introduced by the tech giant named Google in 2010, yes it’s been more than a decade and the popularity of the framework doesn’t seem to slow down any time soon. In addition, Angular comprises intimidating features and functionalities such as blade templating, directives to extend HTML attributes, two-way binding, scope to control variables, modularization, composability, controllers, jQuery libraries, event-handling, RESTFul API handling, routing, dependency injection, unit testing, AJAX handling and the list goes on.
Now many of you have this misconception that Angularjs and Angular are the same. Well, they do carry a resemblance but to an extent these two terms are different. You see back in 2009, Angular js was developed and soon turned out to be one of the most popular javascript frameworks since it then offered a plethora of benefits and advantages such as easy to use, simplifying the development process, supporting the latest standards of ES6 and whatnot. Then came Angular 1 in October 2010, Angular 2 in September 2016, Angular 4 in March 2017, Angular 5 in November 2017, Angular 6 in May 2018, Angular 7 in October 2018, Angular 8 in May 2019, Angular 9 in February 2020, Angular 10 in June 2020 and the list goes on!
Do you know what makes a website more attention-grabbing? Well, when it excels in regards to design, look, responsiveness, etc. Further below I would like to mention certain common yet crucial features offered by Angular.
#1 Cross-platform development
At present, developing progressive web apps has become the need of the hour. Fortunately, by using Angular, web developers can seamlessly create progressive web apps. More or less, PWAs can deliver an app-like experience to the end-user.
By using modern web capabilities, programmers can deploy an app in both manners, i.e. native and progressive. If you want to develop apps for desktop, Angular is the right choice whereas if you want to deploy apps on the famous app store then consider a hybrid mobile SDK like Ionic.
#2 High Speed and Great Performance
The modern javascript virtual machine can be transformed by using Angular. Now how is this possible, right? Well, it is possible when templates are turned into code. Also, it may quite interest you to know that hand-written code can leverage a productive framework. Do you know why developers are so fascinated with Angular? They can render code into HTML and CSS. After this, the developed product can be viewed on .Net, PHP, Nodejs, or any other platform.
It may quite interest you to know that in comparison to other frameworks, the loading time of Angular apps is pretty quick. Yes, it loads in a snap of a finger, wondering how? Simple the code automatically gets split as per the user’s loading and rendering requirements.
#3 MVC Architecture
Do you know the meaning of MVC? It stands for Model-View-Controller. Whenever you are developing an angular-based application what happens is it is being managed by the model and the view takes care of what kind of the data will be displayed and whatnot. Now you must be wondering what is the job of a controller? Well, it acts as a connector between view and model layers.
With the MVC architecture, the app can be split successfully into MVC and it takes care of the rest. More or less, a significant amount of coding time is saved.
#4 Two-Way Binding
Another interesting feature offered by Angular is a two-way binding system. The view layer represents the model layer, make sure everything is well synchronized. In case, any changes are made in the model, the user can see the view model automatically. More or less, the development time is decreased.
#5 Angular CLI
Angular comprises of Command Line Interface which assists Angular developers in striking numerous built-in features such as SCSS support or routing. By using CLI, ng-new or ng-add, programmers can look around for numerous ready-made features seamlessly.
- If you want to initialize angular app development, choose CLI
- Creating new components, services, routes, and pipes is possible
- The Angular app can be tested on the local server
#6 Dependency Injection
Dependency injection, now I am sure if you had heard of Angular before then you must have heard of dependency injection as well. And since Angular features dependency injection, it becomes easy for developers to create the application.
Just ask for it (dependencies) and you will get the appropriate result.
#7 Typescript
Typescript is certainly not the least feature when it comes to Angular. In fact, today typescript has become a top choice for a frontend developer. More or less, it is efficient in detecting bugs and reduces development time.
Typescript automatically populates the root file configuration for easy compilation. When compared with other frameworks, due to typescript Angular has richer enums, interfaces, generics, hybrid types, union/intersection types, access modifiers, etc.
Why Angular is Great in Regards To Popularity?
Right from Microsoft Office Home to Forbes, Paypal, IBM, and Google Marketing Platform, Angular has already been considered as the winner and a preferred choice for leading business brands. Are you still wondering why Angular is great and popular across the globe?
● Ease of use
Since Angular was developed from level zero or scratch, there is no denying the fact that developers have already added some rich features. So developing web applications seamlessly is possible using the Angular Framework.
Here creating user-friendly websites is possible without much coding. In order to apply different data models, there is no point in writing setters and getters.
Technically speaking, the app code doesn’t have any directories, so teams can work seamlessly and simultaneously on managing things. This eventually saves lots and lots of time and development effort.
● Large Community Support
The benefit of having large and active community support shouldn’t be neglected in any way. Angular is one such framework that comprises an active community of developers who are willing to solve all the doubts and queries of the juniors or amateurs and assist them in conducting a successful web development project.
Who exactly are these veteran developers? They are the ones who have invested years and years in understanding the app and acknowledging it and are now ready to share their knowledge without any issue. In fact, several large conferences and forums are being conducted when it comes to these open-source frameworks.
So whether you are conducting a web development project for the very first time or the fifth time, you will never fall out of options.
● Easy Testing
Did you know that the Angular framework does assist well when it comes to testing? Yes, you read it right! Any you know why? Because by using Angular several parts of the application can be manipulated. With the help of the moderation feature, developers can load all the needed services and implement automated testing in quite a seamless manner.
What the Future Holds?
Well, one thing is for sure! Angular has quite a bright present and I am pretty sure the future will be more brighter and rosy. The journey of Angularjs to Angular is not easy but somehow, it made it inspiring, motivating and become popular among numerous web developers across the globe. So yes that’s all for now! In case if you still have any doubts or queries, feel free to mention that in the comment section below.
