The technologies that enable the Internet tend to change, progress and evolve at rapid speeds, as requirements change and developers build better versions of the software. Angular is a case in point, with wide changes in just a few years. Google developed AngularJS in 2009 and version 1.0 was released in 2012. Angular has since dominated the world of open-source JavaScript frameworks, with the enthusiastic support and widespread adoption among both enterprises and individuals. As a result, Angular has evolved from the AngularJS version 1.0 to Angular version 2.0 and now the latest Angular version 4.0, all in just five years.
Despite the potential benefits of the upgrades, some in the Angular community have concerns about migrating to a newer version. Keep reading to find out what has changed in Angular and why migrating to the latest version is a good idea. We’ll give you an in-depth comparison so you can understand the differences and make an informed decision.
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Before we dive into the differences, let’s first clarify each version with a description:
Below is a comparison of AngularJS to Angular, because Angular includes both version 2 and version 4. We compare architecture, language, expression syntax, mobile support, and routing.
The architecture of AngularJS is based on the model-view-controller (MVC) design. The model is the central component that expresses the application's behavior and manages its data, logic, and rules. The view generates an output based on the information in the model. The controller accepts input, converts it into commands and sends the commands to the model and the view.
In Angular 2, controllers and $scope were replaced by components and directives. Components are directives with a template. They deal with a view of the application and logic on the page. There are two kinds of directives in Angular 2. These are structural directives that alter the layout of the DOM by removing and replacing its elements, and attributive directives that change the behavior or appearance of a DOM element.
In Angular 4, the structural derivatives ngIf and ngFor have been improved, and you can use if/else design syntax in your templates.
AngularJS is written in JavaScript.
Angular uses Microsoft’s TypeScript language, which is a superset of ECMAScript 6 (ES6). This has the combined advantages of the TypeScript features, like type declarations, and the benefits of ES6, like iterators and lambdas.
Angular 4 is compatible with the most recent versions of TypeScript that have powerful type checking and object-oriented features.
To bind an image/property or an event with AngularJS, you have to remember the right ng directive.
Angular focuses on “( )” for event binding and “[ ]” for property binding.
AngularJS was not built with mobile support in mind, but Angular 2 and 4 both feature mobile support.
AngularJS uses $routeprovider.when() to configure routing while Angular uses @RouteConfig{(…)}.
AngularJS was originally developed for designers, not developers. Although there were a few evolutionary improvements in its design, they were not enough to fulfill developer requirements. The later versions, Angular 2 and Angular 4, have been upgraded to provide an overall improvement in performance, especially in speed and dependency injection.
By providing features like 2-way binding, AngularJS reduced the development effort and time. However, by creating more processing on the client-side, page load was taking considerable time. Angular2 provides a better structure to more easily create and maintain big applications and a better change detection mechanism. Angular 4 is the fastest version yet.
Angular implements unidirectional tree-based change detection and uses the Hierarchical Dependency Injection system. This significantly boosts performance for the framework.
Because they are Google products, all Angular versions are trustworthy and enjoy great support from Google engineers and the large community of Angular users and developers. However, each version has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Obviously, AngularJS is still useful or else everyone would have migrated to Angular 2 or 4 by now. Each version of Angular has significant benefits, but there is much to gain in being up-to-date with the latest version. Angular is decidedly faster than AngularJS, has a mobile-driven approach, executes better with components, and enables smoother migration from earlier versions. If you are comfortable with one version of Angular, switching to another should be easy for you—and well worth the effort.
Pankaj Kumar is an Associate Product Manager at Simplilearn, with 5+ years of experience. He is a transformation leader with rich experience in Project Management, Account Management, Business Development and Product Management.
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