5 ms·

I used Angular Material to build a website. I dunno if you've ever been to the Angular Material website *https://material.angularjs.org/latest/ https://materia

I used Angular Material to build a website. I dunno if you've ever been to the Angular Material website *https://material.angularjs.org/latest/ https://material.angularjs.org/latest/), but check it out if you haven't. You see that nifty looking navigation bar on the left? You can't actually build that using Angular Material given all those wonderful components they list there. There are entire blog posts created so you can make a similar looking navigation menu [1][2]. There are so many things missing or incomplete in this framework that you'll only realize when you try and build a "real" application with it. Guess what? Angular Material is dead. All the developers decided to start over with Angular Material 2 because there's a new screwdriver brand in town: Angular 2. Yay for the people who just want functional doors. [1] http://blog.vizuri.com/creating-your-own-angular-material-navigation-menu http://blog.vizuri.com/creating-your-own-angular-material-na... [2] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28389671/create-a-menu-like-in-angularjs-material-website http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28389671/create-a-menu-li... Let's talk about Material Design Lite. Go check that website, especially the components page (https://getmdl.io/components/index.html https://getmdl.io/components/index.html). It's really nice and responsive, try changing the size of your browser window and see how the navigation bar collapses to the top. Damn this looks like a great framework, I'd like to do the same thing in my app. Imaging the surprise when you can't actually do that using the framework out-of-the-box. Oh by the way, forget about MDL, all the developers have moved on to Material Components for the Web (https://github.com/material-components/material-components-web https://github.com/material-components/material-components-w...). So much for the guys who just want to hang a door, there's a new brand of screwdrivers on the block. It would be great if the so-called "engineers" could spend some more time creating a complete toolbox instead of reinventing new screwdrivers every month.

Rusky 10y ago
In my experience, this is a much bigger problem in web programming than elsewhere. Take the JVM, for example, since it's the subject of the article- it's been around for decades and while things have changed, you can still pretty just just keep using whatever you're using without fear of the developers jumping ship for something shiny.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Indeed. Also, in more sane / stable areas of the industry, the code doesn't rot so fast. Java is relatively backwards compatible down to version 1.5 or so. In Common Lisp world, the code written more than years ago works perfectly fine without need for any change.
Bladtman 10y ago
I think I'm in love.
imafish 10y ago
You're forgetting that this is every web developer's dream. To always keep learning new frameworks (to do the same fucking thing) over and over.
- rtpg 10y ago
  I get that this is the easy way to see it from the outside, but: - You don't have to learn every new framework. Google has 10k+ Angular 1 projects, this stuff doesn't go away after hitting critical mass. - This constant iteration has lead to multiple production-ready UI paradigms that were just relegated to FP research. Try using Angular 1 or vanilla React, and then do something with vanilla Android. Or GTK+. Do we want GTK to be our baseline for UI work? Qt is nicer, but it's definitely playing catch-up. You can poke fun, but there's a reason everyone opts for things like Electron. It's the most satisfying way to build frontends for a lot of people.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    > Everyone opts for electron And I’m just sitting here, using https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxJavaFX https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxJavaFX
    - pas 10y ago
      Is JavaFX okay? Or maybe even good? What's wrong with it? (Not polished enough, not maintained enough? Not updated fast enough?) RxJava seems pretty okay.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        Seems perfectly fine for building desktop applications in Java (which is what I've been doing for the last 1.5 year at my $dayjob).
        srssays 10y ago
        Java has problems on OS X and Linux. It is not truly cross-platform like Electron is.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pas 10y ago
It's a free and open source project and you're still complaining. And browsers and the web, JS and a lot of things changed between Angular 1 and Angular 2. Yes, Google could have handled those projects better, they could have put up big warning signs that they are "deprecated". I think it was a good move to recognize how unmaintainable things (can quickly and usually) become with angular1 (or with anything that is a mess of a hundred semi-external JS libraries), hence TypeScript.
- mcguire 10y ago
  Maybe marking them deprecated when they're launched?
  - scaryspooky 10y ago
    So we've moved past the 'forever in beta' phase to the 'deprecated at launch' phase?
pmarreck 10y ago
Man I smelled that "horrendous complexity" odor on Angular a mile away. Made me glad I can do mostly backend work.
- jelling 10y ago
  You're not wrong. I am an Angular 1 dev who's in the process of moving to Angular 2 and even that is an up-hill battle. However, I think it's about picking the right tool for the job in that the batteries-included / opinionated nature of Angular is great for once you start scaling a team AND/OR you have a product that you need to keep shippable at all times.
patorjk 10y ago
I've done a few projects with Angular Material, and I actually ran into that exact same issue of trying to re-create the documentation's sidebar, only to realize the components weren't in the framework. > Guess what? Angular Material is dead. All the developers decided to start over with Angular Material 2 because there's a new screwdriver brand in town: Angular 2. I think an important lesson from this is to be careful about the tools you use. If a particular company puts out great tools but changes them in incompatible ways, you might end up having to go back and rehang a lot of doors.

Rusky 10y ago

In my experience, this is a much bigger problem in web programming than elsewhere. Take the JVM, for example, since it's the subject of the article- it's been around for decades and while things have changed, you can still pretty just just keep using whatever you're using without fear of the developers jumping ship for something shiny.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Indeed. Also, in more sane / stable areas of the industry, the code doesn't rot so fast. Java is relatively backwards compatible down to version 1.5 or so. In Common Lisp world, the code written more than years ago works perfectly fine without need for any change.

Bladtman 10y ago

I think I'm in love.

imafish 10y ago

You're forgetting that this is every web developer's dream. To always keep learning new frameworks (to do the same fucking thing) over and over.

rtpg 10y ago
I get that this is the easy way to see it from the outside, but: - You don't have to learn every new framework. Google has 10k+ Angular 1 projects, this stuff doesn't go away after hitting critical mass. - This constant iteration has lead to multiple production-ready UI paradigms that were just relegated to FP research. Try using Angular 1 or vanilla React, and then do something with vanilla Android. Or GTK+. Do we want GTK to be our baseline for UI work? Qt is nicer, but it's definitely playing catch-up. You can poke fun, but there's a reason everyone opts for things like Electron. It's the most satisfying way to build frontends for a lot of people.
- kuschku 10y ago
  > Everyone opts for electron And I’m just sitting here, using https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxJavaFX https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxJavaFX
  - pas 10y ago
    Is JavaFX okay? Or maybe even good? What's wrong with it? (Not polished enough, not maintained enough? Not updated fast enough?) RxJava seems pretty okay.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Seems perfectly fine for building desktop applications in Java (which is what I've been doing for the last 1.5 year at my $dayjob).
      - srssays 10y ago
        Java has problems on OS X and Linux. It is not truly cross-platform like Electron is.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

pas 10y ago

It's a free and open source project and you're still complaining. And browsers and the web, JS and a lot of things changed between Angular 1 and Angular 2. Yes, Google could have handled those projects better, they could have put up big warning signs that they are "deprecated". I think it was a good move to recognize how unmaintainable things (can quickly and usually) become with angular1 (or with anything that is a mess of a hundred semi-external JS libraries), hence TypeScript.

mcguire 10y ago
Maybe marking them deprecated when they're launched?
- scaryspooky 10y ago
  So we've moved past the 'forever in beta' phase to the 'deprecated at launch' phase?

pmarreck 10y ago

Man I smelled that "horrendous complexity" odor on Angular a mile away. Made me glad I can do mostly backend work.

jelling 10y ago
You're not wrong. I am an Angular 1 dev who's in the process of moving to Angular 2 and even that is an up-hill battle. However, I think it's about picking the right tool for the job in that the batteries-included / opinionated nature of Angular is great for once you start scaling a team AND/OR you have a product that you need to keep shippable at all times.

patorjk 10y ago

I've done a few projects with Angular Material, and I actually ran into that exact same issue of trying to re-create the documentation's sidebar, only to realize the components weren't in the framework. > Guess what? Angular Material is dead. All the developers decided to start over with Angular Material 2 because there's a new screwdriver brand in town: Angular 2. I think an important lesson from this is to be careful about the tools you use. If a particular company puts out great tools but changes them in incompatible ways, you might end up having to go back and rehang a lot of doors.