Why Angular

Note: This article is published on 10/22/2021.

I put these articles together

What is Node JS
- NVM --- Node Version Manager
What is Angular
- Angular Installation and Environment Setup (written in 2021)
- Angular New Devlopment Site
Why Angular --- this article
Angular Versions
- Angular Version Change Frequency
What is React

I wrote an article called Angular Versions, and later on renamed it Angular Version Change Frequency, and this article used to be part of it. However, it seems that the article is a little bit too long, so I pulled this part out as a stand alone.

Introduction

Before I answer why Angular, I will explain what Angular is.

This is the structure of this article,

Introduction
What Angular is
Why Angular
Summary

What is Angular?

I will not answer this question in my own words, instead, I use the wiki definition below"

"Angular (commonly referred to as "Angular 2+" or "Angular CLI") is a TypeScript-based free and open-source web application framework led by the Angular Team at Google and by a community of individuals and corporations. Angular is a complete rewrite from the same team that built AngularJS."

I think this paragraph from Introduction to Angular can add more info and very briefly:

"Angular is an open-source project maintained by Google and a community of developers. The new Angular platform is vastly different from the legacy framework you may have used in the past. In collaboration with Microsoft, Google made TypeScript the default language for Angular. TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript that enables developers to target legacy browsers such as Internet Explorer 11, while allowing them to write modern JavaScript code that works in evergreen browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. The legacy versions of Angular, versions in the 1.x.x range, are referred to as AngularJS. Version 2.0.0 and higher versions are called Angular. Where AngularJS is a monolithic JavaScript SPA framework, Angular is a platform that is capable of targeting browsers, hybrid-mobile frameworks, desktop applications, and server-side rendered views."

Why Angular

Angular is popular and in recent years, a lot of .NET developers and Java developers switched to Angular for front-end development. If one asks: Why do we choose Angular? This is a question for all Angular developers and actually is a frequent interview question.

Not Due to the Minor Technical Reasons

If we search online, we can get a lot of answers for this question, such like

However, those answers are too technical and did not catch the basic point, in my opinion. I list the articles in the reference with some details, for example, one reason to use Angular is that Angular uses TypeScript. Yes, TypeScript is a good feature for Angular, but React does not use TypeScript, why it is just as popular as Angular?

Due to the Major Software Evolution Trends

I prefer this definition as a reason to use Angular [ref]:

"Angular helps build interactive and dynamic single-page applications (SPAs) with its compelling features including templating, two-way binding, modularization, RESTful API handling, dependency injection, and AJAX handling."

From this definition, we can see: Angular Platform have two major characteristics,

SPA --- Remoting access to the server
compelling --- this feature make it faster and secure

Let us examine the Software evolution, and then Web App evolution.

The Software development architectures evolution (I previously discussed in ASP.NET Core, Web API - Entity Framework Call Stored Procedure)

Server-side programmings, such as IBM mainframe or UNIX server with a dumb terminal
Client-side programming, such as HTML page with Dynamic javascript
Client-server architecture, such as ASP webserver/page
Three-tier architecture, enterprise business architecture
SOA: service-oriented architecture, also loose-coupled enterprise business architecture
Microservice architecture: loose-coupled architecture with application scope

Then, specifically, we examine,

Web Development Architectures evolution

Client-side Programming:
- HTML --- early 90 age, Static Web Pages
- JavaScrip --- The similar age of HTML, to make web page dynamic
Server-side Programming:
- VB (before .NET in 2002) to render code to web, such as WebBrowser
- ASP age
  - Front end: VB Script
  - Back end: JavaScript
  - Mixing Script Code and HTML together
- ASP.NET:
  - Separate front end with
    - Design Mode --- HTML
    - Code-behind --- C# code, compilable
- MVC --- separates the frond-end as
  - Model
  - View
  - Controller
Client-side to Server:
- RDS --- Remote Data Service
- Microsoft OLE DB Remoting Provider
- AJAX
- JavaScript libraries: such as jQuery --- Encaplate AJAX
- Silverlight --- Thick client with Encapsulation to Ajax, Silverlight 5
Decoupled Server and Client: link server and client by remote access
- SPA --- Client side:
  - Angular --- compiled
  - React
  - Vue
- Web API:--- Server-side
- REST --- architectural style, see REST(1), In Concept
  - Client-Server
  - http protocol --- stateless
  - JSON format --- uniform interface

Examine the different Approaches,

Client-side Programming: No server access --- no data, no security; no compiling
Server-side Programming: Server rendering page by page to client-side, slow; no client-side compiling
Client-side to Server: have remote access to the server; no client-side compiling
Decoupled Server and Client: by REST to make it happen, where Angular plays an important role as SPA.

Summary

Why do we use Angular? Because we want to make a decoupled system by SPA with remote access to server feature, and client-side compiling to make the code faster

Reference

8 Proven Reasons You Need Angular for Your Next Development Project --- grazitti.com/blog
- Supported by Google
- TypeScript
- Declarative UI
- POJO (Plain Old JavaScript Object)
- Easy Testing
- Simplified MVC Pattern
- Modular Structure
- Code Consistency
  - Reusability
  - Simplified Unit-Testing
  - Improved Readability
  - Ease of Maintenance
Six reasons to choose angular for web development --- softwebsolutions.com
- 1. Automatic synchronization with two-way data binding
- 2. Bug fixes
- 3. Code consistency and reusability
- 4. Default Ivy renderer
- 5. Declarative UI
- 6. Supported by Google
Why Angular? Understanding the Benefits of Angular --- techinspiration.org
ASP.NET Core, Web API - Entity Framework Call Stored Procedure --- c-sharpcorner
HTML --- wiki
JavaScript --- wiki
Active Server Pages (ASP) --- wiki, Microsoft Visual InterDev, part of Microsoft Visual Studio 97 and 6.0,
REST(1), In Concept --- my article in C-sharpcorner
Visual InterDev --- wikiwand.com, Microsoft Visual InterDev, part of Microsoft Visual Studio 97 and 6.0, is an IDE used to create web applications using Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) technologies.
Active Server Pages --- MS
WebBrowser Class --- MS, Enables the user to navigate Web pages inside Windows form.
Remote Access:
- Remote Data Service (RDS) --- MS
- Remote Data Services --- wiki (formerly known as Advanced Data Connector or ADC)
- Microsoft OLE DB Remoting Provider Overview --- MS