net - UK (2020-02)

ANGULAR

AngularJS was released in 2010 but by

2016 it was completely rewritten and

released as Angular 2. Angular is a full-

blown web framework developed by

Google, which is used by Wix, Upwork,

The Guardian, HBO and more.

Pros

O Has exceptional support for

Ty p eS c r ipt

O MVVM enables developers to separate

their work on the same app section

using the same set of data

O Excellent documentation

Cons

O Has a bit of a learning curve

O Migrating from an old version can be

difficult. Updates are introduced quite

regularly meaning developers need to

adapt to them

What’s next?

In Angular 9, Ivy is the default compiler.

It’s been put in place to solve a lot of the

issues around performance and file size.

It should make applications smaller,

faster and simpler.

When you compare previous versions

of Angular to React and Vue, the

final bundle sizes were a lot a bigger

when using Angular. Ivy also makes

Progressive Hydration possible, which

is something the Angular team showed

off at I/O 2019. Progressive Hydration

uses Ivy to load progressively on the

server and the client. For example,

once a user begins to interact with a

page, components’ code along with any

runtime is fetched piece by piece.

Ivy seems like the big focus going

forward for Angular and the hope is to

make it available for all apps. There will

be an opt-out option in version 9, all the

way through to Angular 10.

REACT

React was initially released in 2013

by Facebook and is used for building

interactive web interfaces. It is used by

Netflix, Dropbox, PayPal and Uber to

name a few.

Pros

O React uses the virtual DOM, which has

a positive impact on performance

O JSX is easy to write

O Updates don’t compromise stability

Cons

O One of the main setbacks is the fact

you will need third-party libraries to

create more complex apps

O Developers are left in the dark on the

best way to develop

What’s next?

At React Conf 2019, the React team

touched on a number of things they have

been working on. The first is Selective

Hydration, which is where React will

pause whatever it’s working on in order

to prioritise the components that the

user is interacting with. As the user goes

to interact with a particular section,

that area will be hydrated. The team

has also been working on Suspense,

which is React’s system for orchestrating

the loading of code, data and images.

This enables components to wait for

something before they render.

Both Selective Hydration and Suspense

are made possible by Concurrent Mode,

which enables apps to be more responsive

by giving React the ability to enter large

blocks of lower priority work in order

to focus on something that’s a higher

priority, like responding to user input.

The team also mentioned accessibility

as another area they have been looking

at, by focusing on two particular topics –

managing focus and input interfaces.

VUE

Vue was developed in 2014 by Evan You,

an ex-Google employee. It is used by

Xiaomi, Alibaba and GitLab. Vue managed

to gain popularity and support from

developers in a short space of time and

without the backing of a major brand.

Pros

O Ver y light in size

O Beginner friendly – easy to learn

O Great community

Cons

O Not backed by a huge company, like

React with Facebook and Angular

with Google

O No real structure

What’s next?

Vue has set itself the target of being

faster, smaller, more maintainable and

making it easier for developers to target

native. The next release (3.0) is due in

Q1 2020, which includes a virtual DOM

rewrite for better performance along with

improved TypeScript Support. There is

also the addition of the Composition API,

which provides developers with a new

way to create components and organise

them by feature instead of operation.

Those developing Vue have also

been busy working on Suspense, which

suspends your component rendering and

renders a fallback component until a

condition is met.

One of the great things with Vue’s

updates is they sustain backward

compatibility. They don’t want you to

break your old Vue projects. We saw this

in the migration from 1.0 to 2.0 where 90

per cent of the API was the same.

FEATURES
The future of frameworks