The Front-end Framework

Let’s visit the Front-end, the layer that matters to the users/clients the most. First part of the front-end layer is a framework. We need some kind of a mechanism to manage the data on the client as well. We need to update that data when a user interacts with the application in terms of page navigation, a button click , a mouse hover and so many other ways.

Currently there are numerous front-end frameworks around. Lets look some of the javascript ones:

jQuery: It is not really a framework. More like a library, just a tool to make implementing what you want to do easier. It makes things like HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, animation, and Ajax much simpler with an easy-to-use API that works across a multitude of browsers.

Angularjs: Created by google , Angularjs was a revolution in terms of front-end frameworks, which enabled developers to apply various design patters in the front-end. The concept of models and controllers appeared in the front-end. The directives took code reusability to another level. The concept of directives was closer to component based programming. The recently released angular2.0 is totally based on components and totally different from angular 1.0 . According to me they might have even called it something totally different, instead of angular 2.

Reactjs: Written by Facebook, ReactJS is purely based on components. It implements virtual DOM , which in simple terms , enables to re-render on the the different part of the page instead of rendering the whole page again.This makes React so fast and efficient.

Backbonejs: It is a lightweight MVC framework. Born in 2010, it quickly grew popular as a lean alternative to heavy, full-featured MVC frameworks such as ExtJS. This resulted in many services adopting it, including Pinterest, Flixster, AirBNB and others.

Emberjs: Starting its life as the SproutCore MVC framework, originally developed by SproutIt and later by Apple, it was forked in 2011 by Yehuda Katz, a core contributor to the popular jQuery and Ruby on Rails projects. Notable Ember users include Yahoo!, Groupon, and ZenDesk.

Apart from these for mobile , React-Native is really good and gaining popularity with time. Angular is coming up with their native script as well now , apart from frameworks like Ionic already in place to create mobile apps. Also read this post to have a better understanding of native, transpiled or hybrid technologies.

Part of this parent blogpost.