Angular 8.0: Check out Exciting Facts

All anticipation and speculation are over. Google finally released its latest version Angular 8.0 in May. It arrived just at the right time; six months after the launch of Angular in 7.0. 

As expected, Google has made some changes with a focus on performance and workflow enhancements. One of the biggest changes is the introduction of Ivy, Angular’s new runtime compiler. Apart from that, there are several other upgraded features in the new variant such as support for TypeScript 3.4, differential loading, Bazel support, and more. 

Thus, let’s find out what’s new in Angular 8.0 

Support for TypeScript 3.4 

The Angular 8.0 extends its support to the TypeScript 3.4 version. TypeScript is a Microsoft-based open-source programming language, which provides an optional static typing facility. However, developers using TypeScript will need to upgrade to the latest version. TypeScript 3.4 offers various advantages such as generating clean, clear and readable JavaScript codes. 

Ivy Hogs the Limelight 

As mentioned, the Ivy render engine has been the show’s topper in the Angular 8.0 release. Ivy acts both as a runtime compiler and rendering pipeline. Google has asked developers not for a preview version for development purposes as it is still in the experimental phase. Therefore, you can create an application using an enable-ivy flag if you want to test it. 

The Ivy Comprises of Two Major Concepts

  • Local, which helps in recompiling components 
  • Tree Shakable to remove unused codes 

How the Ivy preview will benefit the developers 

  • Ships pre-compiled code 
  • Easier to read and debug the code at runtime. 
  • Reduces Angular App bundle size ‘Hello World’ from 30 KB to a mere 2.7 KB, which is almost equal to 93%. 
  •  Decreases the loading time of Hello World from 4 seconds to 2.2 seconds.
  • Developers don’t need any Metadata.json. 
  • The payload size gets enhanced.

Differential Loading 

The Angular 8.0 will also support various browsers along with different bundles by default. The CLI (Command-Line Interface) extension creates more distinct bundles for both old and new JavaScript browsers. This is known as differential loading. 

The differential loading process allows browsers to choose new or old bundles based on their ability. Once chosen, the bundle gets automatically loaded. Users receive the bundle they need upon loading the application. 

For example, if you are using an ng update, tsconfig.json gets upgraded. The Command-Line Interface focuses on the target JS level in tscongfig.json to check if developers can benefit from the differential loading or not. 

Differential loading helps to speed up the development process using advanced syntax and smaller polyfills. Differential loading also helps to increase the loading speed of modern browsers to accelerate the interaction time. Advanced browsers can reduce the bundle size by 7 to 20% on average. 

Bazel: Creating the Hype 

When we analyze the updates and changes in Angular 8.0, it becomes important to highlight Bazel. Bazel is a Google-based open-source powerful tool that helps in tracking dependencies between packages and building targets. Bazel can function with any language input. 

Bazel allows you to-

  • Use the same tool to develop both client-side and server-side applications 
  • Clearly, define the tasks based on inputs and outputs to run the important ones. 

Enhanced Support for Web Worker Bundling

Web workers play an important role in simplifying and speeding the CPU-based intensive tasks. You can write code away from the main thread and task to a different background thread. 

However, you may have to face a challenge here. The code that runs on the web worker will not remain in a similar JavaScript file. Thus, you need to separate them, which at times can be tedious if working with Angular CLI tools. 

The Angular 8.0 provides complete parallelization of web worker bundling. Parallelizing helps front-end developers to streamline application development, which isn’t possible with single thread limitations. 

Improvements in ViewChild and ContentChild 

The Angular JS Development Services version 8.0 offers a Boolean static flag, focusing on an instance of  ViewChild and ContentChild. These instances can be accessed in ngOnInit. However, at times you cannot view them until the use of programming code ngAfterContentInit or ngAfterViewInit. The elements get loaded into DOM due to the data binding process. 

Seamless Migration to Angular.js 

With Angular 8.0 in place, it enables a LocationUpgradeModule in the Angular.js applications. It has allowed developers to seamlessly migrate applications to Angular.js with the help of a unified location service. 

Moreover, the LocationUpgradeModule can shift its base from $location service to Angular Location. It simplifies the development of hybrid applications depending on ngUpgrade.

Opt-in Usage Sharing 

We can describe it as one of the interesting assets Angular 8.0. Opt-in usage sharing has been introduced to specifically suit the community’s needs. Angular.js will only collect anonymous data when they are allowed to. 

The developers have access to commands used to build and accelerate application development. The developers can also share telemetry regarding CLI usage with their respective team members. The consent about data sharing improves development tools. 

The Final Words 

Angular 8.0 brings several other impressive features with support for SVG templates, lazy loading with dynamic imports, access to dart saas for SaaS files, and more. However, in order to reap the full comprehensive benefits of the latest version, you need to get in touch with a reliable and proficient Angular.js Development Company to upgrade your framework.