16 ms·

I haven't tried Angular yet but have built applications in React. In my opinion, frameworks like Angular suffer from a fundamental problem, that, it is almost i

I haven't tried Angular yet but have built applications in React. In my opinion, frameworks like Angular suffer from a fundamental problem, that, it is almost impossible to gauge the problems of a new design unless you have a built a medium - large scale application with it which is very hard when you are just experimenting. There might be few heuristics, few rule of thumbs one can follow but still it will be hard to see if the ease - effort ratio will make the framework worthwhile. You can make things too "magical" and also too "worthless". I guess that's why everyone complains that it is easier to build a Todo application in Angular but the troubles grow as you grow bigger. The reason why React is successful might be they did get a chance to experiment the architecture on their own things before releasing it to the public.

hellofunk 11y ago
I've never understood any comparison between React and Angular. To me it seems like trying to compare a slick car to a fancy car garage. They try to solve quite different problems, right?
- jeremiep 11y ago
  I've used both and I could completely replace Angular with React and some scaffolding code. I used Angular on medium to large web apps in the past and while its easy to get started you always get tons of problems at scale. Staying at scale without problems requires so much discipline its not even worth mentioning. The two-way bindings are just the wrong way to go in order to keep things simple as you scale. It becomes nearly impossible to reason about the performance of your app or what is going to trigger if you change a model. This is way, way too complex to build an application. With React most of this complexity goes away. I'm also using React from ClojureScript through the Om library so these might be contributing to said simplicity!
- lojack 11y ago
  > They try to solve quite different problems, right? Sort of. The problem React is solving is a subset of the problem Angular is solving. It's a bit more like comparing an older model sports car to a modern engine.
  - astazangasta 11y ago
    A modern engine that also insists on doing your taxes.
- coldtea 11y ago
  No. When people say React they mean React and a helper Flux-like framework. So, both are garages in this sense.
marknutter 11y ago
> I haven't tried Angular yet but have built applications in React. In my opinion, frameworks like Angular suffer from a fundamental problem, that, it is almost impossible to gauge the problems of a new design unless you have a built a medium - large scale application with it which is very hard when you are just experimenting. I don't see how this is any different with React. Building a medium - large scale application in React involves just as much complexity as doing it with an Angular app, because you end up adding a Flux implementation (and all of its boilerplate code and ceremony), some sort of routing engine, a testing framework of your own choosing, a myriad of helpers, mixins, and components that a framework like Angular or Ember provide out of the box, and we haven't even started about the increased complexity in terms of tooling; babel, webpack, jsx trasnpiling. Add to that radical new concepts like css defined in your javascript files, the rapid rate at which breaking changes are introduced to React, and the moving target around data handling (Flux is out, Relay is in?) and you find yourself in a very similar situation. You're comparing a view layer to an entire framework. It would be more apt to compare React to Angular directives but then your overarching point about complexity would be lost. I've worked on large Angular apps and large React apps and I can assure you the complexity was about the same.

hellofunk 11y ago

I've never understood any comparison between React and Angular. To me it seems like trying to compare a slick car to a fancy car garage. They try to solve quite different problems, right?

jeremiep 11y ago
I've used both and I could completely replace Angular with React and some scaffolding code. I used Angular on medium to large web apps in the past and while its easy to get started you always get tons of problems at scale. Staying at scale without problems requires so much discipline its not even worth mentioning. The two-way bindings are just the wrong way to go in order to keep things simple as you scale. It becomes nearly impossible to reason about the performance of your app or what is going to trigger if you change a model. This is way, way too complex to build an application. With React most of this complexity goes away. I'm also using React from ClojureScript through the Om library so these might be contributing to said simplicity!
lojack 11y ago
> They try to solve quite different problems, right? Sort of. The problem React is solving is a subset of the problem Angular is solving. It's a bit more like comparing an older model sports car to a modern engine.
- astazangasta 11y ago
  A modern engine that also insists on doing your taxes.
coldtea 11y ago
No. When people say React they mean React and a helper Flux-like framework. So, both are garages in this sense.

marknutter 11y ago

> I haven't tried Angular yet but have built applications in React. In my opinion, frameworks like Angular suffer from a fundamental problem, that, it is almost impossible to gauge the problems of a new design unless you have a built a medium - large scale application with it which is very hard when you are just experimenting. I don't see how this is any different with React. Building a medium - large scale application in React involves just as much complexity as doing it with an Angular app, because you end up adding a Flux implementation (and all of its boilerplate code and ceremony), some sort of routing engine, a testing framework of your own choosing, a myriad of helpers, mixins, and components that a framework like Angular or Ember provide out of the box, and we haven't even started about the increased complexity in terms of tooling; babel, webpack, jsx trasnpiling. Add to that radical new concepts like css defined in your javascript files, the rapid rate at which breaking changes are introduced to React, and the moving target around data handling (Flux is out, Relay is in?) and you find yourself in a very similar situation. You're comparing a view layer to an entire framework. It would be more apt to compare React to Angular directives but then your overarching point about complexity would be lost. I've worked on large Angular apps and large React apps and I can assure you the complexity was about the same.