Changing Direction with Angular

Ever wondered how top applications are created? Angular is used by leading web agencies across the world to efficiently build and scale enterprise applications. Here at Stellasoft, we’ve been using Angular for two years and have no regrets as it continues to improve.

On September 15th, the final release version of Angular 2 was announced – and we think it’s excellent. Although it’s been great watching the software develop through the beta and Release Candidate stages, we are very excited to finally see the software being released as a stable version. Angular’s large open source team keep the software up-to-date and it is extremely well-maintained, ideal for developers who, like us, want to keep on top of the latest technology.

As the original Angular was renowned for being ultra-fast, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the team behind it couldn’t improve the load time – but they have with Angular 2. It’s up to 5 times faster! The only time this is compromised is when a whole application is downloaded client side. Here, there is a slightly longer initial load time to allow for a much faster and smoother user experience once the application has downloaded.

A feature that we particularly like is Angular’s continued focus on the concept of ‘lazy loading’, which is downloading content onto a site only when it’s needed. They have further cemented this notion into the framework of Angular 2, meaning that it is integrated better at a core level.

Load time isn’t the only element that has improved – our time spent developing has also been shortened considerably with Angular 2. It’s increased focus on modular design, as the concept of portable components replaces controllers, enables us to reuse components across a website rather than having to remake them multiple times. The process is further accelerated by the cross-platform capabilities of Angular 2. The codebase of an application, for example, can be largely reused and transferred to a mobile platform, allowing us to spend less time coding and more time focusing on fulfilling client needs. Plus, because the front end code for applications is separated from the back end code, more people can work on the same components at the same time. Our entire developing and coding process has become so much more productive thanks to the sizeable improvements that the Angular team have made to the software’s accessibility. 

The modular design does not just allow us to spend less time coding – it also improves the quality of the applications we produce. Our new ability to split site content into modules to review and develop separately assists us in ensuring that each and every element of the applications we create are flawless. This is just one feature that improves our services in comparison to other web agencies. The team at Angular use industry-leading technology that is built to work with the latest JavaScript technologies, such as TypeScript and ES6. In this way, through using Angular 2 we can continue to stay ahead of the game.

Angular has consistently provided an excellent framework within which we have built applications over the past couple of years and it continues to play a huge part in streamlining our development process.

For more updates on the Stellasoft Tech Channel, such as how we use CircleCI, make sure you check our blog regularly.