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As someone who hasn’t done much JavaScript since AngularJS in 2014/2015, what is the current state of JS like? I see there’s Angular (not AngularJS that I work

As someone who hasn’t done much JavaScript since AngularJS in 2014/2015, what is the current state of JS like? I see there’s Angular (not AngularJS that I worked with), React, and some other frameworks. I see there are all kinds of bundlers and plug ins for these things. When I was doing AngularJS, I’d just link to a few dependencies manually from a CDN. Looks like now there’s a bunch more complexity and package management for front end dependencies. It feels like FAR more complexity, but I’m not sure what has been gained. I also don’t know that much, so would love to learn perspectives here from people actively developing in this space.

ridicter 6y ago
If you're looking for a fully featured framework, Angular is a joy to work with. React is great too, but the configuration overhead is enormous due to the fact that it's mainly a view library. I realize you are pining for the days when you just pasted a CDN link in your index.html, but while those use cases still exist, for the most part users are demanding more native-like web experiences, which requires a bit more complexity. One of the main strengths (and according to some, weakness) of Angular is that it has everything you might need to create a full featured SPA out of the box, and it's all tightly orchestrated by the Angular CLI. Creating a component or a service is a simple command, and many third party packages leverage the CLI (Angular Schematics) to install and configure themselves in your codebase. Core packages--such as such as forms, router, angular material--are all high quality (by Google), updated together, and work cohesively with each other. That means updating even major versions of Angular is an easy `ng update` command. For me, the minimal configuration overhead is a BFD, as I plain hate that stuff. The fact that Typescript has been a first class citizen of Angular from its outset makes development pretty enjoyable. I'm so used to exploring APIs using intellisense, leveraging types to figure out what data types can be passed in functions, relying heavily on auto-complete/auto-import to pick up my pieces and finish typing a word for me and importing the corresponding library while I keep going. Granted, there is a significant learning curve. But once you get over the initial learning curve, you become incredibly productive. Arguably, the learning curve in other frameworks is worse, given that you have to research what libraries to use (e.g., which forms library, with its own set of conventions), configure it, and make sure it plays nice with the other patchwork of libraries.
xinsight 6y ago
I initially loved React, but i eventually feel out of love due to the complex tooling required to use React (e.g. configuring webpack, evaluating data store options, evaluating form options) If you're interested in a fresh, lighter, framework-free approach, have a look at svelte: https://svelte.dev/ https://svelte.dev/ I'm using it on a current project and loving it so far.

ridicter 6y ago

If you're looking for a fully featured framework, Angular is a joy to work with. React is great too, but the configuration overhead is enormous due to the fact that it's mainly a view library. I realize you are pining for the days when you just pasted a CDN link in your index.html, but while those use cases still exist, for the most part users are demanding more native-like web experiences, which requires a bit more complexity. One of the main strengths (and according to some, weakness) of Angular is that it has everything you might need to create a full featured SPA out of the box, and it's all tightly orchestrated by the Angular CLI. Creating a component or a service is a simple command, and many third party packages leverage the CLI (Angular Schematics) to install and configure themselves in your codebase. Core packages--such as such as forms, router, angular material--are all high quality (by Google), updated together, and work cohesively with each other. That means updating even major versions of Angular is an easy `ng update` command. For me, the minimal configuration overhead is a BFD, as I plain hate that stuff. The fact that Typescript has been a first class citizen of Angular from its outset makes development pretty enjoyable. I'm so used to exploring APIs using intellisense, leveraging types to figure out what data types can be passed in functions, relying heavily on auto-complete/auto-import to pick up my pieces and finish typing a word for me and importing the corresponding library while I keep going. Granted, there is a significant learning curve. But once you get over the initial learning curve, you become incredibly productive. Arguably, the learning curve in other frameworks is worse, given that you have to research what libraries to use (e.g., which forms library, with its own set of conventions), configure it, and make sure it plays nice with the other patchwork of libraries.

xinsight 6y ago

I initially loved React, but i eventually feel out of love due to the complex tooling required to use React (e.g. configuring webpack, evaluating data store options, evaluating form options) If you're interested in a fresh, lighter, framework-free approach, have a look at svelte: https://svelte.dev/ https://svelte.dev/ I'm using it on a current project and loving it so far.