Now that the AngularJS JavaScript framework has reached end-of-life (EOL) status, the developers behind the next-generation, TypeScript-based Angular framework hope users of the original will move forward with the successor.
Originally released by Google in 2010, AngularJS reached EOL on December 31, with long-term support ceasing from the community. Users still can seek support from third parties including support services firms XLTS.dev and Perforce. The AngularJS source code still will be available on GitHub, via NPM, CDN, and Bower.
Although inspired by AngularJS, Google’s follow-up Angular is a different framework, using many of the same philosophies but rewritten in TypeScript in 2016. TypeScript provides static typing, supporting the development experience and helping to identify bugs before deployment into production, said Minko Gechev, Google developer relations engineer.
EOL status for AngularJS carries risks, stressed Javier Perez, open source evangelist at Perforce. ”When an open source community long-term support reaches end-of-life (EOL), no more patches are released. For users, the risk of using EOL versions of software is that if a new high severity or critical vulnerability is discovered, no patches will be available.”
Further, because AngularJS is widely used for web applications, changes to browsers could affect functionality, Perez added. AngularJS users, he explained, have four options, including keeping the app on AngularJS with EOL risks, rewriting apps to the latest version of Angular, rewriting using another JavaScript framework, or keeping the app on AngularJS and getting support.
AngularJS, Google’s Gechev said, “revolutionized” web development by allowing engineers to build complex business applications. It’s difficult to say how many users AngularJS still has, said Gechev, because the framework is often distributed as a JavaScript file directly referenced from a static server. Based on NPM downloads, Google estimates that 84 percent of the base of developers use Angular while 16 percent still use AngularJS.
Angular is positioned by Google as a “batteries included” framework with built-in best practices. It is intended to be evergreen and support every developer with evolving their applications, leveraging the ng update experience. Angular will continue to be released twice a year. Angular 13 was released in November, followed by point releases 13.1 and 13.1.1 in December.