Don't abandon AngularDart, don't give up on AngularDart

[insinfo]

Don't abandon AngularDart, don't give up on AngularDart, me and my company are investing heavily in AngularDart, we are migrating all our web applications to AngularDart, I love Flutter for Mobile, but Flutter is not WEB-productive. WEB, we can't use many existing HTML and CSS templates, because in Flutter we can't use HTML and CSS.

• [x] Dart SDK 2.5.2
• [x] AngularDart 5.3.0
• [x] Windows 1903
• [x] Chrome 77

[supermuka]

My company is investing heavily in projects using AngularDart too. We are really fan this powerful framework and the possibility to use all html and css features necessary to complex web app.

Long life to the AngularDart and Components!

[oonid]

the documentation site still updated daily ^1, but the framework has no more updates since August 2019. ^2

[oonid]

good news, the framework ^1 get updates :laughing:

[DevAlves1993]

good news, the framework ^1 get updates laughing

Really good news, I was really worried about the inactivity of repo. I hope Flutter will take the developers to try AngularDart

[insinfo]

@DevAlves1993 I totally agree with you

I hope Flutter will take the developers to try AngularDart

[insinfo]

I see AngularDart as a much cleaner, nicer, organized and simple version of Angular. I particularly see TypeScript syntax very ugly and dirty. There are some areas of AngularDart that can improve, especially the router part and simpler forms of serialization.

[GowthamF]

I started learning Angular with TypeScript using some Udemy tutorials but I didn't even understand anything. So I had to give up on Angular. But After Flutter announces Flutter for Web I started learning Dart. It is really easy to learn. Since Flutter for Web is not yet ready for production, I moved to AngularDart. I learned everything using Documents. I was not able to find any Video Tutorials. Documentation is perfect for a beginner to learn it. I would really need Angular Dart to be added with some more features without giving it up.

[Bellski]

Long life to the AngularDart and Components!

[Dimous]

We need an official status update.

I heard Google uses AngularDart for AdWords and other teams also prefer Dart version. Is it still true?

[Bellski]

We need an official status update.

I heard Google uses AngularDart for AdWords and other teams also prefer Dart version. Is it still true?

Problem that AdWords was on GWT and we know what happened(

[quangv]

@Bellski

Problem that AdWords was on GWT and we know what happened

What happened?

[Bellski]

@Bellski

Problem that AdWords was on GWT and we know what happened

What happened?

Google moved from GWT to Dart. And stopped support GWT.

[insinfo]

@Bellski

Long life to the AngularDart and Components!

I really hope Google will not abandon AngularDart, otherwise my organization and I will be greatly damaged. If Flutter is successfully ported to the Web. I think AngularDart runs on Flutter, because the angular templates HTML can be compiled for Flutter widgets. I've seen some projects here on github that use compiled XML for Flutter widgets, so this is very possible.

[steida]

[timsneath]

Hi there -- thank you for your passion for AngularDart! It's always exciting to see others who are getting value out of this project. It's encouraging to see this issue get a ton of thumbs up.

Firstly, let me (partly) reassure you. AngularDart is not going away and is as actively developed as ever, although we have shifted our focus a little.

As you have noticed, our activity on GitHub has become more bursty in recent months. Because of the heavy usage of AngularDart internally within Google, we moved the primary source of truth to google3, our internal mono-repo. Our goal is to push out new code to GitHub periodically, and we're in the process of automating this so that we’re able to improve the frequency of these syncs. And as you've seen, in the past few days, a large number of changes have landed from a broad set of contributors that bring GitHub up to date.

But yes: we also want to be honest that our focus has shifted somewhat, recognizing the heavy internal usage of AngularDart and comparatively low external developer base. AngularDart is ideal for large-scale data-heavy apps like AdWords with millions of lines of code, but there just aren't that many of this kind of app externally, and we've gradually recognized that. Externally we have a loyal but relatively small following, but AngularDart is probably never going to be a broad general-purpose web framework. Conversely, we have a growing audience of thousands of Google engineers using AngularDart internally, and so most of the features we build are with that audience in mind, knowing that what they need will likely also be of value to external developers.

Lastly, we want to recognize that with the emergence of Flutter’s support for the web, we have other motivations to continue to develop Dart web scenarios - from improved IDE tooling to compilers. In fact, our level of investment in web tooling for Dart is higher than ever, with more engineers working in this space than at any previous point in the project's history.

So, to summarize:

• We're continuing to develop AngularDart, although our orientation has slightly shifted towards our internal audience, where it's proven very successful.
• We will continue to release AngularDart builds externally to GitHub. Success for the project isn't measured by us in how many millions of external web developers adopt it, but we are delighted to have you as a customer if it suits your needs.

[supermuka]

@timsneath, I think it is very important to have information about the next steps of Google products.

First, it is a gratitude that we have Google sharing its technologies. As a company admired for its audacity, business models and technology many seek to mirror and use what is available to it, especially when open source.

I have been following and using Dart Lang for several years. It is a wonderful technology. However, one point has always made me apprehensive and anxious about the future: Lack of clear communication about the next steps, especially about the scope of development and release milestones.

As an open source product, in which many use and would also like to contribute to development, I see as important an additional effort to clearly manage communication, thereby aligning the expectations of both Google's internal team and external community.

An improvement in this sense, in addition to aligning expectations, would cause the community in general to create greater confidence about the future and thus generate greater adoption of Dart Lang, AngularDart, etc.

The technology is fantastic, I think adding a dash of management would make it even better.

[michalpie]

@timsneath How about AngularDart Components (angular_components) package? Will you also continue to release it on GitHub?

[CoreyCole]

@michalpie see here https://github.com/dart-lang/angular_components/issues/356#issuecomment-553591102

It is the same story as AngularDart, slower release cadence pace

[jodinathan]

We have almost no interest to change from AngularDart to Flutter for web in the next years because we have so many components being used that would need a great amount of work to make the change. However, if there were something that can export angular dart components to widgets then it is a whole other story...

[Standaa]

I am simply amazed by how little effort was put by Google in pushing the Dart Version of Angular. It is simply miles ahead of Angular Ts in terms of simplicity and intuitivity. Working with AngularDart has been a real pleasure so far. It would only take better documentation and potentially some bridges to Flutter to make it an easy alternative to Angular Ts.

[levinem]

Is the version of Angular targeted by AngularDart internally at Google keeping up with the latest regular Angular releases (i.e. the 9.0 version)? The version on github seems to be a bit behind the main Angular releases. I am almost more inclined to use the regular Angular only to take advantage of the new Ivy capabilities versus those in the 5.0 Angular version targeted by AngularDart. In general, though, thanks so much for your work on this product!

[kevmoo]

Is the version of Angular targeted by AngularDart internally at Google keeping up with the latest regular Angular releases (i.e. the 9.0 version)?

Hey @levinem – while both flavors of Angular (JS/TS vs Dart) share a history, they have diverged in many ways – mostly to align better with features in their respective platforms and to address issues with their core customers.

[levinem]

Is the version of Angular targeted by AngularDart internally at Google keeping up with the latest regular Angular releases (i.e. the 9.0 version)?

Hey @levinem – while both flavors of Angular (JS/TS vs Dart) share a history, they have diverged in many ways – mostly to align better with features in their respective platforms and to address issues with their core customers.

Thanks @kevmoo , I had thought that AngularDart was a Dart interface to the Angular main compiler, but it sounds like the underlying compiler infrastructures are not fundamentally connected and that AngularDart will try to keep the main interfaces and concepts similar to those in the JS/TS Angular project to enable a familiar interface for existing JS/TS Angular developers.

[kevmoo]

AngularDart will try to keep the main interfaces and concepts similar to those in the JS/TS Angular project to enable a familiar interface for existing JS/TS Angular developers.

@levinem – I wouldn't go that far. The engineering teams are friendly, but they are separate teams. There is no explicit goal to keep things aligned – but there is no incentive to diverge either, unless there is a good reason.

[Stargator]

@timsneath I worked for 2 years on a project that was angularjs, in the last 8 months I was on the project, the team migrated to AngularDart. We rebuilt everything in AngularDart.

We also created Dart-based command line tools to ease our development workflow.

The team was sold on the migration due to A) Dart's capabilities, B) Ease of taking existing web elements (HTML, CSS, and JS) into AngularDart variations, and C) Google's own investment and use of AngularDart for its Adwords, and other internal products.

The project is within the government space, so I cannot share details. But the product we developed consisted of over 15-20 microservices (including the angular-dart web client).

I hope this can tell you that it is absolutely an enterprise application. We needed Dart's strong type system so that we reduce the ambiguity within our logic.

AngularDart has a space externally from Google, but Google HAS to be public with its support.

My last point, AngularDart, and the Dart platform itself, should allow dart:html to exist so that other frameworks and/or smaller apps can be built.

If Google doesn't show support and love for Dart and AngularDart like it does for Flutter, then it's all going to fall apart. That would be a shame, because there's real gold here.

And I concur with @supermuka about next steps for Dart and Angular Dart. These need to be public, even if short-term. Otherwise, no one will engage with what appears to be a ghost town run by ghosts.

[insinfo]

@timsneath First of all, I would like to thank you for your words and feedback.

@Stargator

If Google doesn't show support and love for Dart and AngularDart like it does for Flutter, then it's all going to fall apart. That would be a shame, because there's real gold here.

I totally agree with you, I am also working on several AngularDart projects for the Government of Brazil, I love AngularDart, I love the dart, we cannot let this wonderful tool die.

[kevmoo]

We're actively working to onboard someone to start the external rolls of angulardart. We're blocked by some paperwork, but we're working through it.

Thank you all for your interest and patience!

[anton-marchenko]

https://github.com/dart-lang/angular/issues/1866#issuecomment-571851626

AngularDart is ideal for large-scale data-heavy apps like AdWords with millions of lines of code

@timsneath Sorry about non-subject question. Please, could you tell me how you develop such large-scale apps if there is no even data-tables in angular_components? Do you develop any internal Google UI Kit for that?

Because now we are developing an Angular Dart application (it was customer's choice) and we have a lot of question about angular_components. Our UI/UX architect makes mock ups according to https://material.io/design/ but we can not found some material components (data-tables or grid system, for example) in angular_components for design implementation.

Could you recomend something for us? Thank you!

[oonid]

@anton-marchenko Google has its own data table components, that's planned to release to angular_components since Q4 2018, but still not happening till today.

there are several open-source components that you can use from pub.dev.

[mmcc007]

Showcasing that AngularDart is not that difficult to learn and has potential for community adoption: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X88k6kTuNw&list=PL3UwowPBo8XHbU4llLYZKY-FOofDLMv8S Starts from scratch, all the way to a working app with a firebase backend. Easy to follow-along while coding the same app and listening to rationale for each coding step.

By the way, the presenter has a engaging teaching style that I think works well for developers.

[szepeshazi]

@anton-marchenko We have build a number of Material Components that were missing from the official Angular Components library (data table included). See the gallery at https://skawa-universe.github.io/skawa_components_example/, the sources https://github.com/skawa-universe/skawa_components, and the published packages at https://pub.dev/packages?q=skawa+components

[anton-marchenko]

@anton-marchenko We have build a number of Material Components that were missing from the official Angular Components library (data table included). See the gallery at https://skawa-universe.github.io/skawa_components_example/, the sources https://github.com/skawa-universe/skawa_components, and the published packages at https://pub.dev/packages?q=skawa+components

@szepeshazi Thank you for your feedback. Unfortunately we have a limit time budget for our project. Because of this we convince the customer and rewrote the whole our project to Angular TypeScript. Moreover, we did NOT found that skawa table is component that completely satisfying our humble needs (we need a simple material table component like this, with a pagination, opportunity to put components inside cells and handle clicks inside cells).

By the way, our issue with lack of a full-functional material table in Angular Dart was a crucial point for deciding to move to Angular TypeScript.

[axegon]

Hi there -- thank you for your passion for AngularDart! It's always exciting to see others who are getting value out of this project. It's encouraging to see this issue get a ton of thumbs up.

Firstly, let me (partly) reassure you. AngularDart is not going away and is as actively developed as ever, although we have shifted our focus a little.

As you have noticed, our activity on GitHub has become more bursty in recent months. Because of the heavy usage of AngularDart internally within Google, we moved the primary source of truth to google3, our internal mono-repo. Our goal is to push out new code to GitHub periodically, and we're in the process of automating this so that we’re able to improve the frequency of these syncs. And as you've seen, in the past few days, a large number of changes have landed from a broad set of contributors that bring GitHub up to date.

But yes: we also want to be honest that our focus has shifted somewhat, recognizing the heavy internal usage of AngularDart and comparatively low external developer base. AngularDart is ideal for large-scale data-heavy apps like AdWords with millions of lines of code, but there just aren't that many of this kind of app externally, and we've gradually recognized that. Externally we have a loyal but relatively small following, but AngularDart is probably never going to be a broad general-purpose web framework. Conversely, we have a growing audience of thousands of Google engineers using AngularDart internally, and so most of the features we build are with that audience in mind, knowing that what they need will likely also be of value to external developers.

Lastly, we want to recognize that with the emergence of Flutter’s support for the web, we have other motivations to continue to develop Dart web scenarios - from improved IDE tooling to compilers. In fact, our level of investment in web tooling for Dart is higher than ever, with more engineers working in this space than at any previous point in the project's history.

So, to summarize:

• We're continuing to develop AngularDart, although our orientation has slightly shifted towards our internal audience, where it's proven very successful.
• We will continue to release AngularDart builds externally to GitHub. Success for the project isn't measured by us in how many millions of external web developers adopt it, but we are delighted to have you as a customer if it suits your needs.

@timsneath, so in essence, do you plan on making any sorts of releases anytime soon? This is a dead serious question since we have an extremely large project at work, which by all means is comparable to AdWords. We have reached a point where we need to re-do a lot of the frontend, and while I rarely do anything there, I would like to use anything other than javascript(or typescript, which still lives within the Stephen King realm of horror that is the npm ecosystem: fun to read, not so much to live in). With this in mind, AngularDart seems like the only viable alternative. New releases and updates,

[Standaa]

Come on @axegon, soldier on. Microsoft just acquired npm and will finally make it super reliable. /s What do you currently miss from AngularDart apart from UI comps ? The framework is a bit rough on the edges, but surely nothing is a deal breaker ?

Personally I don't get the enthusiasm for Flutter web. Correct me if I am wrong but it will make apps run on a canvas, the same way Flash worked ? If so performance will never be amazing.

[axegon]

@stanislasdrg even if an alien species acquires npm, it is far beyond repair(assuming there was something that could be repaired at all, considering it's js). To be fair I don't miss anything from AngularDart. But much like anything else, you don't want to use something that isn't supported in any way, do you? It's all fun and games until everything stops working.

Flutter web, while promising is not a viable solution for anything other than mobile web I'm afraid. I played around with it some time ago - great performance, 0 usability on desktop(you can check my github.io for an example).

[kevmoo]

We are actively working to bring on the resources needed to continue releasing this package.

Sadly, timing aligned with global events to slow everything down.

Please know this is important to the team and we continue to make progress – just at a pace we all wish was quicker.

[insinfo]

@kevmoo thank you for your words and feedback. this gives me hope for an AngularDart with active and vibrant development again.

[graphicbeacon]

@kevmoo @timsneath Thank you for reassuring us that you intend to keep the framework going. I was wondering whether to keep making AngularDart tutorials so your responses tell me to continue doing so. @mmcc007 Thanks for sharing the playlist 😉

[j1i-ian]

The flutter is inspired by React. I know redux is pretty good pattern but it has limits on any web architectures, and not friendly web than Angular.

Cheer AngularDart, you should attract nest, ivy, karma or many developers. I hope really to activate this project.

[refi64]

Looks like we're getting another sync soon! https://github.com/dart-lang/angular/pull/1892

[jodinathan]

Looks like we're getting another sync soon! #1892

that pr seems quite big

[e-belair]

sdk: ">=2.8.1 <3.0.0", that should solve many dependencies constraints errors (and create new ones :rofl: )

[Stargator]

@kevmoo @timsneath I recommend you pin this issue so folks find it easier and hopefully avoid creating new issues on the same topic.

[insinfo]

Very good to know that there is work behind the scenes.

https://github.com/dart-lang/angular/pull/1892

[francovp]

I think this tweet from @timsneath "Group Product Manager for Flutter and Dart" from Google makes it clear.

Flutter Web is the priority for Google

[graphicbeacon]

I think this tweet from the "Group Product Manager for Flutter and Dart" from Google makes it clear.

Flutter Web is the priority for Google

Guess I'll be cutting down on the AngularDart tutorials then.

[DartViet]

I think this tweet from @timsneath "Group Product Manager for Flutter and Dart" from Google makes it clear.

Flutter Web is the priority for Google

This is too bad... you don't have to draw everything on canvas. Angular Dart has so much potential... . Dart is getting fame because of Flutter, people start learning it,... Angular Dart is good for anyone familiar with Angular TS, and this is the right tool to use. Imagine... Angular Dart, Aqueduct, Flutter... we are kicking Javascript left and right... (as someone with background of .net C#, words can't describe how much I dislike Javascript) Come on.

[axegon]

I think this tweet from @timsneath "Group Product Manager for Flutter and Dart" from Google makes it clear. Flutter Web is the priority for Google

This is too bad... you don't have to draw everything on canvas. Angular Dart has so much potential... . Dart is getting fame because of Flutter, people start learning it,... Angular Dart is good for anyone familiar with Angular TS, and this is the right tool to use. Imagine... Angular Dart, Aqueduct, Flutter... we are kicking Javascript left and right... (as someone with background of .net C#, words can't describe how much I dislike Javascript) Come on.

Absolutely! Granted that the sync goes through sometime in the near future, I think someone should fork it and try to build a community around it and hopefully keep it alive. Personally, I'd be more than happy to contribute, despite having some time constraints.

[supermuka]

I think this tweet from @timsneath "Group Product Manager for Flutter and Dart" from Google makes it clear. Flutter Web is the priority for Google

This is too bad... you don't have to draw everything on canvas. Angular Dart has so much potential... . Dart is getting fame because of Flutter, people start learning it,... Angular Dart is good for anyone familiar with Angular TS, and this is the right tool to use. Imagine... Angular Dart, Aqueduct, Flutter... we are kicking Javascript left and right... (as someone with background of .net C#, words can't describe how much I dislike Javascript) Come on.

Absolutely! Granted that the sync goes through sometime in the near future, I think someone should fork it and try to build a community around it and hopefully keep it alive. Personally, I'd be more than happy to contribute, despite having some time constraints.

Sometimes, I think, because AngularDart is so fantastic**** and Google uses it a lot internally, Google may not want to share with the community this powerful structure that allows to develop in a pleasant way, magnificent, robust and complex applications.

I've been hoping to see updates for a long time, but it's becoming increasingly clear in the leaders' messages that the focus is different. Unfortunately!

Perhaps there will be two ways to see the evolution of AngularDart: working at Google :) or the community fork and evolve the framework itself.

[timsneath]

You might want to stop copying that image into every reply, since it makes it harder to follow the thread :)

I know that this is a nuanced message, which therefore runs the risk of misinterpretation, so let me reiterate a few things:

1. We're continuing to actively develop AngularDart
2. Our primary audience is more Google-centric than it used to be, because we're seeing heavy usage in critical projects that pay our salaries
3. We're continuing to ship new builds externally, and we have one on the way when we've resolved various sync issues
4. We know AngularDart is fantastic: and we're glad you know, @supermuka :)
5. Flutter's web support isn't ready yet, we know. We're investing there because we are excited about it's long-term potential and we want to give it the very best shot at success.
6. No need for the community to fork AngularDart, since we're continuing to release new builds -- although of course you're welcome to do so as you always have been -- it's open source, after all!