What is Angular JS?
It is an open-source JavaScript framework used to build mobile applications, web applications and desktop applications. Angular frameworks are developed using HTML, CSS and Typescript, a superset of JavaScript. So when you use Angular JS in an application, the codes developed in Typescript compiles to JavaScript while rendered in the browser. So far, we have three popular versions of Angular – Angular 1 (AngularJS), Angular 2 and Angular 4. Angular JS is mostly used for developing single-page applications. Angular is continuously evolving, and as on October 2019, Angular 8.2 is available.
Features of Angular JS
1. MVC for easy management – Angular JS framework is developed using the Model-View-Controller concept, MVC, a design pattern used in web applications. This model facilitates easy management of different sections of the application by dividing the application into three layers or sections – data layer, logic layer and presentation layer.
2. Data Model Binding – This makes the coding a lot easier. Data model binding helps you to fix the data to HTML without writing special code. Angular JS manages this by adding some snippets of code.
3. Writing less code – Earlier you had to write so much JavaScript to carry out DOM while designing an application. Angular JS requires only very less amount of codes for DOM manipulation.
4. Testing – The testing framework named "Karma" helps in designing the unit tests for applications.
Advantages of Using Angular
1. Reduces Reloading Time
Some applications have only a single HTML page that is dynamically updated according to the user interaction. Such single-page applications do not need to refresh the whole webpage to communicate with the back-end servers Thus, these applications reduce the reloading time and provide a better user experience.
2. Automatic Data Retrieval
This is achieved with two-way data binding that facilitates automatic updates to and retrievals from the data store. Thus, the UI gets updated whenever the data store updates.
3. Modularity
The codes are divided into numerous modules that are reusable. All the components, pipes, services and directives related to a specific module are grouped together and are organized as one group. To create an application, you just need to combine various modules together. Modules offer ‘lazy loading’ that helps to load one or more features of the application can be loaded on demand. This improves the efficiency of the application. Modules also facilitate the division of labour by maintaining proper code consistency.
4. Reduced coding
This helps the developer to write short yet effective codes. By supporting MVC architecture, Angular JS eases the job of a developer. You just need to split the code to fit the given MVC structure and leave the rest to Angular JS to take care.
5. Simple user interface
The HTML used by angular to define the user interface is declarative, intuitive and simple. This enables us to just define the page and be clear about where to bind the data and what it needs to do. Angular will do the rest. You don’t need to spend time on program flow and the order in which the components should load.
6. Easy integration
Angular can be integrated into several frameworks like Wijmo, Ionic, Telerik’s Kendo UI, etc. This makes third-party integration an easy task.
How Long Will it Take to Learn Angular
If you already have a grasp of JavaScript frameworks and understands Object Oriented concepts of JavaScripts very well, you should be able to learn angular JS in 2–4 weeks in an office project environment. However, if you are a fresher with no experience in JavaScript, you should expect to take months to learn Angular JS.
