21 Oct The Power of AngularJS: The Future of Web Development?
If it was possible to know every spoken language in the entire world, that would be great. Sign me up. That’s just not realistic. In the same way, it’s not realistic to learn every programming language in the whole world either- especially as new ones keep getting developed.Although it is essential to learn multiple languages, you definitely don’t want to learn one that is going to be obsolete in the next few years. It’s hard to figure out what is future proof, but there are at least some signs that we can look at with AngularJS to determine why it might be a good choice for your custom software.JavaScript has become almost ubiquitous throughout the internet because of its power. In fact, it is used by 81.9% out of the top million websites in the world. It is most often used as a means to build more functional websites and web page apps, as HTML is mostly good for creating static pages. That is all fine and good, but here is where it gets tricky. In an effort to make coding with JavaScript easier, web developers often use frameworks such as Backbone.js, Ember.js, and AngularJS.The simplest definition of AngularJS comes right from the developers’ page: [tweet_box design=”default”]“Angular is what HTML would have been, had it been designed for applications.”[/tweet_box] It was built with the idea of the basic create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) application in mind, as that is the majority of web applications currently on the web.It is completely JavaScript, completely client-side, and of course, compatible with desktop and mobile versions of browsers. One of the biggest advantages to AngularJS in custom software is that it allows you to write a lot of it in HTML which cleans up the code and makes things more simple.
Angular Benefits and Features
Two Way Binding and Forms
One of the most commonly used features in a web app is forms. Here, Angular not only handles the things you would normally expect, like validation and value collection in a simple and straightforward manner, but there are a couple of specific features of Angular, which make it particularly easy to make your forms interactive. These are Angular’s binding features. This includes the typical one-way binding where you can specify a part of a page that will display the value of some part of your data model, and when that data model changes, that part of the page is updated to reflect the new value. Angular also includes a feature called two-way binding, where any value you put into an input control, such as a text box, is watched and Angular can send your changes to the model, which can then propagate those changes to other bindings.
Cohesive Solution
One of the less objective features of Angular is the fact that it is a cohesive, complete solution. This means that Angular provides all the typical pieces of a web application solution. It’s not just one piece of the puzzle. That doesn’t mean that you will never have any need to use a third-party library with Angular, but instead, all the major pieces of a front-end application are handled consistently by Angular. It doesn’t just handle forms, or application structure, or routing, Angular handles all these pieces and more. From server communication to binding, from accessibility to routing, it does all of this. Angular provides gentle guidance on application structure without being overly prescriptive.
Accessibility and Internationalisation and community support
A nice feature of Angular is its support for accessibility and internationalisation
Testability
Testing is an area where Angular stands head-and-shoulders above its peers. It was designed with testing in mind right from the start and makes testing any of its components very easy through both unit testing and end-to-end testing.
Dependency Injection
Angular uses a concept called dependency injection to make it easy to use the different components that it provides for you, and even your own custom business logic components that you may create. Angular uses dependency injection to make it easy to get ahold of components, or services, in Angular lingo, that can hold encapsulated functionality and data that we can use to build complex applications out of small and simple pieces.
Complementary Technologies with Angular
These are tools that work very well with Angular, although not everyone will have a reason to use all of them.
- jQuery: JQuery is well known as the most popular JavaScript library in the world. It is used on more sites than any other library.
- Ionic: Ionic is a very interesting framework. It allows you to turn Angular applications into native phone applications. Ionic is actually built on top of a tool called PhoneGap, which allows a web application to access the native features on a mobile device.
Examples of AngularJS In Action
You might be thinking: it doesn’t sound that different from other frameworks. Why should I use it? Why should I learn it? Let’s look at some examples of custom software built by AngularJS and some of its advantages.1. YouTube App for PS3Our first app example demonstrates a major advantage that AngularJS has over other frameworks and libraries. It was developed by Google. This means there is a built-in community that you can learn from, and should you have any questions, chances are you will get them answered. Why learn the language? Because the biggest tech company in the world is the one who made it, and they’re the ones who use it. Here is their YouTube app made for the PlayStation 3 using Angular.AngularJS is built to be secure. Obviously, it isn’t impenetrable, but it provides built-in protection from HTML injection attacks and cross-site scripting. It was also designed to play nice with security measures that are already in place like Content Security Policy and HTTPS. These server side authentications greatly increase the security of sites. With the seemingly endless wave of security breaches, it has never been more important to ensure the security of your data.2. Starcraft TrackerLet’s move from games on the PS3 to games on the PC, since that’s where all the magic happens anyways. Whether or not you play video games, chances are you have heard of Starcraft. It is a wildly popular game across the world, with players competing at a professional level for prize pools of thousands of dollars. Of course, not everyone is this dedicated to the game, but there is a large niche full of people who are dedicated to getting better- and using analytics to do so. Check out the Starcraft Tracker to see how AngularJS makes it possible. Don’t worry, you don’t have to understand the gaming jargon to see how useful it is for managing real-time information.3. Cupcake IpsumIf you have done graphic or web design or development of any kind, you are probably familiar with Lorem Ipsum. If you haven’t heard the term, it is simply computer-generated placeholder text…in Latin. Although the text is just there to give a better idea about what an overall design will look like, it all tends to look the same. The developers over at Cup Cake Ipsum used AngularJS to build a “sweeter” version of a Lorem Ipsum generator, and it couldn’t be more simple.One of the other advantages to Angular that this website demonstrates is that the site only loads the content it needs rather than a whole page. As you generate text, only the text is loaded in- you don’t have to go to a whole new page to get the information that you requested. The template gets automatically populated with data. Plus, with AJAX support, it is possible to load external data as well.These “web components” are supposed to make everything easier for everyone. As more components get made, there will be more widgets that change from Javascript-based to HTML/CSS-based (HTML5, anyone?). AngularJS allows these to integrate better into websites- that’s all there is to it. And one last thing from the Angular developer FAQ: “It is always good to make common tasks trivial and difficult tasks possible.” 
