Live data from Hacker News

Angular v8.0

github.com

51–60 of 210 posts

Re: Angular v8.0

#51

Angular feels like frontend framework built by backend java Spring developers, that hate frontend development.

Honestly have you ever built anything of substance w/ it? It’s an awesome framework. You really should give it a try.

I detested working in AngularJS but I'm loving 2+. 2+ and NgRx is also pretty nice if you're trying to add state management, although sometimes it just feels like I'm using effects as boilerplate on top of API calls.

Re: Angular v8.0

#52
I honestly had no idea this was still a thing. We jumped ship to riot.js back around Angular V2 and haven't really thought about another javascript framework since. All of our web tools have been vanilla JS/CSS/HTML with riot tying it all together for the last 3+ years now. It really does seem like the ideal way to compose single page web applications. We do use some 3rd party stuff like codemirror, momentjs, etc., but that's about it. Not even jQuery to be found unless some 3rd party component depends on it.

The advantages of not using someone's framework, language or module system is that we have a direct and stable surface (the DOM) against which to tie things together. Complex web interactions we attempted to do (and failed to do) using Angular directives/components/etc became trivial using our vanilla+riot approach. It almost feels like cheating by comparison, and then you don't care because your incredibly-complex web interaction that involves 5+ vendor libraries and 8 nested API calls just works and is easy to inspect directly.

Obviously, you need some discipline to manage something with less structure around it, but all it takes is a handful of code review sessions to get other developers synced up on how things work in this more 'open' world. There honestly aren't a lot of new things to learn either (there are definitely more things to unlearn coming from Angular). Productivity is also a huge plus. I don't have to spend an hour reviewing the semantics around some Angular construct before I do my work. After a few weeks away from some web project, I can jump directly into the HTML/JS/CSS, crank out a new .html riot tag file and be done with it in less time than it would have taken to re-sync my brain into Angular semantics land.

If you haven't tried riot yet, you should definitely take a look. Once we got our first application working on it and we understood the basics, it felt like we had escaped from frontend jail and could do anything we wanted to. For everyone who views front-end as a mosh pit of chaos and uncertainty, I strongly suggest trying this approach out on a throwaway project when you get some free time.

Re: Angular v8.0

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JavaScript with JSX is a single language. The tags are a syntax extension. JSX is a very non-leaky abstraction. The tags are just function calls. https://reactjs.org/docs/introducing-jsx.html#jsx-represents...

I don't buy that argument. On the one hand you claim there's no leaky abstraction, yet your argument only works if "Javascript with JSX is a single language". Then "C++ with inline assembler" is also a single language? What about English with quotes in Japanese?

JSX is syntactic sugar for JS[0]. C++ and ASM (actually, _which_ ASM?) are different languages.

[0] https://fettblog.eu/jsx-syntactic-sugar/

Re: Angular v8.0

#54

Angular feels like frontend framework built by backend java Spring developers, that hate frontend development.

Apart from being verbose, why is that a bad thing? Spring is used to successfully build massive applications. You can meme about Spring's AbstractFactoryBeans all day, but in the end it does what it's supposed to do.

the problem in angular is that it's bloated. and their components generate a load of bloat. Since basically all components have a FactoryComponent thingy, which you don't see, because it gets generated. However a bigger application can easily grow to a few mbs which is a huge no-no for javascript in the browser.

Re: Angular v8.0

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Front-end development is inherently chaotic right now, doesn't matter the framework. Things will get better.... I'm intrigued by Svelte.

Front-end development is really great right now, because of React, which makes it so you can develop in one language, but unlike past attempts like GWT [1], doesn't rely on leaky abstractions. 1: http://www.gwtproject.org/overview.html

> because of React, which makes it so you can develop in one language

You may argue that JSX is a single language, but that is irrelevant since you still need to understand HTML and CSS.

Re: Angular v8.0

#56
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

React has also been using classes for a long time (although the trend is to move away from them for performance and simplicity reasons). There is also a huge upward trend of people using TypeScript with React. Personally, after using TypeScript & Angular at work, I've preferred switching to TypeScript when using React in personal projects. My main gripe with Angular (vs. React) has been the lack of first class suppor…

> although the trend is to move away from them for performance and simplicity reasons I do not think that react classes will go away anytime soon. you can't represent state without them.

https://reactjs.org/docs/hooks-intro.html

Re: Angular v8.0

#57
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

React has also been using classes for a long time (although the trend is to move away from them for performance and simplicity reasons). There is also a huge upward trend of people using TypeScript with React. Personally, after using TypeScript & Angular at work, I've preferred switching to TypeScript when using React in personal projects. My main gripe with Angular (vs. React) has been the lack of first class suppor…

> although the trend is to move away from them for performance and simplicity reasons I do not think that react classes will go away anytime soon. you can't represent state without them.

https://reactjs.org/docs/hooks-intro.html

edit: Lol apparently two React devs ears were burning at the same time.

Re: Angular v8.0

#58

Angular feels like frontend framework built by backend java Spring developers, that hate frontend development.

This feels like an argument made by somebody who has never built a serious project in either, and has instead formed an opinion based on quick glance at the respective syntaxes. To me, Angular is what HTML and the DOM would look like if they had been designed from the beginning for application development: - Custom elements backed by controller classes. - Data-binding and event-binding syntax baked into HTML - Compon…

I've shipped products using most major FE frameworks. Those things can be had by pretty much any of them. The biggest annoyance with angular is the excessive amount of baggage and boilerplate.

Decorators aren't inheritable or composable. Because templates are strings, you need the hacky DI and superfluous module system to avoid tag name clashes.

As for React, it is nothing like PHP. JSX is a macro for function calls that return objects; as such they are first-class data structures with all of the benefits you would expect. Yes, it is just a view layer and you need to bring more stuff in if you have a big project planned.

If angular floats your boat that's great. The last time I used it was in a team of mostly C#, Java and Python enthusiasts. Once they figured out what was es2015, what was typescript, and what was Angual, the dev experience was generally reviled. (especially once they saw some react code). I generally don't say that I won't work with a technology, but after a year with it (and having years for AngularJS/1.x, React, Ember, Vue and Backbone under my toolbelt) I am content with saying that Angular sits with Backbone at the bottom of the pile of what I would choose to use again.

Re: Angular v8.0

#59
post #19

Congratulations on the release! For all the talk of React and Vue I still like the 'batteries-included' approach of Angular. I mostly do Kotlin in my day job so Angular aligns fairly nicely with the way applications are structured. I don't get the militant need for terseness that's seen in approaches like React Hooks. I also don't need the choice between multiple backwards-incompatible (or competing) routers, nor do…

I've been burnt by the non-Euclidian enormity of ExtJS, so I understand the desire for something simpler. On the other hand, when you leave the world of progressive enhancement and widgets (ie. jQuery), you find yourself needing a lot of common infrastructure and picking and matching that can be quite tedious (never mind dependency hell), which is something that react always had issues with -- and that seems to exten…

DI in Angular 8 is much less aggressive than in AngularJS/Angular 2. At least it feels this way :)

Re: Angular v8.0

#60

Angular feels like frontend framework built by backend java Spring developers, that hate frontend development.

My take is that it would have been so much better had the devlopers not elected to bundle Rx.js with it.
Post reply on HN