What is Angular? Architecture & Advantages That You Must Be Aware Of

Ankur Akvaliya

CO-CTO

Published On: April 26, 2023

Nowadays, the demand for websites is becoming a boom for many businesses ranging from social media to healthcare, from eCommerce to online banking. Besides, billions of people use the web and mobile apps for almost everything globally.

And yes, of course, as per the user’s demands, such business websites need to be updated. But the main question still arises: which is the best and most convenient method to create a web application?

You’ll come across many front-end tools and other frameworks like ReactJS, Vue, and many more. I think Angular is the preferred and excellent framework that makes it easy to design and build web applications smoothly.

We have come up with an article that answers your question, “what is Angular?” You’ll get detailed information on the Angular framework and why should you opt for this awesome framework.

Key Takeaways

What is Angular?

AngularJS is the first version, while the Angular 2+ version is referred to as Angular. Angular is a framework as well as a platform that is designed explicitly for developing web and single-page applications. Angular is an open-source framework and is written in TypeScript programming language and strictly follows HTML template language for building robust web applications.

Angular is one of the best JavaScript frameworks that is solely responsible for implementing core and optional functionality as a set of TypeScript libraries that you import into your apps.

Angular specifies a certain style and certain rules for Angular libraries that developers working with an AngularJS development company need to follow and adhere to while developing apps.

What is the Difference Between Angular and AngularJS?

One of the biggest questions that arise in your mind when you hear the word “Angular” is: What is the ultimate difference between AngularJS vs. Angular? What is Angular vs. AngularJS? Are Angular and AngularJS the same?

To answer the question, I’ve highlighted the best differences between Angular vs. AngularJS.

• AngularJS is the first version, while Angular version 2+ is the Angular framework.
• AngularJS uses JavaScript as a primary language, while Angular is an open-source framework and typically uses TypeScript as a programming language.
• Angular and AngularJS are the front-end and open-source platforms that help you create dynamic SPAs for your business needs.
• AngularJS typically uses MVC architecture, while Angular follows the components and directives approach.
• AngularJS framework is not mobile-friendly, while Angular is a mobile-friendly framework.

How Does Angular Work?

As discussed, Angular is a framework for building web applications using HTML and JavaScript. Also, it uses a TypeScript language that makes it easy for the developers to compile it to JavaScript.

After having a look at what is Angular, the main question arises: how does Angular work? To answer this question, you need to understand the basic concept of working on Angular applications.

The framework typically follows Angular architecture patterns that consists of several Angular component libraries, some the core and some optional.

From the above diagram, we can see that the framework follows Angular architecture patterns and is usually divided into 8 main blocks:

1. Modules

   For every Angular application, you will have only one root module named AppModule. The root module usually provides the Angular developers with the bootstrap mechanism that makes it easy to launch the new application. Modules are the one of the most essential aspect, if you’re understanding what is Angular.

   An app typically contains many functional modules. Let’s say you are planning to use another custom Angular module for your application; then, it becomes mandatory for you to register the same module in the app.module.ts file.

   One of the best option is to hire Angular developers from reputed organization where they can easily organize the source code into distinct functional modules. It helps you in managing the complex web application development and designing for reusability.

2. Components

   Like modules, every Angular project contains at least one component, the root component. The primary role of the root component is to connect the component hierarchy with a page document object model (DOM).

   Inside every component, the developers define the class that contains application data and logic. Moreover, the Angular material components are associated with the same HTML template that defines the view displayed in a target app. The Angular components control a patch of the screen called a view.

3. Templates

   Angular templates are nothing but a combination of HTML and Angular markup. The primary aim of such an Angular template is to modify HTML elements before they are displayed quickly. In addition, template directives provide program logic, and binding markup connects your application data and the document object model (DOM).

   Generally, there are two types of data binding.

   • Event Binding: With the help of Event Binding, you can efficiently build an app that efficiently responds to user input in the target environment by updating your app data.
   • Property Binding:Angular is a component-based framework that supports Property binding where the developers interpolate values computed from app to fetch data into the HTML elements of the web page.

4. Metadata

   Metadata is nothing but an instructor that informs Angular about how to process a class. It is designed explicitly to decorate the class so that the developers can quickly configure the expected behavior of a class.

   If you are working with the Angular 2+ version, decorators are one of the essential concepts you need to deal with. The user can use metadata to a class to tell the Angular app that AppComponent is the main root component. In addition, metadata can be attached to the TypeScript using the decorator.

   Related Blog Post: Angular Promise vs Observable

5. Data Binding

   The Angular data binding concept typically handles real-time communication between a template and its related component. Moreover, data binding is also a boon for communication between parent and child components.

   Angular allows communication between a component and the DOM, making it very easy to define interactive applications without worrying about pulling and pushing the data.

6. Directives

   Angular components and directives are interconnected with each other. In simple words, we can say that directives and components both are essential building blocks of Angular applications.

   One such Angular directive is ngClass, a better example of the existing Angular attribute directive.

7. Services

   The Angular developers create a service class when no specific data or logic is associated with the particular view. In addition, the developers can even share the data or logic among different components.

   The @Injectable decorator immediately precedes the service class definition. The decorator provides the metadata that allows your service to be injected into client components as a dependency.

   The main functionality of the Angular framework is to distinguish components from services. And it leads to increase modularity and reusability for your application. For example, once the developers separate a component’s view-related functionality from other processing, you can make your component classes lean and efficient.

8. Dependency Injection

   The primary role of the Angular developer is to keep the component classes short and straightforward. And that’s what Dependency Injection (DI) does.

   DI is not responsible for fetching data from a server, validating the user input, or logging directly into the console. In addition, they are accountable for delegating such tasks to the services.

   DI is equipped with the AngularJS framework and is typically used by developers everywhere to create new components using the user input validation system with the services. Components consume services; you can inject a service into a component, giving the component access to that service class.

Advantages of Angular Framework

Let’s highlight some of the biggest and most beneficial advantages of Angular that bring convenience to building web applications for your business needs.  Moreover, the biggest advantage that we can say for sure is that there are many leading websites built using the Angular framework.

1. Supported by Google

   One of the biggest advantages that have come up with the Angular framework is the Long-Term Support (LTS). Google offers long-term support for Angular, which help you to deal with Google’s plan to keep using the framework and expand the Angular ecosystem.

   The exciting part about Angular ecosystem is that Google employs Angular and plays a vital role in improving the performance of the web application. With its active support of LTS, Angular help you scale your web application easily.

2. TypeScript

   TypeScript is the primary language that is built explicitly for Angular application development. TypeScript is nothing but a superscript for JavaScript, and it allows for optimal code quality, making the web application more secure.

   Its active support of TypeScript helps Angular developers easily detect and eliminate mistakes early to deal with completely rewrite the code or performing maintenance operations.

   Browsers will not execute TypeScript directly. First, the Typescript code must be “transpiled” into JavaScript with the help of tsc compiler, which requires some updates in Angular configuration file.

3. Declarative UI

   With the help of dynamic HTML elements, the user interface (UI) of the Angular application is built. HTML is a more simple language as compared to JavaScript programming language. Angular is also a declarative and easy-to-use language that exclusively supports directives such as ng-app, ng-model, etc.

4. POJO (Plain Old Java Object)

   POJO approach is included in the Angular framework. The developers do not need to use Angular’s getters and setters method.

   By including POJO, the developers find it easy to perform object manipulation via all of JavaScript’s standard functionalities. Moreover, one of the best Angular practices that developers can perform is to simply quickly remove or add properties from the things while also iterating over them as needed.

5. SPA and PWA

   One of the most cost-effective methods for website development to make it behave like mobile apps is a Progressive Web App (PWA). It is responsible for minimizing the network requirements and, most importantly, enhancing the web app performance.

   Single-page web applications (SPA) may be written primarily when the developers need to utilize the server-side rendering capabilities of Angular. Moreover, single-page web applications it helps the developers to load the home page quickly and improves website performance on mobile and low-powered devices.

   You can even make use of Angular Ivy to compile components more independently of each other quickly for your business applications.

6. Simplified MVC Pattern

   The Angular framework typically uses the MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) architecture rather than an MVC (Model-View-Controller). With the help of the MVVM model, the developers can efficiently deal with two-way data binding between View and ViewModel.

   In addition, Angular platform allows the developers to deal with the automatic propagation to change within ViewModel’s state to the view. ViewModel data strictly uses the observer model to inform changes to the ViewModel model to model.

7. Modular Structure

   The entire Angular source code is grouped into different essential web page elements like Angular components, directives, pipes, and services. Modules are considered to be the heart of the Angular framework’s intuitive application structure. The developers can easily deal with framing the features of applications using the entire tree structure smoothly.

   Modules play a vital role in lazy loading. In simple words, by including modules in the Angular application, you’ll find featuring differential loading functionality of the application website’s on-demand turns to be faster.

   With the help of Angular, you may develop a complex app while dividing work and ensuring organized and generated code. When you have a solid grasp of these, you may make the most of the modules. Modularization might enhance developer efficiency in certain situations.

   So, these are the best advantages of using Angular framework that you need to be aware of while developing a robust web app for your business needs.

Limitations of Angular Framework

It’s time to highlight some of the drawbacks of the Angular framework. But with the recent updates, the Angular community is working hard to remove such limitations.

1. Limited Search Engine Optimization Options

   Generally, the Angular framework comes up with the platform’s limited Search Engine Optimization (SEO) options and poor accessibility for search engine crawlers. And it’s one of the major drawbacks of using the Angular framework.

   Being that Google is the number one search engine on the planet, we can’t imagine this problem will continue to persist for much longer before a solution is presented in another update.

2. Steep Learning Curve

   Another glaring con of using the Angular framework is that it can be quite difficult to learn.

   With such a complex web of modules, coding languages, integrations and customizing capabilities, understanding Angular definitely takes some time.

   Fortunately, Angular provides phenomenal support and there are a number of online tutorials and courses you can take to catch up and start taking full advantage of all the program has to offer.

3. Migration

   One of the reasons that companies do not use Angular frequently is the difficulty in porting legacy js/jquery-based code to angular-style architecture. If I talk about jQuery vs Angular, both are meant for different perspectives. Also, each new release can be troublesome to upgrade, and several of them are not backward-compatible.

4. Performance

   Dynamic applications didn’t always perform that well. Complex SPAs could be laggy and inconvenient to use due to their size. One of the primary reasons that why we use Angular is the enhancing the performance of your business web applications.

5. Lacking CLI Documentation

   Some developers express concerns with the current state of CLI documentation. While the command line is very useful for Angular developers, you won’t find enough information in their official documentation on GitHub and you have to spend more time exploring threads on GitHub to get answers.

What are the Angular Best Practices That You Need to Follow?

Understanding and following Angular best practices is one of the most essential factors for both developers and business owners. Let’s highlight some of the common Angular best practices that you need to consider while developing web application.

• Make a habit of using Angular CLI.
• Utilize the ES6 functionality to make robust web app
• Creating and maintaining proper folder structure
• Use Lazy loading feature as and when required
• Always following the coding practices for Angular development
• Use “trackBy” along with ‘ngFor’
• Use Interfaces to deal with object literals

By taking care of the above Angular best practices, let’s move to the section about how to develop Angular applications from scratch.

What are Angular Development Tools?

The Angular development process is made easier by utilizing the best tools, especially for developers. Herein, we’ve highlighted the list of the best Angular development tools that will make work easier for developers to perform coding efficiently.

• Karma: Makes your code testing process smooth. You can quickly recover from potential flaws, errors, and defects using the Angular testing framework.
• Jasmine: No need to rely on any browser or other JavaScript testing environment. With its easy-to-use syntax, Jasmine allows you to write and test the code easily.
• Protractor: You can quickly perform testing Angular applications directly on the software, and such tests can be easily synchronized to the page.
• Webstorm: It is considered to the best IDE for performing coding efficiently. The Angular developers find it relatively easy to deal with best coding practices.
• Mocha.js: It’s a robust testing framework that typically deals with asynchronous testing functionalities.
• Angular Kickstart: Its easy-to-use interface allows you to work with faster satisfaction of all your business needs.
• Angular Fire: It is solely responsible for fostering dynamic API features, three-way data binding, and other essential features.
• Djangular: You’ll get a reusable application with responsive app integration with the AngularJS framework.
• Rest-angular: This Angular development tool is solely responsible for dealing with large data consumption from REST API.
• Ng-inspector:This tool enables browsers with an inspector panel, helping developers to develop, debug, and understand develop Angular applications quickly.

How To Create Angular Application?

I hope you’re now clear with what is Angular. Right? So let’s move ahead and focus on essentials steps to create an Angular application from scratch. We will discuss the complete step-by-step guide on how to proceed ahead with a new Angular application.

Before that, the developers need to analyze the list of the best Angular development tools to make the web app development process smooth.

Step 1: Angular CLI Installation

Angular CLI (Command-line Interface) is the official and main tool for creating Angular applications. To install CLI, we need to provide the following command: npm install -g @angular/cli.

Step 2: Angular Project Initialization

To initialize the Angular application, first of all, you need to navigate to the location where you want to keep your project.

“
cd ~
ng new angular-application”

So, it’s the first and most important step that is going to be used for creating a new Angular application. Once you give this command, the CLI will prompt you with multiple options that you want to configure for your application.

Step 3: Adding Angular HttpClient

Now, we need to import HttpClientModule to our app.module.ts file.

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { AppRoutingModule } from './app-routing.module';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import { HttpClientModule } from '@angular/common/http';
import { EmployeeComponent } from './employee/employee.component';
import { AdminComponent } from './admin/admin.component';

@NgModule({
declarations: [
AppComponent,
EmployeeComponent,
AdminComponent
],
imports: [
BrowserModule,
AppRoutingModule,
HttpClientModule
],
providers: [],
bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }

Likewise, whatever the components you add, do not forget to import them; otherwise, it will throw an error. When the developers are dealing with asynchronous operations like an HTTP request, you need to deal with promise in Angular development.

Step 4: Creating UI Components

As stated earlier, Components are the building blocks of Angular application. Creating an Angular component is simple.

Here, we have created the “employee” component. And as you can see that all the essential files are automatically created by the Angular CLI makes you create a rich user interface..

Likewise, let us create one more component (admin) in our Angular application. So, now we have two components employee and admin.

Step 5: Adding Routing Functionality

We will perform the redirection of the empty path to the employee component. This, in order, will constitute the first-time users’ automatic redirection to the home page.

You’ll need a class, technically known as resolver in Angular, development that is solely responsible for implementing the Resolve interface of Angular Router.

We’ll be running the following set of routes into our src/app/app-routing.module.ts file:

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { RouterModule, Routes } from '@angular/router';
import { EmployeeComponent } from './employee/employee.component';
import { AdminComponent } from './admin/admin.component';
const routes: Routes = [
{ path: '', redirectTo: 'employee', pathMatch: 'full'},
{ path: 'employee', component: EmployeeComponent },
{ path: 'admin', component: AdminComponent },
];
@NgModule({
imports: [RouterModule.forRoot(routes)],
exports: [RouterModule]
})
export class AppRoutingModule { }

This way, we can work with the Angular framework. Yes, it is the basic concepts that help you create a simple Angular application from scratch.

Which are the Leading Websites Built Using the Angular Framework?

After having a detailed look at the concept of what is Angular, you must be having a big question in mind: which are the websites built using the Angular framework. I have listed the best websites developed using the Angular framework:

1. Google
2. UpWork
3. Gmail
4. Deutsche Bank
5. Paypal
6. Freelancer
7. Microsoft Xbox
8. WikiWand
9. Forbes

Summary of Angular Framework

After having a detailed look at what is Angular framework, we can give a final summary:

• For front-end development process, Angular is a one-stop solution for developers. Apart from Angular, ReactJS is also best option for it. If we talk about Angular vs React, they are equally important for web app development. It involves the applications client-side and has little to do with the back end.
• Angular is best utilized for completing advanced, large-scale Angular projects under the direction of a seasoned developer.
• The developers can easily add Angular elements to projects utilizing a different platform, such as React or Polymer.
• Google supports the Angular framework.
• This program is not up to par with SEO best practices, so opt for a different platform if your primary focus is search engine optimization.
• Angular is a JavaScript framework—not a JS Library.

I hope you got a clear understanding of the Angular framework and its usage. If you are planning to build a new web application for your business needs, Albiorix is a one-stop solution for Angular development services.