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Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

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Re: Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

#11
post #8

I couldn't really even get started the last time I used ember.js, their website w/ their examples were all worthless since they kept updating their code-base on literally a daily basis. I think I'm going to really take a serious look at angularJS now.

Pre 1.0 this may have been true, but now that it's approaching 1.0, this is happening quite a bit less. Now that the new router has landed, there shouldn't be very many API changes, if I recall correctly.

Re: Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

#12
post #8

I couldn't really even get started the last time I used ember.js, their website w/ their examples were all worthless since they kept updating their code-base on literally a daily basis. I think I'm going to really take a serious look at angularJS now.

The API has been frozen and we're very close to our 1.0 release. The advantage of changing APIs frequently before 1.0 is that you get a much better product. I'd love it if you reconsider Ember.js and take another look now that it's stable.

Re: Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

#13

Would be nice if they hadn't closed comments before Peter Wagenet, Yahuda, and the rest from the Ember team could weigh in. I personally like AngularJS a lot, but I also like Rails. Rails 4 has a rails-api project along side of it, which makes it seem like they are starting to spend more time thinking of Rails as provider for a Javascript front-end. Because of Yahuda's involvement, they have also placed more bets on…

> Because of Yahuda's involvement, they have also placed more bets on Ember than Angular the last few years.

To be clear: I want rails-api to work well with any JS framework that wants to work well with us. Obviously, Ember is a big target, as conceptually, Rails and Ember are very close. That said, I'm a server-side guy: I don't care what is consuming my JSON, just that I serve the JSON up well. If someone who's big in the Angular world wants to come help make Rails super badass at serving up the JSON Angular wants, I'm all for it.

Re: Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

#14
post #5

While there's great feedback here, it's interspersed with information that is either outdated or just flat-out inaccurate. Overall, Angular is a much more extensive framework than Ember. I don't think this is true. For example, AngularJS, as far as I'm aware, does not offer a persistence story at all. Injection and testability. Ember.js does dependency injection too; we just roll it into our conventions so that new d…

> Ember.js does dependency injection too; we just roll it into our conventions so that new developers don't need to learn what dependency injection is. If you have to learn a ton of comp sci terminology to start learning a framework, they blew it.

I've been using Angular for months now and although I already knew what dependency injection was, I didn't have to understand the term to use Angular.

> Additionally, Ember is fully unit tested.

Not to start a flame war, but I'm not sure this is a plus. Full unit coverage is nice for confidence, but can be balls and chains when it comes time to make changes. Just as an example, Rails is not fully unit tested by any stretch of the imagination.

Re: Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

#15

Proprietary attributes for templating are confusing. So confusing the author put the ng-repeat in the wrong place (I think). Can someone familiar with angular explain how you would would make a special case ' There are no names in the list '? It is obvious to me how to do it with ember, but non-obvious in angular.

Like this: {{name}} There are no names in the list

Or, if you don't want the "no names" item in the list at all when it's inapplicable, instead of merely hidden:

    
        
            There are no names in the list.
        
        
            {{name}}
        
    
Either way you end up with an ugly dom.

Re: Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

#16
post #5

While there's great feedback here, it's interspersed with information that is either outdated or just flat-out inaccurate. Overall, Angular is a much more extensive framework than Ember. I don't think this is true. For example, AngularJS, as far as I'm aware, does not offer a persistence story at all. Injection and testability. Ember.js does dependency injection too; we just roll it into our conventions so that new d…

> Ember.js does dependency injection too; we just roll it into our conventions so that new developers don't need to learn what dependency injection is. If you have to learn a ton of comp sci terminology to start learning a framework, they blew it. I've been using Angular for months now and although I already knew what dependency injection was, I didn't have to understand the term to use Angular. > Additionally, Ember…

Not to start a flame war, but I'm not sure this is a plus. Full unit coverage is nice for confidence, but can be balls and chains when it comes time to make changes.

Ask any of our pre-1.0 users; they'll assure you that the pace of change was breakneck and certainly not hindered by our unit tests.

Re: Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

#17
post #5

While there's great feedback here, it's interspersed with information that is either outdated or just flat-out inaccurate. Overall, Angular is a much more extensive framework than Ember. I don't think this is true. For example, AngularJS, as far as I'm aware, does not offer a persistence story at all. Injection and testability. Ember.js does dependency injection too; we just roll it into our conventions so that new d…

Thanks Tom, the reason I submitted it here was to get some second opinion and comments. I'm going to try to give both Ember and Angular a few months of run before making a choice, and perhaps, the nice thing is that I don't have to make a choice, time permits, knowing two great frameworks is better than knowing just one. Thanks for clarifying things.

Re: Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

#18
I've actually been doing the opposite, migrating my app from Angular to Ember, and I'm very pleased with Ember so far. Angular is an interesting and powerful framework, but it has a lot of gotchas and requires a large amount of boilerplate code for things like object persistence. Learning how $resource and services worked took a lot of time and the documentation is not entirely clear, especially for someone new to javascript frameworks like myself.

It took me about a month and a half to learn the ins and outs of Angular and FuelPHP to get my app to the point it was at. Within a couple of days of experimentation with Ember and Rails, I was at the same point. I'm moving forward MUCH more quickly with deploying the app at this point.

I will admit that the Ember docs are sparse. They're getting better, but occasionally inaccurate or just not there. Still, there is documentation for most things you would want to do, and when there isn't the community is good help.

Both Ember and Angular are great frameworks, but after evaluating both I'm definitely sticking with Ember. Maybe it's just because it makes more sense to me, but I've been able to accomplish a lot more much more quickly.

Re: Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

#19
post #5

While there's great feedback here, it's interspersed with information that is either outdated or just flat-out inaccurate. Overall, Angular is a much more extensive framework than Ember. I don't think this is true. For example, AngularJS, as far as I'm aware, does not offer a persistence story at all. Injection and testability. Ember.js does dependency injection too; we just roll it into our conventions so that new d…

Your response is certainly fair. I just think it's kind of unfortunate that the competition between JS frameworks has heated up so much of late - I've seen a few potshots aimed at particular frameworks in the last year. I'm tempted to wish that devs/maintainers would evolve their frameworks to occupy distinct, separate niches so they wouldn't have to clash head-on, but that's pretty utopian. (Not that such competition hasn't been happening in technology and business from the very beginning.)

Misko Hevery wrote a bit about dirty checking in Angular on this StackOverflow page linked from the submission: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9682092/databinding-in-an... I think I've also seen a speed comparison/test involving Angular updating (animating) many objects repeatedly. So I'm not sure how much of an issue dirty-checking is in practice.

I'd like to see civil discussion between maintainers of JS MVC frameworks on technical points, but the higher profile the forum, the higher the stakes and the more mindshare there is to gain/lose. In which case I doubt civility would endure. Still, it's better that people hear the cases laid out side-by-side for each framework, which supplements the reviews given by independent bloggers.

Re: Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS

#20
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ember.js does dependency injection too; we just roll it into our conventions so that new developers don't need to learn what dependency injection is. If you have to learn a ton of comp sci terminology to start learning a framework, they blew it. I've been using Angular for months now and although I already knew what dependency injection was, I didn't have to understand the term to use Angular. > Additionally, Ember…

Not to start a flame war, but I'm not sure this is a plus. Full unit coverage is nice for confidence, but can be balls and chains when it comes time to make changes. Ask any of our pre-1.0 users; they'll assure you that the pace of change was breakneck and certainly not hindered by our unit tests.

I can confirm this. Oh boy, can I ever confirm this.

Tom, do you know if anyone has written extensively about tests in Ember? Or is the source still the best go-to?

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