WHAT IS ANGULAR CLI AND HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM ANGULAR JS

First, let us understand Angular JS. Over the last few years, Angular JS is seen to be rocketing up in terms of usage. This open-source front-end development platform has 43,233 GitHub stars at the moment. Angular JS is a framework used by developers to build dynamic web apps. It makes development and testing easier through its MVC capacity.

• Angular JS has 164,633 unique domains framed. (SimilarTech)
• It also has a market share of 1.35%. (Bacancy Technology).
• 968,139 live websites are using Angular JS. (Bacancy technology)

Angular JS is preferred by many programmers because of the following:

• MVC architecture
• Data binding
• HTML template
• Testing capabilities
• Mobile support
• Dependency injection
• Programming based on components
• Typescript usage.

Now, we come to Angular CLI.

ANGULAR CLI

Any project needs a bundler. The bundlers in the market were Grunt, Gulp and Webpack. Grunt and Gulp bundled files and assets while the Webpack scanned import statements and maintained a dependency tree. This is where Angular CLI comes in.

CLI is short for Command Line Interface. It is a tool that simplifies Angular JS and allows programmers to create applications quickly. It develops builds that are optimized and runs end to end tests. Boilerplates for components, pipes, services, and directives can be created through the CLI along with Typescript functions such as classes and interfaces.

Angular CLI has an under-the-hood Webpack. It is preconfigured and ready to go. It also has an in built code generator. So how is Angular CLI different from Angular JS? To answer this, we need to look at why Angular CLI is required in the first place.

BENEFITS OF ANGULAR CLI

Setting up Angular JS can be a laborious and time consuming task. Without CLI, one would have to put a lot of effort into creating folders, adding package definition, and write all the boiler code.

• In case of excess HTML and CSS, it is required for both to be in separate style sheets. Without CLI, the programmer would have to manually create the templates and component class files.
• A lot of time is required to create bipolar plate codes for pipes, directives, services etc.
• Manual code reviews become tedious when multiple coders work on the same project without following conventions

However, Angular CLI can simplify all these tasks. With Angular CLI, the programmer or the coder is capable of:

• Creating a project from scratch
• Component, directive, and service scaffolding
• Linting or briefing the code
• Serve the angular application efficiently
• Run end to end tests.
• Save time by using the bipolar plates provided.

With these benefits, it can be concluded that CLI is an important integration to Angular JS. Now let us take a look at some differences between the two.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANGULAR JS AND ANGULAR CLI

• Angular JS can define the application and its components clearly.
• Angular CLI is an integration to keep things simple.
• Angular JS uses HTML and the language of the template.
• Angular CLI is more modular and uses node.js
• Angular JS is a framework that helps create web apps.
• Angular CLI helps automate routine tasks.

SASS is a CSS preprocessor. It stands for Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets. It gives additional features to CSS such as mixins, nested rules, and variables. Angular CLI, unlike Angular JS is compatible with SASS.

Now that we have established the differences, let us look at who all uses Angular and what all industries are being benefited by it.

ANGULAR USAGE

As of 2020, according to Similartech,

Angular JS and CLI had a 6.94% popularity in the Computers and Electronics industry. In the Finance sector, it was 3.26% while Science and Education saw 3.78%. Arts and Entertainments followed Computer industry at 4.73%.

Bacancy Technology determined that,

Angular JS was prioritized by 18.47% of business websites and 5.75% of shopping websites. Arts websites stood at 5.49% while Internet and Telecom came at 5.10%.

What can we conclude form this immense adoption of this framework?

CONCLUSION

Globally, Angular JS is used by Microsoft Office, Deutsche bank, PayPal, Upwork, Forbes, Gmail, Lyft, Udemy, Amazon, Snapchat, Stack, and Tokopedia among many others. When it comes to Angular CLI, the integration was done by industry players like Finance Active, KAVAK, ViaVarejo, uxcel, Yintrust, Armut, and Meg among others.

The Angular ecosystem lives up to its promise of reliable, robust, and rich front end development. It is a performance driven framework known for its efficiency. It also provides enterprise level testing options with projects such as QUnit, Jasmine, and Mocha. With faster testing capabilities, better CSS class, style binding, and better debugging, an integrated approach with Angular JS along with Angular CLI is the way forward for programmers and companies using it on their websites. At Orion we have a rich experience and expertise in building & scaling Angular JS and Angular CLI apps.