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This is true. AngularJS is much better than what we had before, it is kind of large and monolithic. The cycle probably goes thusly: Large monolithic framewo

by stuaxo 13y ago

This is true. AngularJS is much better than what we had before, it is kind of large and monolithic. The cycle probably goes thusly: Large monolithic framework comes and shows everyone a new way of doing things (Angular/Django). People think it is too large and monolithic, so make microframeworks (Flask/Whatever comes after Angular). The next step will be a kind of happy medium.

marknutter 13y ago
Except that Backbone.js, a micro-framework if there ever was one, exploded in popularity long before most people had even heard of AngularJS.
- Touche 13y ago
  Backbone was the start of the cycle. It came around at a time when front-end apps were largely jQuery soup and put polish on best practices that good JS developers were already doing. Then a lot of other frameworks were developed which largely started from the same code-first premise that Backbone had/has, and Angular "won" by introducing a new paradigm built on declarative binding. I predict that the next winner will leverage web components and do the one thing that makes that paradigm better.
- shadowmint 13y ago
  Backbone doesn't do data binding; it's a completely different thing. (That's why things like rivet and epoxy exist; because backbone doesn't do it right)
  - mattwad 13y ago
    Correction: Backbone doesn't try to be the kitchen sink like Angular. Its source code is about 500 lines, and its docs say as much: "Two way data-binding" is avoided. While it certainly makes for a nifty demo, and works for the most basic CRUD, it doesn't tend to be terribly useful in your real-world app. Sometimes you want to update on every keypress, sometimes on blur, sometimes when the panel is closed, and sometimes when the "save" button is clicked. In almost all cases, simply serializing the form to JSON is faster and easier. All that aside, if your heart is set, go for it.
    - billions 13y ago
      This. I would add angular is good for teams requiring extensive structure. The cost is control. If you're building a corporate webapp, angular is great to keep everybody neat. If you're doing something unprecedented such as 3D rendering or a new UI element, angular will hinder more than backbone.
kayoone 13y ago
imo AngularJS can be pretty micro and scales nicely. Its one of its major strengths, as you can use it to just build a tiny widget inside an existing page or all in and build a huge application.
- nbody 13y ago
  Micro in the code you write, not the code that's loaded, so it doesn't seem practical to me.
  - zevyoura 13y ago
    It's worth noting that one of the goals listed for 2.0 in this post is increased modularity, which they imply will let you only load the pieces you're actually using.
iSnow 13y ago
It is strange to see Angular labeled "large" and "monolithic" here, when it was blasted for being too small and simple by one of the Ember guys (http://eviltrout.com/2013/06/15/ember-vs-angular.html http://eviltrout.com/2013/06/15/ember-vs-angular.html). I have suffered trough JEE which is/was really humungous, and Angular is really tiny in comparison.
fiatjaf 13y ago
What's after Flask? I don't see any Python framework after Flask.
AznHisoka 13y ago
I never understood how JQuery and JS were just dumped the past 3-4 years in favor of all thse complex frameworks like AngularJS, Ember, etc... is there something these frameworks can do that JQuery can't? Can they make fancy single page apps and JQuery can't? I need to be enlightened. Or is it simply ppl need to exercise their mental creativity?
- atrk 13y ago
  Personally, the two big draws to me of Angular were "free" (as in, I don't have to write much code) DOM<->data binding, and the explicit goal of testability. As a learning exercise, I wrote a page using just jquery, rewrote it in backbone, and then rewrote it in angular. Backbone helped me separate concerns; Angular helped me do that while writing _way_ less code, since I didn't have to manage keeping the DOM and the JS model in sync.
  - chucknelson 13y ago
    Agreed - data-binding and "magic" automatic updates to the view when the model changes are key to what make Angular attractive. The focus on testing is nice too, though.
  - Glide 13y ago
    I had the same experience as well. I redid a relatively trivial CRUD interface from backbone to Angular. The amount of code that I didn't need in Angular was ridiculous. Most of the code in backbone was moving stuff from the DOM into JS. Like var x = $('#elem').val(); kind of things over and over just did not need to be there in Angular. I think that these kinds of interfaces hit a really good sweet spot with Angular and other databinding frameworks.
- Hovertruck 13y ago
  "I never understood how JQuery and JS were just dumped the past 3-4 years in favor of all thse complex frameworks like AngularJS, Ember, etc..." Well, you can't have Angular without JS so we'll focus on the point of jQuery here. jQuery does a few things really well – so well that Angular itself uses jQuery (or jqLite by default). angular.element(selector) returns a jQuery object. Angular also does a few things well. Code reusability and testability are much easier to achieve with Angular, in my opinion. Features like data-binding also help to reduce boilerplate code.
nwmcsween 13y ago
such as vuejs?

by stuaxo 13y ago

marknutter 13y ago

Except that Backbone.js, a micro-framework if there ever was one, exploded in popularity long before most people had even heard of AngularJS.

Touche 13y ago
Backbone was the start of the cycle. It came around at a time when front-end apps were largely jQuery soup and put polish on best practices that good JS developers were already doing. Then a lot of other frameworks were developed which largely started from the same code-first premise that Backbone had/has, and Angular "won" by introducing a new paradigm built on declarative binding. I predict that the next winner will leverage web components and do the one thing that makes that paradigm better.
shadowmint 13y ago
Backbone doesn't do data binding; it's a completely different thing. (That's why things like rivet and epoxy exist; because backbone doesn't do it right)
- mattwad 13y ago
  Correction: Backbone doesn't try to be the kitchen sink like Angular. Its source code is about 500 lines, and its docs say as much: "Two way data-binding" is avoided. While it certainly makes for a nifty demo, and works for the most basic CRUD, it doesn't tend to be terribly useful in your real-world app. Sometimes you want to update on every keypress, sometimes on blur, sometimes when the panel is closed, and sometimes when the "save" button is clicked. In almost all cases, simply serializing the form to JSON is faster and easier. All that aside, if your heart is set, go for it.
  - billions 13y ago
    This. I would add angular is good for teams requiring extensive structure. The cost is control. If you're building a corporate webapp, angular is great to keep everybody neat. If you're doing something unprecedented such as 3D rendering or a new UI element, angular will hinder more than backbone.

kayoone 13y ago

imo AngularJS can be pretty micro and scales nicely. Its one of its major strengths, as you can use it to just build a tiny widget inside an existing page or all in and build a huge application.

nbody 13y ago
Micro in the code you write, not the code that's loaded, so it doesn't seem practical to me.
- zevyoura 13y ago
  It's worth noting that one of the goals listed for 2.0 in this post is increased modularity, which they imply will let you only load the pieces you're actually using.

iSnow 13y ago

It is strange to see Angular labeled "large" and "monolithic" here, when it was blasted for being too small and simple by one of the Ember guys (http://eviltrout.com/2013/06/15/ember-vs-angular.html http://eviltrout.com/2013/06/15/ember-vs-angular.html). I have suffered trough JEE which is/was really humungous, and Angular is really tiny in comparison.

fiatjaf 13y ago

What's after Flask? I don't see any Python framework after Flask.

AznHisoka 13y ago

I never understood how JQuery and JS were just dumped the past 3-4 years in favor of all thse complex frameworks like AngularJS, Ember, etc... is there something these frameworks can do that JQuery can't? Can they make fancy single page apps and JQuery can't? I need to be enlightened. Or is it simply ppl need to exercise their mental creativity?

atrk 13y ago
Personally, the two big draws to me of Angular were "free" (as in, I don't have to write much code) DOM<->data binding, and the explicit goal of testability. As a learning exercise, I wrote a page using just jquery, rewrote it in backbone, and then rewrote it in angular. Backbone helped me separate concerns; Angular helped me do that while writing _way_ less code, since I didn't have to manage keeping the DOM and the JS model in sync.
- chucknelson 13y ago
  Agreed - data-binding and "magic" automatic updates to the view when the model changes are key to what make Angular attractive. The focus on testing is nice too, though.
- Glide 13y ago
  I had the same experience as well. I redid a relatively trivial CRUD interface from backbone to Angular. The amount of code that I didn't need in Angular was ridiculous. Most of the code in backbone was moving stuff from the DOM into JS. Like var x = $('#elem').val(); kind of things over and over just did not need to be there in Angular. I think that these kinds of interfaces hit a really good sweet spot with Angular and other databinding frameworks.
Hovertruck 13y ago
"I never understood how JQuery and JS were just dumped the past 3-4 years in favor of all thse complex frameworks like AngularJS, Ember, etc..." Well, you can't have Angular without JS so we'll focus on the point of jQuery here. jQuery does a few things really well – so well that Angular itself uses jQuery (or jqLite by default). angular.element(selector) returns a jQuery object. Angular also does a few things well. Code reusability and testability are much easier to achieve with Angular, in my opinion. Features like data-binding also help to reduce boilerplate code.

nwmcsween 13y ago

such as vuejs?