Angular to the Rescue?, Part Three

/
Naveed Sami Headshot

Author’s Note: A Technical Architect with GeoDecisions, Naveed Sami designs and develops web-based, desktop, and mobile GIS applications and enterprise applications. With his finger on the pulse of the latest geospatial trends and technologies, Naveed will regularly discuss a variety of technical topics on our website.

Make sure to check our Part One and Part Two of the JavaScript blogs series if you haven't done so already.

“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and …” ― J. R. R. Tolkien

Actually, I really do like Angular. Light-hearted references to Mordor aside, Angular does seem to be taking over the world of JavaScript Frameworks.  Google Trends seems to think so, too. This graph shows search terms comparing Dojo Toolkit, AngularJS and ReactJS over time. RedMonk has a more detailed description of this phenomenon. 

This graph compares search terms of Dojo Toolkit, AngularJS and ReactJS over time.

This graph compares search terms of Dojo Toolkit, AngularJS and ReactJS over time.

A one-size-fits-all solution is not possible with JavaScript. The Dojo Toolkit, getting long in the tooth by JavaScript standards, is still very useful under certain circumstances.  React has taken a different approach from Angular to deliver better performance, and has seen a great surge in popularity as a result.  Angular, feeling the heat from rivals like React, has carried out a major overhaul. As a result, Angular 2 (in Beta as of December 15) emerges with drastic changes. There is no direct upgrade path from Angular 1 to Angular 2. This means all existing Angular 1 applications will eventually have to be rewritten.

As Yogi Berra would say – "this feels like déjà vu all over again!"

 *Keep an eye our for Part Four - the final portion of my JavaScript blog!