State of JavaScript Survey: 2018 Edition – Criticism from an Angular Perspective

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Recently, the results of the 2018 edition of the State of JavaScript survey have been published.

As usual, the report comes with handy categories such as front-end, data layer, testing or mobile.

While I very much support the idea of creating a yearly survey of the JavaScript landscape and this survey in particular, which I have been supporting since its inception, there’s a major issue with this year’s edition:

In contrast to its previous editions the survey results lump together (or at least the questions were – intentionally or not – imprecise enough to not make that important distinction) AngularJS and Angular. Not only are those two completely different frameworks but the latter also – for all pragmatic intents and purposes – can be considered legacy. The answer to “Used it, would not use again” for AngularJS in almost all cases would be a resounding “Yes!”, simply because using AngularJS for new projects doesn’t make sense in 2018. By conflating Angular with AngularJS this is bound to skew the results to the detriment of Angular.

I can attest to the fact that outside of what seems to be a mostly Silicon Valley-based, React-centred bubble Angular indeed is highly popular and is frequently used for new projects. Now, I don’t deny that due to running a consulting business that exclusively works for business clients – SME as well as enterprise – I myself in a way am part of a bubble (which I’d say is a rather large one, though …). In that particular bubble, however, Angular currently is by far the most widely used framework. With its clear structure, features like dependency injection and the extensive gamut of patterns and techniques for forms (both of the declarative, template-driven and the reactive variety) Angular provides it lends itself particularly well to being used for form-based, SQL database-backed CRUD and business process applications.

To his credit, Sacha Greif, one of the people behind the State of JavaScript survey, addresses this issue in this article answering to the criticism levelled at the 2018 edition of the survey.

So, hopefully the survey creators will take this feedback into account for the 2019 edition.

About the author: Bjoern
Independent IT consultant, entrepreneur
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