What is Angular?

Key takeaways:

• Angular is a framework developed by Google that use TypeScript for building dynamic web applications.

• It is ideal for creating responsive single-page applications (SPAs) that enhance user experience.

• It’s component-based structure allows developers to break applications into reusable, manageable components.

• It facilitates code reuse, improves code readability and promotes maintainability of code.

• It automatically synchronizes data between the model and view, providing real-time UI updates.

• It allows us to extend HTML functionality through custom directives for enhanced UI manipulation.

• It Utilizes RxJS for handling asynchronous data streams and event handling, enhancing performance.

• It optimizes application performance with smaller bundle sizes and faster builds

Angular is a TypeScript-based framework that was developed by Google. It is used in front-end development to develop dynamic, single-page applications (SPA), and mobile web applications. Angular developers use it to enhance an application’s responsiveness. It is among the top frameworks used for building SPAs. Angular’s leading competitor is Facebook’s React framework. As an MVC framework, Angular divides the application into three layers: Model, View, and Controller.

Why choose Angular as a front-end framework?

There are several advantages to utilizing Angular as a front-end framework:

• Component-based architecture: Angular’s component-based structure allows us to break down web pages into smaller, manageable components that can be combined to create a single web page.

• Enhanced code reusability: This component-centric approach increases the code reusability. It enables us to save time by not having to rewrite existing code.

• Unit testing friendly: Angular is designed with unit testing in mind. Compared to other frameworks, it makes testing faster and more efficient.

• Improved code readability: The framework enhances code readability. It facilitates quicker onboarding for new developers.

• Better code maintainability: Angular also contributes to improved maintainability of the codebase.

Prerequisites for learning Angular

Before learning Angular, make sure to have a solid understanding of the following:

• HTML: Basic understanding of HTML structure.

• CSS: Styling with CSS.

• JavaScript: Familiarity with JavaScript ES6 features (classes, arrow functions, promises).

• TypeScript: Angular is written in TypeScript, so a basic knowledge of TypeScript syntax will help.

History and versions of Angular

Since its initial release, Angular has had a rich history of continuous improvement. It started as AngularJS, but after major recognition, the framework was renamed simply Angular. With each version, Angular has evolved to become more powerful, flexible, and developer-friendly.

With the latest version (Angular 18, at the time of writing this Answer), the framework continues to prioritize developer efficiency, performance, and scalability, solidifying its place as one of the most powerful tools for building modern web applications.

How to install Angular

Follow these steps to install Angular on your machine:

1. Download and install Node.js from Node.js official websitehttps://nodejs.org/.

2. Open a terminal and run the following command to install Angular CLI:

3. Run the following command to check if Angular CLI is installed correctly:

After the successful installation, we can create an application in Angular.

Key features of Angular

Let’s discuss some key features of Angular:

• Two-way data binding: Angular’s two-way data binding automatically synchronizes data between the model (JavaScript code) and the view (HTML). This allows for real-time updates in the UI when the data changes, making it easier to build interactive applications.

• Components: Angular follows a component-based architecture, where the application is broken into modular and reusable pieces called components. Each component is associated with an HTML template and CSS style, encapsulating the behavior of a specific part of the UI.

• Dependency injection: Dependency injection (DI) allows the framework to handle the instantiation and management of objects. It makes the application more modular, testable, and scalable. DI improves code maintainability and facilitates easy testing by allowing services to be injected into components or other services.

• Routing: Angular’s built-in router enables developers to map URLs to specific components, creating a seamless user experience. It allows navigation between different views within the application without reloading the page, contributing to the overall performance of the app.

• Directives: Angular introduces directives that allow developers to extend HTML by creating custom elements, attributes, or structural changes to the DOM. Common examples include ngFor, ngIf, and custom-built directives for more complex logic.

• Forms and validation: Angular provides powerful tools to handle forms, both template-driven and reactive forms. It offers built-in validators like required and minLength, and allows custom validation, making form handling easier and more robust.

• RxJS and observables: Angular heavily utilizes RxJS (Reactive Extensions for JavaScript) for handling asynchronous data streams, especially in HTTP requests and event handling. Observables in Angular offer a more declarative way to manage asynchronous operations.

• Ivy compiler: Angular’s Ivy is a next-generation compilation and rendering engine that improves the application’s performance by optimizing the size of the compiled code and providing faster builds and smaller bundles.

• Pipes: Pipes in Angular are a feature that transforms data directly in templates. For instance, the | date pipe formats dates, and the | uppercase pipe changes strings to uppercase. They are highly useful for formatting data without altering the underlying model.

• Cross-platform development: Angular is not limited to building web applications. It also enables developers to create cross-platform applications for mobile and desktop environments using tools like Ionic and Electron.

• Testing: Angular offers integrated tools like Jasmine and Karma for unit testing components, services, and more. This makes it easier to ensure the reliability and quality of the code.

Conclusion

Angular is one of the most powerful and popular front-end frameworks in use today, thanks to its rich feature set, strong community support, and focus on performance. It offers developers a structured and scalable way to build complex web applications, making it a great choice for both small projects and large enterprise solutions.