Difference between Angular and AngularJS
The difference between Angular and AngularJS is an important concept for JavaScript developers to comprehend. This is because most individuals, particularly novices, are unsure of the degree to which these two frameworks differ.
Angular vs. AngularJS has been a prominent subject of conversation for some time and is expected to remain so for many years. While Google created both frameworks, there are several differences between them. AngularJS is based on JavaScript, while Angular is founded on TypeScript. This two front-end, open-source frameworks used to construct dynamic web apps and SPAs have significant commonalities. However, let's also consider their disparities.
This post will introduce you to numerous features of Angular and AngularJS that will enhance your understanding of both frameworks. Additionally, it would assist you in deciding which one to study or use for future tasks.
What is Angular?
Angular is an open-source web framework that is free to use. Although it is considered a JS-based framework, TypeScript is its core programming language. Microsoft's TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, which means it has all of JS's capabilities in addition to extra ones. Angular is typically used to create fully-functional web applications.
In September 2016, Google's Angular was introduced to the public for the first time. Angular's foundational version is Version 2, and its current release is Angular 12 or Version 12.
A well-known framework is a fantastic choice for developing robust web apps with a contemporary design and highly dynamic behavior. The modular design of Angular allows you to break the whole application into discrete portions (called modules) that each represent a specific capability. Angular facilitates the development of high-performance online apps while adhering to the MVC paradigm and providing two-way data binding.
Features:
- Cross-Platform: With Angular, you can develop great user interfaces for online apps and native mobile and desktop applications. Additionally, the framework helps develop programs for the Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems.
- Utilizes TypeScript: Angular utilizes TypeScript, which is superior to JavaScript since it is a statically-typed language. As a result, there will be fewer mistakes during compilation, as the types of variables have already been established. Furthermore, any JavaScript code is valid TypeScript code. Additionally, if you are familiar with JavaScript, learning TypeScript would be simple.
- Angular CLI (Command Line Interface): Angular CLI is an excellent method for accelerating development. From project setup through the addition of components and services, several activities can be accomplished with Angular's native CLI.
Advantages:
- Custom Components - Angular allows users to create components that may combine rendering logic and functionality into reusable sections. Additionally, it works nicely with web components.
- Data Binding - Angular allows users to quickly transfer data from JavaScript code to the screen and respond to user events without manually creating code.
- Dependency Injection - Angular's Dependency Injection feature allows users to design modular services and inject them wherever required. This enhances the testability and reuse of similar services.
Disadvantages:
- A tree-like architecture with extensive scopes.
- Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control as a concept is very complex.
What is AngularJS?
The open-source JavaScript framework AngularJS is appropriate for front-end web development. AngularJS, also created by Google, aims to ease the creation of single-page apps.
AngularJS is the first version of Angular and one of its most notable characteristics. Simply mentioned, all 1.XX versions are part of AngularJS, also known as Angular 1. Alternatively, version 2 and future versions are referred to as Angular.
Google launched AngularJS in 2010; it is a JavaScript-based framework. Unlike Angular 2 and subsequent versions, AngularJS does not use TypeScript. This is a significant difference between Angular and AngularJS.
The framework is renowned for facilitating the development of dynamic web pages and online applications. It enables developers to add dynamic behavior to web applications by supporting the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture. In addition, the design facilitates source code maintenance and allows rapid development.
Features:
- Use of Plain JavaScript: Plain JavaScript is the programming language used by AngularJS; TypeScript has nothing to do with it. In addition, the framework employs plain JavaScript. Therefore, AngularJS models are plain JS objects. This functionality makes it simple to test and manage AngularJS-developed code.
- Reusable Components: With AngularJS, you can design reusable application components that can be used several times. For the creation of these components, directives are required. A component might represent a specific capability.
- Routing: Routing is the function that enables the navigation between several views of an application. Routing enables visitors to browse across various pages of a website or components of a web application. Single-page Angular apps enable users to transition between multiple views without refreshing the whole application or web page.
Advantages:
- Two-way data binding - Data binding is simple with Angular JS, allowing developers to quickly generate templates. Two-way data binding guarantees that any changes made to the view are immediately reflected in the model and vice versa. Any modifications to the view or presentation layer are transmitted automatically and promptly to the model.
- Improved server performance - Since Angular JS allows caching and several other operations, it will lessen the load on the server CPUs. It indicates that the server is doing particularly well due to the decreased load. It minimizes bandwidth by simply serving static files and responding to API requests.
- Rapid Application Prototyping - Rapid prototyping is made possible by frameworks such as Angular. By creating less code, you can create working app prototypes, collect feedback, and make modifications without becoming frustrated. Prototyping enables developers to rapidly begin such functionality, get feedback, and make modifications.
Disadvantages:
- Inexperience with MVC Angular may be quite time-consuming if you are a developer who is entirely new with Model-View-Controller architectural patterns and uses the conventional method.
- Other challenging elements, like Directives are also tough to utilize. In addition, several AngularJS capabilities, such as dependency injections and factories, might pose difficulties for conventional developers. Either invest a great deal of time learning them or employ an AngularJS development company with extensive expertise.
- Angular JS has insufficient documentation, which might make learning the framework challenges. It does not follow a linear learning curve, thus, you may have tremendous difficulties adapting to the framework.
Angular vs. AngularJS
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AngularJS |
- Angular Team at Google and a community of corporations and individuals developed it.
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- Google and a community of individuals and corporations developed it.
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- Although Angular provides support for JavaScript as well as TypeScript, it prefers using the latter due to the following advantages:
1. Annotations
2. Static typing
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- AngularJS supports only JavaScript.
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- One of the remarkable characteristics of Angular applications is that they are mobile-friendly. In other words, Angular applications are fully optimized for mobile browsers.
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- Applications developed using AngularJS are not mobile-friendly.
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- The architecture of Angular is largely based on Components. Also, the Angular Components are a combination of directives and templates.
- Any Angular application makes use of one or more Angular Components.
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- AngularJS provides support for MVC and MVVM architectures, where the former stands for Model-View-Controller and the latter mean Model-View-ViewModel.
- The Model contains the business logic for storing and processing the data while the View displays the data to users.
- Also, the Controller is responsible for binding Model and View to allow users to interact with the application seamlessly. ViewModel is a value converter, i.e. it converts data objects from the model to make them easy to present and manage.
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- Angular applications offer high performance and one key factor for this is its data binding feature. Data binding allows updating of page content in real-time and that too without the need to write a lot of code. Additionally, Angular is capable of server-side rendering, which allows Angular applications to load quicker.
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- AngularJS also comes with two-way binding that facilitates the creation of dynamic web pages. Thus, AngularJS applications also offer impressive performance. However, the overall performance of AngularJS applications is not what is expected from modern applications.
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- Learning Angular and using it for front-end development is quite a task as there are several rules that you need to follow. Building full-fledged applications require you to build strong expertise in the Angular framework.
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- As compared to Angular, it is easier to learn and use AngularJS.
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- Angular defines a proper structure that you need to follow while developing an application, Thus, projects created with it are easily manageable.
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- In the case of AngularJS, there’s no need to follow a particular structure. Thus, AngularJS projects are difficult to manage, especially when the projects are large and complex.
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Conclusion
In conclusion, Angular and AngularJS are two popular web development frameworks that are used to build complex and interactive web applications. AngularJS is an older framework that is built on JavaScript. Angular, on the other hand, is a newer framework that is built on TypeScript. Angular's architecture is more modern and powerful, but it takes longer to learn. AngularJS is easier to learn and use than Angular, but it may not be as strong or flexible.
Both frameworks have their own pros and cons, and the best one to use will depend on what the project needs and what the developer prefers. Knowing the main differences between Angular and AngularJS can help web developers choose a framework for their projects with more knowledge.
Related Questions
1. Why is AngularJS so difficult?
AngularJS is focused on HTML. However, unless you are an expert at developing and maintaining clean code, it is difficult to structure and make MVC-patterned code simple to maintain. The rationale is straightforward: the interactions between the user and the web page do not begin with the controller, which is the beginning point of the MVC-pattern.
2. What is the hardest part of Angular?
The most difficult aspect of learning how to use directives for the first time is how to communicate with the application.
3. What is better than AngularJS?
Developers believe that Angular apps may be up to five times quicker than AngularJS applications when developed correctly. Two-way binding, which made the original version of Angular JS popular with web developers, has proved to be its downfall when the framework is used to construct more complicated apps.
4. What is hard coding in Angular?
The hardcoded question is added to the JSON data of the questionnaire, but the app will just utilise the question id and type, since the question will not be displayed dynamically like the others. This is simple and will save us a great deal of trouble in the long term.
