Kinanee SamsonNo Javascript UI framework can beat Angular at its game, not even React! Angular might just be the best Javascript UI framework to use in 2024 and very few if any come close to Angular and what it offers to developers. You see quite recently I made a post about Angular where I predicted that Angular will not survive 2024 and the Angular community kicked back against it suggesting that Angular might not be going anywhere and they made some pretty arguments for Angular and after giving Angular a second look I realized that Angular might be Evil but it is the best at what it does and no other Javascript UI framework can compete with Angular.
Angular is a Robust framework for building enterprise-level UI, Angular comes baked with a CLI, that enables you to spin up new projects, components, modules, and Services, run tests, and so on. Angular has a built-in state management solution, supports Reactive programming out of the box, there is two-way data binding, and a very robust Router. Everything you need to build a modern overpowered web application. Angular is also appealing to large teams due to the consistency in the project structure, this is because Angular is opinionated about the way you should build your application.
In today's post, I'm going to go over 6 reasons why I believe that Angular might be the ultimate Javascript UI framework
- Highly Opinionated & Consistent Project Structure
- Out-of-the-box support for Typescript and reactive Programming
- Angular Router
- Angular CLI
- Angular Community
- Dependency Injection
Highly Opinionated & Consistent Project Structure
Angular is one of the very few frameworks with a consistent project structure, you can hop on almost any Angular project and legit expect to meet the same or almost similar project structure. This is because Angular enforces a particular application structure when you use Angular, that is why they say that Angular is highly opinionated. This is a good thing because it ensures that developers can keep their weird project structure to themselves and use what everyone is familiar with and will understand easily. This highly opinionated approach provides pre-defined patterns and best practices, promoting quicker development cycles. it also eliminates the need to choose between multiple options for every aspect of the application. Developers can focus on strategic choices and application logic instead of low-level implementation details. It also improves code consistency and readability. This is one of the reasons Angular is used by large teams and on complex web applications. Trust me you don't want to deal with trying to figure out how the app works and trying to understand the project structure at the same time or which patterns were utilized in the app.
Out Of The box support for Typescript and Reactive Programming
Angular was the first UI framework to incorporate type-safety with Typescript and till today except for Stencil.js, it is the only framework that has out-of-the-box support for Typescript without any extra configurations. Angular is built with TypeScript: The framework's architecture, components, directives, and services are all written in TypeScript. The only way to use Angular is to use Typescript. Take it or leave it, except if you're an experienced 10X developer then It's take it because of the super powers of Typescript. Leave it and miss out on type annotations, Type checking during development, and the Rich tooling support you get from the IDE.
Angular also has out-of-the-box support for reactive programming with the Rxjs library. This allows Angular applications to handle a constant stream of data without breaking a sweat. Angular heavily relies on RxJS for internal operations and exposes it for developers to use throughout applications. Observables are used in key areas like; HTTP requests (HttpClient returns Observables), Forms (form events are Observables), and Router events (navigation events are Observables). This enables Angular apps to manage multiple data streams and events efficiently and also to avoid callback hell and complex promise chains.
Angular Router & CLI
When you scaffold a new Angular project, the Angular Router gets shipped with it by default. This is one of the most Router if not the most Robust Router you can find across almost any Javascript UI framework. The Angular Router makes it easy to set up Route guards very easily, this takes things like protecting certain pages, and preventing accidental navigation from a page out of the component and onto a service that is utilized by the router. Try achieving the same with other frameworks. Most frameworks don't even have their Router, you have to install a community-maintained Router! Good try guys but you need to step up your game.
Angular ships with a robust CLI which you have to install on your computer and this makes it very easy to do everyday developer tasks, things like generate new projects, generate a new component, or a new module or a new test file. Just run a command from the terminal in an Angular project and the Angular CLI has got you covered! You can also test your components and get results by using the Angular CLI, it doesn't stop there. You can generate services and interfaces and there's so much more that you can just do with the angular CLI. Other frameworks are out here having developers doing things manually. I think angular is already in 2077.
Angular Community
Angular has a strong community behind it, let's not forget that it is from Google, and except they shut it down like one of their other products other frameworks are already on the downside. You see I ditched Angular quite recently and the kickback I got from the community was nothing short of amazing. Angular developers went on Savage mode and they all wanted my head on a pike. Some developers have already sold their souls to Angular and will use Angular even on their deathbeds. The framework gets nothing short of 900K weekly installations on npm while the repository on GitHub has over 90K stars. That's more than enough men required to start a third world war. There is an abundance of npm packages dedicated to helping you build certain features into your angular application rather easily.
Dependency Injection
Dependency Injection is a design pattern where dependencies are provided to a class externally instead of creating them within the class itself. This promotes loose coupling and improved testability. In Angular dependencies are typically services, an injector component manages and provides these dependencies to components at runtime. Components rely on interfaces, not concrete implementations, making them adaptable and easier to test. This ensures that Angular code is easier to maintain and reuse as components are self-contained and their dependencies are clearly defined, explicit declaration of dependencies enhances readability and understanding of the code. It also makes Testing our applications easy; Mocking dependencies for unit testing becomes straightforward, leading to more robust test cases. Angular will also Load dependencies only when needed, improving application performance.
That's going to be it for this piece, I hope you found this useful and learned something new, what are your thoughts on using Angular in 2024, do you think Angular is the best UI framework? Do you personally use Angular and if yes, How long have you been using Angular and what is your favorite part about using Angular? What are your thoughts on this post? Let me know all these and more using the comment section below.
