There is an ever-increasing range of innovative tools to streamline software development and web technologies have evolved at lightning speed in recent years. And, not wanting to be left behind, each version of Angular offers very different concepts and ways of working even if they may share some similar features.
Google’s Angular team has decided to launch a framework that will completely overhaul the original AngularJS framework. The result is what we know today as Angular 2, fully rewritten and which cannot be considered a new version of AngularJS, rather a new framework, even if it does share the same name. In fact, both frameworks are still simultaneously undergoing constant changes and updates.
It is no secret that both frameworks have become highly popular in the world of software development and it is probably important for most user app developers to analyse the differences between them to choose the right option for their project. In our post “Web superheroes: AngularJS”, we explained the most notable aspects of AngularJS. So, what can Angular 2 offer to outdo its predecessor?
Firstly, Angular 2 allows programmers to choose between different programming languages for coding. These are the following: ES5, ES6, TypeScript and Dart (by Google). AngularJS does not support TypeScript and uses JavaScript to compile the application.
What benefits does using TypeScript offer and why is it often considered an advantage? TypeScript is a JavaScript superset which makes it easier to create a solid, structured code. In fact, these features are the reason why TypeScript has been chosen as the default language for development in Angular 2.
Angular 2 also covers more modern concepts of web development. This is because of one of the most significant differences between the two frameworks: the architecture. AngularJS is based on Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, while Angular 2 replaces controllers with web components.
Angular 2 encourages code reusability and offers the programmer greater flexibility for development. Likewise, it allows the programmer to divide their development into creating components with the desired characteristics and creating user interfaces (UIs) that are related to the desired components. That is why some components are not directly linked to a UI and can therefore be reused. Angular also foresees future scalability as it adopts a standard that will likely prevail in the future, since an increasing number of browsers support web components. As browsers increase support for these components their performance is also expected to increase.
Furthermore, Angular 2 offers dependency injection based on builders. Likewise, it manages entities through bootstrapping. To do this, it provides an annotation to define classes as services, which can then be imported into different modules. This enhances performance.
Similarly, the syntax of directives was changed in Angular 2, and this rendered many directives available in AngularJS unnecessary as Angular 2 allows you to directly use the properties of elements and standard DOM events.
One significant case is how the “data binding” offered by both products is managed. In AngularJS, the ng-bind directive is used to bind data in a single direction. This allows greater flow control in the application. Angular, meanwhile, proposes what is known as [property], representing the property of the DOM element on which operations are carried out.
Furthermore, two-way data binding directives, so popular in AngularJS, have been definitively removed in Angular. The reason for removing these directives and using the same feature with another syntax lies in the desire to increase end-product security and performance. The directive used for two-way data binding: “ng-model” in AngularJS has been replaced by [(mgModel)] in Angular.
In conclusion … What framework is most attractive for business developers, Angular 2 or AngularJS? Without a doubt, Angular 2 might be attractive enough for this type of development as it proposes a way of dealing with multi-platform development, while AngularJS opts for web development for desktop environments. Although there are libraries that allow AngularJS to run on mobiles, given what we have discussed above, Angular 2 performance on mobile devices is superior.
Staying up-to-date with software technologies and standards is essential to maintain quality in software project development and, as an innovative company, Alvantia is committed to adapting to changes by using cutting-edge work tools.
