[xwiki-devs] AngularJS review by someone who uses it at work.

28 Jul 2014

      Since Marius wrote the FileManager application using AngularJS
and there has been some discussion about making increasing use
of it in XWiki, I wanted to share a review by someone who uses
it in his job as their entire platform.

These are advantages and disadvantages which I determined from the chat:

+ Easy and efficient workflow (when you know it)
+ Testing is easy and well understood
+ Debugging is not difficult, thanks to Angular's popularity and integrated software
+ Separates model and view well (makes angular apps skinable).
- Owns your system, if angular dies you die with it
- Learning curve
- Though it separates your model and view well, you can't test your model and controller without a DOM present (he's not sure of this).

Although I think we need to keep investigating, I feel that
Angular warrants more investigation.

Thanks,
Caleb

PS: And the actual conversation, including some useful links:

16:31 < cjd> gimme teh infoz
16:32 < SomeoneWeird> well, there's a lot of (maybe too much) magic going on behind the scenes
16:32 < SomeoneWeird> all the DI stuff, scope tracking
16:32 < SomeoneWeird> sticking one broken thing in the digest loop will kill the entire app
16:32 < cjd> /nod
16:32 < SomeoneWeird> but.. once you know how it works, it's great
16:33 < SomeoneWeird> it's entire stdlib is all promises (which I don't care for, but because it's ALL promises, it makes it a breeze to work with)
16:33 < SomeoneWeird> plus, the DI system is awsm
16:33 < cjd> ok
16:34 < SomeoneWeird> scoping it out because you wanna use it?
16:34 < cjd> xwiki is interested in it
16:34 < cjd> do you use it as a system to control your entire app or as a library?
16:34 < SomeoneWeird> it's our entire thing
16:34 < cjd> ok
16:34 < SomeoneWeird> our CMS is built up of multiple angular apps
16:34 < SomeoneWeird> which are nested
16:35 < cjd> how is it for debugging?
16:36 < SomeoneWeird> not terrible, the errors it gives up are sometimes broken (but we're using a slightly outdated version), but there's also batarang, which is a cool ext. so you can view scope contents in your browser
16:36 < SomeoneWeird> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/angularjs-batarang/ighdmehidhipcmc...
16:36 < cjd> ok
16:37 < SomeoneWeird> oh, testing
16:37 < SomeoneWeird> is awesome
16:37 < cjd> you can unit test in node ?
16:37 < SomeoneWeird> built in mocking support for everything in build in libraries
16:37 < SomeoneWeird> cjd: probably, using phantom or something
16:38 < cjd> ok, so you need a DOM to test
16:38 < SomeoneWeird> hm
16:38 < SomeoneWeird> i think
16:38 < cjd> ok
16:38 < SomeoneWeird> we're using karma at work
16:39 < cjd> explain?
16:39 < SomeoneWeird> http://karma-runner.github.io/0.12/index.html
16:39 < SomeoneWeird> check the vid
16:39 < cjd> ok
16:39 < SomeoneWeird> it's a test runner for browser tests
16:39 < SomeoneWeird> i think you can do headless stuff with it too
16:39 < cjd> how is the seperation between your models and the views?
16:40 < cjd> (is it skinnable?)
16:40 < SomeoneWeird> skinnable?
16:40 < cjd> could you write a new <fakehtml> view for a widget
16:41 < SomeoneWeird> yes
16:41 < cjd> so put a new skin on that widget
16:41 < SomeoneWeird> directives
16:41 < cjd> ok and you don't need to tinker with your model or controller code to do that?
16:41 < SomeoneWeird> models & views are pretty seperated, html can be completely declarative if you want
16:41 < cjd> ok
16:42 < SomeoneWeird> http://www.sitepoint.com/practical-guide-angularjs-directives/
16:42 < cjd> so summary:
16:42 < SomeoneWeird> so you can define <hello>, and then bind that to a model etc
16:42 < cjd> + easy and efficient workflow (when you know it)
16:42 < SomeoneWeird> but they're seperate until you do
16:42 < cjd> + testing is easy and well understood
16:43 < cjd> + debugging is not difficult, thanks to angular's popularity and integrated software
16:43 < SomeoneWeird> there is a definite learning curve though
16:44 < cjd> - Owns your system, if angular dies you die with it
16:44 < SomeoneWeird> especially if people are used to using jquery etc
16:44 < cjd> - Learning curve
16:44 < cjd> - Though it seperates your model and view well, you can't test your model and controller without a DOM present.
16:45 < cjd> anything to add?
16:45 < SomeoneWeird> i'm not 100% sure on the last point
16:45 < cjd> ok
16:45 < cjd> can I publish this conversation?
16:46 < SomeoneWeird> i guess, hopefully I'm not wrong about anything >.>
16:46 < cjd> ok :)
16:48 < SomeoneWeird> http://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1rbz0h/is_angularjs_worth_developing...
16:48 < SomeoneWeird> good points in here

Caleb James DeLisle

vincent＠massol.net

Caleb James DeLisle

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