Why AngularJS Changes Everything | Hacker News Reader

Why AngularJS Changes Everything

ionicframework.com

A bit OT, but somewhat relevant:

I like Angular, but I also find that in many cases it's pretty heavy weight for me. I've been working on a library that lets you add AJAX to your app w/o any javascript, using HTML attributes, REST-ful bindings and the Basecamp2 content-swapping approach:

http://intercoolerjs.org/

It's not designed to be a be-all-end-all javascript library, but it lets you tactically AJAX-ify your app in high value places without a lot of complexity.

Here's a (crappy) demo I threw up:

https://vimeo.com/85881209

It's in early alpha, but if anyone is interested, please fork and ping me. Lots of interesting stuff to implement still.

I imagine the discussion at these big companies goes thusly:

Programmer: "I'd like to use Ember.js to build our new tablet app."

Manager: "Who built Ember.js? Who supports it? Where did it come from?"

Programmer: "Tilde, Inc."

Manager: "No dice."

... one month later ...

Programmer: "Okay, I've been playing with AngularJS and--"

Manager: "Who built it?"

Programmer" "Google is leading development."

Manager: "Perfect, I'd like to see 500 LOC fully tested by next week and a shippable app in two months, though I expect we'll let that slip one or 14 months if we have to."

I hope Angular never become the "futur" of front-end. I pride myself making reusable, simple, opmised, clean code for entreprisey apps. Some frameworks fit well in this mentality.

Angular does not. It's an awkward black box.

I can open the source code of backbone & understand everything it's doing. Using a simpler stack makes the code more timeless, any competent js dev is able to continue my work. Pretty sure you can't say the same with your angular app.

I too have noticed some conservative institutions looking into or already switching to using AngularJS, such as banks, and some areas of the federal government.

I, for one, am glad to embrace my new frontend overlord.

I have a theory about that google trends graph: the more confusing and fragmented your documentation, the more google searches you generate.

> They all told the same story: their bosses were directing entire dev teams to switch to Angular. [...] It was actually being mandated from the top down, changing job requirements almost overnight.

It makes me wonder who is convincing the managers, then, if not the developers that actually have to build the software?

And are developers embracing AngularJS because it is now becoming a marketable skill that hiring managers are looking to fill, or because of its own merits?

I've been building an angular app for a few months now I must admit that angular is great, but the learning curve is too steep.

> the learning curve is too steep

Compared to what?

I will say, as having acquired a taste for angular and trying to extend an ember app, that the angular learning curve is pretty linear.

My experience was:

* My first module

* My first controller

* Attaching controller to div

* My first interaction with ng-click and $scope

* My first route

* Refactor controller from div to router

* Using a route with an anchor tag

* My first form with ng-submit

* My first service

* My first value to wrap jquery

* Using $.ajax to call a service

* Discovering $http and refactoring out $.ajax

* Refactoring the service into a factory

* My first directive to wrap jquery-ui

and so on.

To other dev environments.

TL;DR: Anecdotes from an angular conference, garden variety hyperbole, contrived google trends chart.

  > contrived google trends chart

I know, right?

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=angularjs%2C...

Notice the similarity between jQuery and Angular? Similar trajectory over the same amount of time. I find that pretty compelling.

can confirm ! am architect at at a major Canadian bank and AngularJS is our preferred UI framework , even over JSF and that is a big deal for all java shops.

Are you able to identify the bank? Are any of the public-facing apps using AngularJS?

We'd like to showcase successful and interesting Angular apps on the website(s) (by which I mean angularjs.org/angulardart.org and builtwith.angularjs.org, etc)

I can't . However, I have discussed with my management that we should talk about our work with AngularJS to be able to recruit programmers, who are otherwise choose to go to 'exciting' start-ups. When we are ready, we will reach out to AngularJS to showcase our apps. We are doing mobile and tablet focused web apps as well as traditional web apps with AngularJS.

When you have time (and are allowed to), it would be really cool if you could submit a patch against http://github.com/angular/builtwith.angularjs.org. It's not necessarily the simplest process, but there's a simple server in the repository so you can preview the change.

Just ping me on the PR and I'll be happy to merge that for you

how did that post even address its title? let alone warrant a single HN upvote?

> It has to _become_ a platform.

> It was a few weeks ago at the first ever AngularJS conference, ng-conf, that all of my assumptions about Angular were proved true.

According to the OP, it changes everything because it has 'become a platform'. Whether that is true or not is up for discussion, a discussion that is definitely HN-worthy.

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