Angular framework: web application development for simplicity

The angular framework enables the development of mobile and web applications. First introduced in 2009, it is now one of the most popular technologies used by JavaScript developers. But what is the Angular framework? What are the principles behind it and how is it different from its big competitor React, developed by Facebook? Let's look at the details!

What is the Angular framework?

Angular is a web application framework that is associated with Google. Based on the TypeScript programming language, it is free, open-source, and quite popular. Angular, also known as Angular 2, is a rewrite of AngularJS. 

Using the front-end framework, developing web apps became much easier: it extends and complements the HTML toolkit, and the elements part of the application architecture are separated. Code is simplified by data binding and dependency injection.

The framework is designed to separate the DOM, or Document Object Model, manipulation, and the application logic, both on the client and the server side. Importance of testing is paramount, which is as important as writing the program. 

Various modules can be added to the base Angular framework to extend the toolkit, but of course, new custom additions can also be written and added to the system.

The architecture

The MVC, or Model View Controller, plays the main role in the architecture of Angular applications. The HTML file is the view itself, and the models and controllers are created using JavaScript.

The idea of unidirectional data binding is to combine the template and model components into a single view. If this has been done, but later changes need to be made to the model component, it is important to note that these changes are not automatically reflected in the view, nor are the changes made in the view reflected in the model. This situation was resolved by the developers by ensuring that the components are synchronised continuously.

Angular provides a solution to this problem. Indeed, bidirectional data coupling allows synchronous changes. Compared to unidirectional data coupling, it takes a different approach, because in this case the view can be seen as a projection of the model, i.e. changes to the view are reflected in the model and changes made to the model are also reflected in the view.

The HTM builds on the standard but extends it with various directives. These have the advantage of eliminating the need for direct DOM manipulation. Examples of such directives are ng-controller, which allows you to specify which controller you want to use, and ng-class, which allows dynamic loading of CSS classes.

The expressions used in Angular are JavaScript expressions, but there are some exceptions. For example, context, which is the scope object in Angular, but a window in JavaScript. Another difference is that an error message is returned when evaluating undefined properties in JavaScript, but not in Angular. In Angular, there is no branching, loop, or exception, but various filters can be applied.

Before comparing with the competing React, let's say a few words about controllers. The language of Angular controllers is JavaScript. They can be used to initialize objects or to define the behaviour of an object.

Angular or React?

React is not suitable for developing web applications by itself, as it was built to create component-based views. One-way data flow is implemented by the Flux architecture. In contrast, in Angular, the user interface is built from components.

In terms of languages, in the case of React, both the ES6 standard and JavaScript can be used, while Angular is written in TypeScript and is turned into a JavaScript file using a transformer. Both technologies allow client-side ordering, but this is not advantageous from an SEO point of view, it does not return the full HTML content when shared on social media. Angular overcomes this problem with the Angular Universal library, which is used to create social media-friendly content.

Speaking of JavaScript frameworks, we should also mention Vue.js, which has the huge advantage of separating business logic and presentation. You can even develop complex applications using it, thanks to the fact that you can extend it with multiple libraries. A huge advantage over Angular and React frameworks is that they can be learned in steps, so you can start developing relatively quickly.

SynerinSoft uses the Angular framework for custom software development. Learn how we work!