Why does Angular.js rock? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why does Angular.js rock?

#41

Post by bsaul » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:47 PM UTC

caioariede wrote: post #17

What are the alternatives to Angular.js that does not use this Dependency Injection magic?

Dependency Injection can really be done in a dark magic way (the java / spring way), but after reading the source code, i can tell you angular.js way of doing it is really not that dark. More importantly, is extremely easy to use. No .xml file, no configuration file, just put the service in that function signature, done (unless you want to minifiy, which means you'll also have to add it as a string right next to it).

Re: Why does Angular.js rock?

#42

Post by greghinch » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 5:03 PM UTC

sahrizv wrote: post #4

I am just starting up web development and have decided to use Django for backend. However, this Angular vs Ember comparisons have lowered my confidence as I think whatever choice "I" make, will turn out wrong in the long run. Can the experienced people here tell me what I should choose? I am fine with either style of approach to HTML(template vs declarative) and I just want a batteries included framework, which I can…

Don't worry so much about picking the right tools. Just pick something that is popular and start using it. You want something that is popular to start with because a) there will be a large support community and b) there will be more jobs available for someone who knows a popular framework. That second point is most important, because until you start building/working on an in-production project, most of your efforts will be purely academic. Once you have some years of experience under your belt, you can reflect on the technologies you know and figure out where you would like to grow into next.

Ultimately, the goal is to be in a position where you can confidently examine new and old frameworks and techniques, and make confident, informed decisions about what to use. But at the beginning of your career, you won't have the experience and perspective to make those decisions, so just start working on something and don't worry about making sure it's the 100% right thing for all time.

Good luck!

Re: Why does Angular.js rock?

#43

Post by rrhyne » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 5:09 PM UTC

sahrizv wrote: post #4

I am just starting up web development and have decided to use Django for backend. However, this Angular vs Ember comparisons have lowered my confidence as I think whatever choice "I" make, will turn out wrong in the long run. Can the experienced people here tell me what I should choose? I am fine with either style of approach to HTML(template vs declarative) and I just want a batteries included framework, which I can…

If I were starting again, I'd start with something like the mean.io. It's a stack that's javascript from database to front end. You'll be starting with the latest and in only one language, which could lower your learning curve a bit.

Re: Why does Angular.js rock?

#44

Post by sanderjd » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 5:20 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #20

mgkimsal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The docs by themselves simply will not teach you how Angular works." Well said, and I agree, but I wonder why this is? There's some cred to be gained by making and using something so impenetrable that only a select handful of people 'just know' how something works, and everyone aspires to be like them? I've found plenty of people/blogs/sites telling me I'm doing angular 'wrong' (and not just angular - other framewor…

Writing documentation is really hard. It's also hard to get people to contribute to documentation. I had a conversation with someone recently that was frustrated about the Rails documentation: "Here's my blog post about how to do X. Apparently that's what Rails people do rather than write docs." When I asked why they didn't contribute to the docs rather than make Yet Another Blog Post that feeds into the exact proble…

I realized something recently about docs-vs-blogs. An important difference between the two is that official documentation of a project is the place to say "this is how it is done", whereas blogs are a place to say "this is how I do it". If there isn't a consensus on how something should be done, but you think the way you do it is nice, it definitely makes sense to write about that in a blog post, but it only possibly makes sense to propose your way for official documentation.

I think it took all those blog posts to generate all the consensus necessary to make the "pretty decent" (I would say "very good") Rails docs possible.

Re: Why does Angular.js rock?

#45

Post by pkozlowski_os » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 5:24 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #15

mgkimsal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The docs by themselves simply will not teach you how Angular works." Well said, and I agree, but I wonder why this is? There's some cred to be gained by making and using something so impenetrable that only a select handful of people 'just know' how something works, and everyone aspires to be like them? I've found plenty of people/blogs/sites telling me I'm doing angular 'wrong' (and not just angular - other framewor…

They say that great athletes make bad coaches. Why? Because they can't explain what came instinctively. Similarly, the wrong person to write documentation is the creator of a system. He or she will not know what leaps of understanding are being made throughout the text. That's why big IT companies have historically hired technical writers, which is a profession in its own right. Those general observations aside, I be…

Let's be precise - at the moment there are exactly 68 open pull requests, _one_ of them being about documentation: https://github.com/angular/angular.js/pulls

There is a huge difference in the open source world between ranting and actually doing something about your pain-points.

Re: Why does Angular.js rock?

#46

Post by kawera » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 5:27 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #25

mgkimsal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The docs by themselves simply will not teach you how Angular works." Well said, and I agree, but I wonder why this is? There's some cred to be gained by making and using something so impenetrable that only a select handful of people 'just know' how something works, and everyone aspires to be like them? I've found plenty of people/blogs/sites telling me I'm doing angular 'wrong' (and not just angular - other framewor…

What these "younger devs" don't realize is that in most cases they are simply reinventing stuff that has existed for years. Even today, the best JS MVC frameworks only just provide the capabilities to build UIs that (for example) were trivial in PowerBuilder 20 years ago. The fact that it's considered "gee whiz" that you can enter a value into a form field and have that value automatically validated and bound to an a…

What these "younger devs" don't realize is that in most cases they are simply reinventing stuff that has existed for years.

And this is also true for so many aspects of the modern "stack" - remember "time sharing"?

Re: Why does Angular.js rock?

#47

Post by pm » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 5:32 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #5

Angular is god's gift to programming bloggers. The documentation is so famously patchy, contradictory and impenetrable that an entire cottage industry of talmudic literature has sprung up around it overnight. I've spent the last two weeks slicing and dicing the developer guide and all the directly related API documentation -- this one-page demo is better than the entire Angular tutorial. It also covers the most impor…

I wanted to use it, but couldn't use it with Bootstrap (I know), so it was back to CoffeeScript and Backbone for me.

Re: Why does Angular.js rock?

#48

Post by Foxandxss » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 5:36 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #44

steveklabnik wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing documentation is really hard. It's also hard to get people to contribute to documentation. I had a conversation with someone recently that was frustrated about the Rails documentation: "Here's my blog post about how to do X. Apparently that's what Rails people do rather than write docs." When I asked why they didn't contribute to the docs rather than make Yet Another Blog Post that feeds into the exact proble…

I realized something recently about docs-vs-blogs. An important difference between the two is that official documentation of a project is the place to say "this is how it is done", whereas blogs are a place to say "this is how I do it". If there isn't a consensus on how something should be done, but you think the way you do it is nice, it definitely makes sense to write about that in a blog post, but it only possibly…

You made a good point here. That point of view will prove to be useful to me :)

Re: Why does Angular.js rock?

#49

Post by paulwithap » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 5:39 PM UTC

pkozlowski_os wrote: post #45

jacques_chester wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say that great athletes make bad coaches. Why? Because they can't explain what came instinctively. Similarly, the wrong person to write documentation is the creator of a system. He or she will not know what leaps of understanding are being made throughout the text. That's why big IT companies have historically hired technical writers, which is a profession in its own right. Those general observations aside, I be…

Let's be precise - at the moment there are exactly 68 open pull requests, _one_ of them being about documentation: https://github.com/angular/angular.js/pulls There is a huge difference in the open source world between ranting and actually doing something about your pain-points.

One open pull request, but every single page of the documentation is filled with comments from confused people asking for better docs. Fortunately, there's also sometimes a comment giving a proper explanation of that piece of the API.

Re: Why does Angular.js rock?

#50

Post by pm » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 5:43 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #20

mgkimsal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The docs by themselves simply will not teach you how Angular works." Well said, and I agree, but I wonder why this is? There's some cred to be gained by making and using something so impenetrable that only a select handful of people 'just know' how something works, and everyone aspires to be like them? I've found plenty of people/blogs/sites telling me I'm doing angular 'wrong' (and not just angular - other framewor…

Writing documentation is really hard. It's also hard to get people to contribute to documentation. I had a conversation with someone recently that was frustrated about the Rails documentation: "Here's my blog post about how to do X. Apparently that's what Rails people do rather than write docs." When I asked why they didn't contribute to the docs rather than make Yet Another Blog Post that feeds into the exact proble…

Documentation is hard because those who are documenting assume too much about those who are learning. This concept applies as much to closed source projects as it does to open source projects. It's all a matter of being open to those who are learning, and incorporating what they don't understand.