In the last few years, technology has evolved rapidly and so have various frameworks. Angular began with the AngularJS framework and within the last five years, it has taken a leap forward from Angular 1.0 to the current Angular 4.0. This development involved major changes in the final developed code size of the application, at the same time enhancing security, scalability, and performance.
In this post, we’ll run through the basic difference between Angular 1.0 and Angular 4.0, their features and why the upgrade has been a boon to the developers.
What is Angular?
Features of Angular 1.0 and Angular 4.0
- Angular 1.0 follows the MVC (Model View Controller) architecture for building client-side web applications.
- It supports several languages like French, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified etc.
- Angular 1 simplifies tasks like testing, routing, template and binding.
- Allows IT teams to render on the server-side, thus providing universality.
- Angular 4.0 is faster and lighter, as the code consumes less space and thus boosts the speed of the application.
- Angular 4.0 stores object structure as maps, unlike route parameters. To use these parameters on the map, the user simply needs to call a method.
Core difference between Angular 1.0 and Angular 4.0
Angular 4.0 is the recent update from Angular 2.0, supporting TypeScript 2.1.0 and 2.2 which increases the efficiency throughout the application.
- Architectural Comparison
Post the upgrade to Angular 2, the architecture was remodelled to a service/controller approach.Angular 4.0 continues with the same base with slight changes in the code. It is comparatively faster, reduces code generated by a significant percentage and allows – developers to generate code that can be then used in debug and production mode.
- Angular Universal
Angular Universal runs your Angular application on the server, earlier it was maintained outside Angular but with Angular 4 it has become a core module. As we know, Angular use a browser to execute applications thus creating pages in DOM (Document Object Model).With Angular Universal Server-Side Rendering (SSR) is possible. SSR generates static application pages on the server by splitting the HTML content in a virtual DOM. The pages are generated and can be served as and when the browser requests them. Universal thereby, smooths the way for web crawlers that helps in SEO, it improves the apps performances on mobile devices & other low-powered devices, and loads the first page fast.
- View Engine
A view engine helps in creating HTML from the views. View Engines are generally a mix of any programming language and HTML and are responsible for writing code in your views. The concept of a View Engine was initiated in Angular 4.0 and the code produced was reduced to over 60% as seen in the architectural pattern.
- Animation Package
In Angular 1.0, the code needed for animation was included in the application by default, whether the developer wished to use it or not. These functions were the same as those part of the core module.However, in Angular 4.0, animation is a separate package. This is another reason the code bundling size has reduced. Should users want to include Animation, they can use the package from the module BrowserAnimationsModule.
With the releases of newer versions of Angular, one question that remains, is AngularJS worth learning? The answer to this a definite yes with it being the basic version, to begin with.
Angular 1.0 and Angular 4.0 are both responsive and dynamic, each having its own set of merits in the field of web app development. If you are a beginner, then it is best to learn Angular 1.0 and then upgrade to Angular 4.0. Both the frameworks are simple and easy to use.
It is best to say that Angular 1.0 is here to stay along with Angular 4.0 and if you wish, you can upgrade to Angular 4.0 at any time.