Is FCC still pushing React over Angular 2?

Back in the early days Free Code Camp focused on Angular1. A while after they started getting popular, it was decided, due to a number of factors, to switch to React (one being that Angular was getting a total workover from Google and nobody knew what to expect from Angular 2 – also making Angular 1 training redundant)

Well I’ve been working with Angular 2 and while it still needs a few kinks worked out (it’s still in beta) it is shaping up to be a magnificent system. I really feel Google created something quality that is going to be a big part of web development in the future.

So, has anyone considered Angular 2 or will frontend projects on FCC stay React focused?

You can’'t use angular for a react challenge, but you can use angular for the dynamic web apps on the backend section instead of react.

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@P1xt I’ve also been using Angular2 instead of React for the Data Viz challenges. React just didn’t make sense in my head and Angular2 does. If that means I can’t “complete” the DataViz certificate, then so be it. I’m still creating all of the DataViz projects and they have the same functionality/features. The only difference being that I’ve chosen Angular2 over React.

I did message someone about adding a channel to the FCC gitter for Angular2 because the DataViz channel is fairly useless to me as everyone in there is, understandably, talking about React.

Would love to see A2 accepted in place of React so I can complete that certificate when the time comes, but not too arsed if they don’t.

Well I haven’t got my last three certifications because of react, I currently excel at backend but I want to learn a framework before I finish the backend cert projects, I have two projects left to finish with react but currently react owns me and I did one project for D3 and svg gave me a hard time so I have been dancing around and what not.

I’m currently not a fan of React and I haven’t done anything with Angular 1 or 2

I struggled with React for like 2 months. I got nothing accomplished in that time because none of it clicked in my head. It killed my motivation.

I picked up Angular2 about 2 weeks ago and I just finished Camper Leaderboard yesterday and started the Recipe Box this morning. It makes so much more sense to me than React and it’s rekindled my motivation to actually sit down and build things.

well I know what you are talking about with the motivation, did you use codepen or did you have to go local for it? Care to share?

I quit using codepen when I started the basic front end projects just cause it ran so slowly for me on my old laptop and I have been actually deploying all of my projects to my own website on the web.

Unfortunately, I haven’t actually learned how to deploy any of my A2 apps yet (part of the reason I asked about an A2 gitter channel), so they exist only locally at the moment. Otherwise, I’d show you what I’ve built!

First time I’ve heard of surge - thanks for sharing

I understand that FCC officially pushes React, but really, since we are (mostly) all grown-ass-adults, we can do what we like :wink:

FCC likely won’t validate your work for the cert, but the cert doesn’t mean much to me anyway, it’s the projects I build on the way. So to me, a nice looking Leaderboard in Angular 2 is better than losing the will to live with React.

I’m still plugging away at learning React at the moment, but my motivation is next to none. I haven’t given it a good crack yet, though, so I’m gonna try and get a project done before I decide whether to kill it. Usually, I code every night for FCC, but since starting React I’ve started finding procrastination routines kick in: ‘Oh, let’s install a dual boot of Linux’, ‘Oh, I wonder if Walking War Robots or Vainglory has had any good updates since I started FCC?’…

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Give Angular 2 a shot here: https://angular.io/docs/ts/latest/quickstart.html

I found it made a LOT more sense than React.

Your certs will be ‘validated’ when you apply to do the nonprofit projects, at which point FCC will ask another camper to review your projects to confirm that they fulfil the specified user stories. (And also that you haven’t plagiarised them.) They are not asked to look at the code itself. Honestly, I don’t think anyone will really care if you use Angular instead of React.

That said, for the nonprofit projects you will be paired with another camper, and you’ll be creating code that other, future campers will have to work with — who may well have experience only with React and Node/Express — so that’s the ‘default’ FCC technology stack you’ll probably be expected to use…

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The javascript tutorial is not even completed yet.

Are you talking about the Javascript tutorial for Angular2? If so, just do Typescript. It’s worth learning about Typescript for a large number of reasons.

I also found react to be incredibly hard. There is no doubt about it. These are the topics which are in react

  1. react api
  2. reactdom api
  3. understanding flux architecture
  4. redux
  5. relay
  6. flow

then, in react api , you have to implement jsx and es2015. ES2015 is not a big issue but you do have to learn it.

The other problem is understanding lifecycle hooks. There are lifecycle hooks and you have to put ajax calls in one component, some other type of functions in other hooks.

Its definitely hard. Good to see, I am not the only one who is stuck with react for so long :slight_smile:

D3 is also different beast in itself. But, d3 is irreplacable. I am also okish with d3 and I feel like, I will be able to pull it through.
But, react did gave me nightmares.

There is also one big problem with angular vs react , “community”.

There are large number of support for angular 2. If I go out, I might be able to find teacher to teach me angular 2. I can ask him questions and its considerably cheaper than hiring react tutor.

But, there is huge difference between angular 2 and react philosophy. ANgular is framework and it is trying to do too many things at same time. React is only “view” part of mvc and pretty clean.

So, I have strong feeling react will win big time in coming future over angular 2.

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Why is there such a strong dislike for React? I’ve been using it for a short time (about a couple of weeks) and managed to start working on the game of life project after a couple of days of reading the docs and setting up Babel and react locally. I’ll admit I’m not very good with it yet, but it seems intuitive and I really like using JSX. It simplifies things to the point where everything in your React app is a component represented by JSX and they use “props” to pass values around (usually from parent to child) and “state” is changed depending on these props.

Of course Angular might end up being a better/simpler tool but I can’t comment because I haven’t tried it yet. However, React certainly is useful once you get past the hurdle of finding JSX weird to look at, and the slightly obscure docs. It also helps that it’s a very small package of tools, instead of a large framework. Angular looks a lot more intimidating to me.

In the end, I don’t mind FCC pushing React, but I do feel people should have a choice of using either front end library/framework for these projects, although it might lead to a ton of beginners wasting too much time trying to find which one they should use rather keep coding projects.

A disclaimer: I haven’t used Angular or React for a massive project, like a website, (haven’t used Angular at all, in fact) where I think their differences and qualities will show better. A lot of far more experienced programmers are in this thread and I’d actually like to know what the perks of going with Angular 2 over React are from people who’ve used, or tried to use, both.

I wouldn’t describe myself as “far more experienced”, but I have built the Markdown Previewer in both, so I’ll use that as my lens to comment on the two.

I think my issue with React is that it’s a little too amorphous. It isn’t opinionated. It probably gives it more future flexibility to do more different things, but it forces learners to make a lot of decisions up front. Those decision processes mean newbies have to go off and research lots of ancillary technologies. Since React is only the V, you have to figure out the M and the C.

Angular2 on the other hand is very opinionated. Lots of the things you need to build an app are built-in. There aren’t as many decisions to make, as many rabbit holes to disappear down. It provides the M, the V, and the C. The A2 documentation is miles ahead of the React docs and getting better as A2 gets closer to release.

Simplified:

Q: "How do you do X in React?"
A: “It depends on if you’re using A, B, or C.”

Q: "How do you do X in Angular2?"
A: “This is how you do X in Angular2.”

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I have to agree that forcing us to use React is a bit annoying. Especially since Angular seems to be more of a standard (there are tons of jobs for Angular compared to a paltry few for React in my country). I’m definitely going to have to look into Angular, because while making the Recipe Box, I was frustrated enough to give up on FCC for a few days and focus on other work. Although that might be bad pre-planning on my part rather than React’s fault.

Also, what exactly does Angular have that causes me to write more opinionated/structured code? I’m not sure if I should keep going with React or just jump ship to Angular now.

I believe that using any framework be it css or js for such a small project as recipe box is overkill. React was made for HUUUUGE codebase, using it for two text inputs and a button that will append the recipe is just laughable. Same goes for bootstrap or foundation. Those few elements that you need can be written from scratch. If someone has time a really good article describing this problem: Why Javascript Development is Crazy

From the job postings I have seen, almost everyone around my area is working / looking for someone who knows React. I believe React was picked in FCC, because someone believed React will overthrow Angular from the JS throne.

I’m not sure if I should keep going with React or just jump ship to Angular now.

Quoting from another great article: https://medium.freecodecamp.com/being-a-developer-after-40-3c5dd112210

Do not worry about hype.
Keep doing your thing, keep learning what you were learning, and move
on. Pay attention to it only if you have a genuine interest, or if you
feel that it could bring you some benefit in the medium or long run.

I hope that answers your question :smiley:

…which is the only change I want to see coming down the pipe in September, but I’m not hopeful.

I’d quite like to take a crack at Ember as well. Yehuda Katz is so likeable on podcasts I figure Ember must be pretty good :slight_smile:

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