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I abandoned angular (around version 5) because even a simple application was unusually large in size, and I did not want to have to deal with the disproportiona

I abandoned angular (around version 5) because even a simple application was unusually large in size, and I did not want to have to deal with the disproportionate time investment of trying to squeeze out performance / optimization / reduce bundle sizes. Have these kinds of issues been improved since? At the time it, at best, seemed like a decent fit to build things like backoffice / admin related tools. On a related note, if you were building a web project in 2021, given the multitude of JS framework options available, which ecosystem would be your go-to pick in most cases that gives you: - Performance - Tree-shaking/AOT compilation/chunking/minification/cache-busting other optimization magic out-of-the-box. - Good debugging tools - A seamless way to drop-in to an existing server-side web framework without wanting to take over routing and other such things - Good compatibility with third party JS

romanovcode 5y ago
For all these points the correct answer would be Angular.
caporaltito 5y ago
Angular 5 is like prehistory now. You should check how Google has improved the compilation, for instance. This is like day and night.
rawoke083600 5y ago
Same.. although I only left Angular around v 8/9 if I recall. These days, I can't imagine using anything but Svelte/SvelteKit for anything JS.
icemelt8 5y ago
ReactJS 18
Tade0 5y ago
> Have these kinds of issues been improved since? Currently in an Angular project and I would say "somewhat". Our production bundle is still >1MB if you include all the polyfills etc. As an alternative I recommend Svelte Kit: https://kit.svelte.dev/ https://kit.svelte.dev/ But it's best to wait until it's out of beta. The value proposition here is that it's performant, bundles are exceptionally small since it's more a compiler than a framework and you need less code than in say, React, to achieve the same result. Now that it has TypeScript support the developer experience is decent as well.
- jxi 5y ago
  Why does it need less code than React?
topicseed 5y ago
For internal tools and small apps, I stopped using React and went with Svelte. Not as mature, but what a breath of fresh air. Otherwise, React for larger projects though I'm trying SvelteKit for a larger project right now, and it's pretty amazing. It's a lot less boilerplate than React, and god that feels good.
- cies 5y ago
  I went with Elm instead. It helps I really like types and prefer a fight with the type-checker/ compiler then with runtime errors any day. > it's pretty amazing. It's a lot less boilerplate than React, and god that feels good. I could have said this for Elm! :)
  - Zababa 5y ago
    What do you use for the backend with Elm? I find it hard to go back to TS after it.
have_faith 5y ago
React via NextJS is becoming a popular option. It ticks all of your boxes. NextJS has an opinioned way of approaching the backend but also supports just rolling your own and exporting the frontend as a fully static site if wanted.
azangru 5y ago
> A seamless way to drop-in to an existing server-side web framework without wanting to take over routing and other such things These days, I would first check whether I can get away with just using web components, typically with lit for convenience. The reason being that web components are a browser standard, which means that if you do it right, you get an opportunity to escape the hamster wheel of keeping up with new frameworks. That web components are often adequate to do the job is evidenced by Adobe releasing their web version of Photoshop based on web components and lit.
EMM_386 5y ago
> I abandoned angular (around version 5) because even a simple application was unusually large in size, and I did not want to have to deal with the disproportionate time investment of trying to squeeze out performance / optimization / reduce bundle sizes. What do you consider "unusually large in size?". I am lead on a "large" Angular code-base, which compiles to less than 5 MB in production mode using lazy-loaded modules. 5 MB is often smaller than a picture of a cat people post online, and can be cached. I think front-end developers often overthink "performance" and "bandwidth". Sure, it's great to keep things as small and concise as possible, but at the end of the day it gets a lot more nuanced. I'm much more concerned about the C# code and the SQL than I am about anything Angular is doing in JS land.
- Maphistow 5y ago
  Default angular builds are large compared to other frameworks even when you consider all the extra stuff that gets bundled with angular. 5MB is large for a single bundle, I'd say if you are using lazy loaded modules 2MB for a single module is large. Front-end performance varies in importance based on your context. In e-commerce performance is tied to conversion so it's very important. If you're a government contractor building CRUD apps, it's not as important.
  - EMM_386 5y ago
    > If you're a government contractor building CRUD apps, it's not as important. I'm far from that, but "5MB is very large" to me is ludicrous. Press "play" on a Netflix movie and you're over that benchmark straight away. I grew up in the era of sub-56k modems. Just searching Google for "56k modems" returns 5.1 MB of data with an ad-blocker on. Let's be realistic.
    - robin_reala 5y ago
      Images and markup are not JavaScript. A reasonable rule of thumb is that on a low-end Android phone 100KB of JS takes about 1 second to download and parse. A 5MB bundle would take 50s or so to run. You probably don’t notice this if you’re only testing on fast PCs/macs, or modern iOS devices.
xdanger 5y ago
I just love vue3 with vite ecosystem. For example: https://github.com/antfu/vitesse/ https://github.com/antfu/vitesse/ is a good template to start "modern" webdev. DX is very good. you can integrate it to a server with ssr: https://github.com/frandiox/vite-ssr https://github.com/frandiox/vite-ssr
brailsafe 5y ago
Vue. Still find React incredibly annoying.
reactor 5y ago
Svelte/Sveltekit. It's really difficult to go back to React/Vue/Angular once you get a hang of Svelte.
- nuclearnice1 5y ago
  What’s better? The complaint about the high initial complexity of Angular certainly resonated with me.
- bovermyer 5y ago
  This is absolutely true. Svelte just works really well with my brain.
girvo 5y ago
Depends if I need to be able to hire for it. Svelte if I don’t. React via CRA if I do. I’m hopeful that Svelte will continue to pick up steam, but React serves my needs well as-is.
88913527 5y ago
If your target userbase has a stable, reasonably good internet connection, bundle size doesn't matter. Perhaps it's a dirty secret of front end development these days, but in many use cases, it's a micro-optimization. Now if you're selling goods on Amazon, and billions of page hits and 50ms slower page load time means X% fewer goods sold, you've made a case: one developer spending time on performance optimization is saving your business millions. Most engineers aren't working at that scale.
- fareesh 5y ago
  Isn't it true that these metrics impact lighthouse scores, which are a significant factor in determining your page rank? i.e. if your product is relying on some organic search traffic to grow, would bundle size be a concern?

romanovcode 5y ago

For all these points the correct answer would be Angular.

caporaltito 5y ago

Angular 5 is like prehistory now. You should check how Google has improved the compilation, for instance. This is like day and night.

rawoke083600 5y ago

Same.. although I only left Angular around v 8/9 if I recall. These days, I can't imagine using anything but Svelte/SvelteKit for anything JS.

icemelt8 5y ago

ReactJS 18

Tade0 5y ago

> Have these kinds of issues been improved since? Currently in an Angular project and I would say "somewhat". Our production bundle is still >1MB if you include all the polyfills etc. As an alternative I recommend Svelte Kit: https://kit.svelte.dev/ https://kit.svelte.dev/ But it's best to wait until it's out of beta. The value proposition here is that it's performant, bundles are exceptionally small since it's more a compiler than a framework and you need less code than in say, React, to achieve the same result. Now that it has TypeScript support the developer experience is decent as well.

jxi 5y ago
Why does it need less code than React?

topicseed 5y ago

For internal tools and small apps, I stopped using React and went with Svelte. Not as mature, but what a breath of fresh air. Otherwise, React for larger projects though I'm trying SvelteKit for a larger project right now, and it's pretty amazing. It's a lot less boilerplate than React, and god that feels good.

cies 5y ago
I went with Elm instead. It helps I really like types and prefer a fight with the type-checker/ compiler then with runtime errors any day. > it's pretty amazing. It's a lot less boilerplate than React, and god that feels good. I could have said this for Elm! :)
- Zababa 5y ago
  What do you use for the backend with Elm? I find it hard to go back to TS after it.

have_faith 5y ago

React via NextJS is becoming a popular option. It ticks all of your boxes. NextJS has an opinioned way of approaching the backend but also supports just rolling your own and exporting the frontend as a fully static site if wanted.

azangru 5y ago

> A seamless way to drop-in to an existing server-side web framework without wanting to take over routing and other such things These days, I would first check whether I can get away with just using web components, typically with lit for convenience. The reason being that web components are a browser standard, which means that if you do it right, you get an opportunity to escape the hamster wheel of keeping up with new frameworks. That web components are often adequate to do the job is evidenced by Adobe releasing their web version of Photoshop based on web components and lit.

EMM_386 5y ago

> I abandoned angular (around version 5) because even a simple application was unusually large in size, and I did not want to have to deal with the disproportionate time investment of trying to squeeze out performance / optimization / reduce bundle sizes. What do you consider "unusually large in size?". I am lead on a "large" Angular code-base, which compiles to less than 5 MB in production mode using lazy-loaded modules. 5 MB is often smaller than a picture of a cat people post online, and can be cached. I think front-end developers often overthink "performance" and "bandwidth". Sure, it's great to keep things as small and concise as possible, but at the end of the day it gets a lot more nuanced. I'm much more concerned about the C# code and the SQL than I am about anything Angular is doing in JS land.

Maphistow 5y ago
Default angular builds are large compared to other frameworks even when you consider all the extra stuff that gets bundled with angular. 5MB is large for a single bundle, I'd say if you are using lazy loaded modules 2MB for a single module is large. Front-end performance varies in importance based on your context. In e-commerce performance is tied to conversion so it's very important. If you're a government contractor building CRUD apps, it's not as important.
- EMM_386 5y ago
  > If you're a government contractor building CRUD apps, it's not as important. I'm far from that, but "5MB is very large" to me is ludicrous. Press "play" on a Netflix movie and you're over that benchmark straight away. I grew up in the era of sub-56k modems. Just searching Google for "56k modems" returns 5.1 MB of data with an ad-blocker on. Let's be realistic.
  - robin_reala 5y ago
    Images and markup are not JavaScript. A reasonable rule of thumb is that on a low-end Android phone 100KB of JS takes about 1 second to download and parse. A 5MB bundle would take 50s or so to run. You probably don’t notice this if you’re only testing on fast PCs/macs, or modern iOS devices.

xdanger 5y ago

I just love vue3 with vite ecosystem. For example: https://github.com/antfu/vitesse/ https://github.com/antfu/vitesse/ is a good template to start "modern" webdev. DX is very good. you can integrate it to a server with ssr: https://github.com/frandiox/vite-ssr https://github.com/frandiox/vite-ssr

brailsafe 5y ago

Vue. Still find React incredibly annoying.

reactor 5y ago

Svelte/Sveltekit. It's really difficult to go back to React/Vue/Angular once you get a hang of Svelte.

nuclearnice1 5y ago
What’s better? The complaint about the high initial complexity of Angular certainly resonated with me.
bovermyer 5y ago
This is absolutely true. Svelte just works really well with my brain.

girvo 5y ago

Depends if I need to be able to hire for it. Svelte if I don’t. React via CRA if I do. I’m hopeful that Svelte will continue to pick up steam, but React serves my needs well as-is.

88913527 5y ago

If your target userbase has a stable, reasonably good internet connection, bundle size doesn't matter. Perhaps it's a dirty secret of front end development these days, but in many use cases, it's a micro-optimization. Now if you're selling goods on Amazon, and billions of page hits and 50ms slower page load time means X% fewer goods sold, you've made a case: one developer spending time on performance optimization is saving your business millions. Most engineers aren't working at that scale.

fareesh 5y ago
Isn't it true that these metrics impact lighthouse scores, which are a significant factor in determining your page rank? i.e. if your product is relying on some organic search traffic to grow, would bundle size be a concern?