After working with AngularJS for a couple of months now, I can finally express a concise answer to “What is AngularJS?”
It is:
- MVC where the model is on the client side
- MVC where the view is a template based in the .html, and is rendered on the client side
- MVC where the controller is “live” – changes to the model reflect in the template immediately
The key: “on the client side”. No more complicated mappings inside your .jsp from fields to Java objects, no more complicated mappings from “post actions” to specialized controllers that track the application state. No more painting the initial page one way with .jsp and then updates with AJAX. It replaces your .jsp template with more more natural .html with embedded template variables and controls, and keeps everything straight.
AngularJS throws in a couple of “neat tricks” – dependency injection, testability, separation of client-server, scope. But AngularJS’s two tag lines: “HTML enhanced for web apps” and “AngularJS — Superheroic JavaScript MVW Framework” — don’t provide much neither of which is very helpful.
AngularJS (or some other library that does MVC-client-side better, now that the secret is out of the bag) is the wave of the future. The productivity gains are incredible. It is literally easier to re-write your .jsp and implement that one new feature than it is just to extend your .jsp.