Aurelia vs. Angular 2 — A Code Comparison

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Aurelia and Angular are progenies of JavaScript Angular 1, and everyone knows them to be ferocious competitors. The two rose to the limelight at around the same time. They used the same philosophy, even though there were notable differences between them. This article will help you  understand the differences between Angular 2 and Aurelia in code and features. Rob Eisenberg is the brain behind Aurelia. He created Caliburn and Durandal, and worked at Google on the Angular 2 team before leaving in 2014. He left Google because he differed with the team at Google about the supposed look of a modern framework. The similarities between Angular 2 and Aurelia are visible in various technical aspects. Custom elements and templates related to the two are vital, and the two types of coding methods require the user to have a root application or component. Both Aurelia and Angular rely heavily on detractors to help in configuring an array of components. Developers can hook into the lifecycle of each component they configure.

Differences between Angular 2 and Aurelia

According to Eisenberg, the main difference is the code. Aurelia’s code is inconspicuous. When you want to develop an Aurelia app after configuring it, you use TypeScript or ES6, and the templates look similar to HTML if you compare them to Angular. Aurelia uses configuration as opposed to convention, and a user will be fine using default methods such as element naming and template naming. Anyone who prefers to use Angular has to give configuration for everything they do.

Developers prefer Aurelia since it conforms to many standards, and because it is not case-sensitive when using HTML tags. Angular 2 is case-sensitive, meaning that developers cannot rely on the HTML parser from Angular.

A user also has to consider the ecosystem that surrounds the SPA frameworks, i.e. the community. Both Aurelia and Angular have every fundamental requirement that includes validation, template engine, and router. It is not hard for a user to use a third-party library or an inherent modal. However, many developers and users know that Angular has a large development team and wider community. Moreover, though the two frameworks are open sources, Google is the main developer of Angular and does not intend to use it for commercial purposes. However, Durandal, Inc. which is the employer of the core team, follows Ember.js’s method of monetization through training and consulting.

Code comparison of Angular and Aurelia

Let’s dive into the core features that underlie the philosophies of each coding method. After replicating the seed projects of Aurelia and Angular, there is a TypreScript Angular app (commonly called WebPack), and an ES6 app (which needs RequireJS in conjunction with TypeScript or ES6).

Data binding

Looking through the methods developers used in binding values from a controller to view, you will note several syntactical differences between Angular 2 and Aurelia. Note that Angular 1 applied dirty checking for all things, and this is the method that helped to reveal any changes in the code. This resulted in huge anomalies in performance. Fortunately, neither Aurelia nor Angular 2 used that path. Both applied event binding.

Angular 2: Data binding

Angular binds events using parentheses, and square brackets to bind data. Two-way binding is also a possibility in Angular 2 when a user wants any changes to appear in application data. Two-way binding is a combination of parenthesis and square brackets. Square brackets indicate any value that a user wants to push to input, while parentheses represent events. The team that developed Angular did detailed work in separating binding directions: bidirectional, from DOM, to DOM. Angular has a lot of syntax in styles and binding classes. If a user wants to bind two-way data into any component, the module in use must visit @angular/forms to import FormsModule. In case of any updates on the parent input, all values will change, but any modification on child’s input will only affect the particular child. If a user wants to update a certain parent value, they have to create an event that informs the parent, and the user has to name the event as property name + ‘Change’. Two-way binding only works well after binding ‘ngModelChange’ event.

In Angular 1, {{::value}} helped in one time binding. One-time binding in Angular 2 is more complicated since it uses change detection strategy in configuring components that make all bindings one-time. If you are knowledgeable about JavaScript and AngularJS, you can never be out of work. There are many offers of such projects on Freelancer.com, waiting for a person like you to make them successful. Browse through to choose any and enjoy working!  

Data binding using Aurelia method

As opposed to Angular 2, binding events and data in Aurelia are easy. You can use interpolation which is similar to property=”${value}” in Angular or use property.one-time, property.two-way, or property.one-way. The three alternate methods return similar value. Binding events in Aurelia is possible if a user makes use of .delegate or .trigger. The difference between the two is that .delegate includes a listener on the document while .trigger creates an event handler on the element that you are working on. This will save your resources, but it will not work for any non-bubbling events.

Commercial backing

Both Aurelia and Angular 2 are open source tasks that have a thriving community and a large team that surrounds each. Angular 2 will not disappear since it has many products, and it has a dedicated team in Google. However, you need to understand that Google does not offer any direct help or consultancy to the Angular 2 framework. If you need to build any applications using Angular 2, your only help comes from the community. Most of the community members that existed in Angular 1 will move to Angular 2. Also, Angular 2 is likely to have a large ecosystem that surpasses Aurelia’s.

Aurelia’s main backing comes from Blue Spire, and it is mainly involved in the provision of support and consulting services for all applications built using Aurelia. Since Blue Spire is a small company, some Aurelia users might fear the company may sink. However, since there is adequate approval of the Aurelia framework, the rich community and ecosystem that surround Aurelia can help users to get any help they might need.

Framework incursion

Aurelia coding is more silent than Angular 2. Angular 2 requires an unambiguous configuration for all things that a user does on their app, whereas Aurelia prefers convention over configuration. This will become clearer once you use your first application with either method. The Angular 2 version needs over 19 lines of bootstrapping affirmations code to know which  frameworks to pull, and the components a user has declared.

Aurelia does not need any root module affirmations or bootstrapping alignment since it has conventions that set the framework modules a user can apply. Therefore, Aurelia can bootstrap a user’s application with null corresponding alignment. Aurelia’s conventions suffice for many apps.

Moreover, each component a user defines in Angular 2 needs to have a decorator to help understand what CSS and HTML template is associated with which component. Every component helps to identify any services that a user will name as dependencies. Aurelia, on the other hand, needs no corresponding configuration for its Cascading Style Sheets or HTML, since it has a naming convention that gives them similar names apart from file extensions. A developer can override any conventions in Aurelia using configuration.

There are many syntactical differences between Angular 2 and Aurelia includes the number of extensions. The two coding methods also differ on how the developers keep the ecosystem informed of any upcoming changes. However, none of the changes should have dire consequences on individuals or companies when trying to choose which method to use. The two frameworks have exceptional performance and, though they may have varying differences on some benchmarks, none supersedes the other regarding performance. You cannot go wrong if you choose either framework. However, start by going through the differences here, and you will see which framework works best for you.

If you have access to more insights on Angular 2 and Aurelia, do not hesitate to give your thoughts in the comment section below!

 

Posted 31 August, 2017

LucyKarinsky

Software Developer

Lucy is the Development & Programming Correspondent for Freelancer.com. She is currently based in Sydney.

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