Top 6 AngularJS Best Practices and Tips

The success of any application that you develop significantly depends on the kind of development practices that you use. AngularJS development works with the same principle.

AngularJS is an open-source JavaScript framework which is used to build frontend applications. It has extensive community and modular support. AngularJS, which is developed and maintained by Google, provides you with all the requisite tools that are useful in creating and managing dynamic front-end web apps.

AngularJS is a popular framework among developers because of the community support that it enjoys and its approach to web design. AngularJS has been used to power up many high-traffic websites like Google, Gmail, Virgin America, PayPal, Netflix, etc.

The rich experience of the framework that developers worldwide have gained through the last decade has evolved into AngularJS best practices, and these have worked to help AngularJS counterparts to develop incredible applications on this framework. 

In this blog post, we have attempted to put together six of the best AngularJS performance tips that other developers can use and benefit from when using this framework.

6 AngularJS Best Development Practices

These AngularJS methods, if put to use during development using this framework, can help to simplify work and also contribute to a well-performing front-end application. They are listed below:

1: Writing Angular JS code

The best practices suggested for writing Angular JS code are, firstly, to use small and pure functions. Small functions are both easy to test as well as maintain. Pure functions are designed to yield output, as per the input provided. They do not work to change the input but only deliver the output. Further, dividing the code into separate modules and allowing each module to be responsible for a single functionality makes for cleaner code-writing practice. A controller can be used as syntax and only to make available specific data. Return promises only from data cells.

Additionally, it helps developers with some tools that provide modular building blocks of JavaScript allowing them to mix, match and test the code. An AngularJS developer can easily add an HTML page by just using a simple tag.

2: Organizing Files

The practice of organizing files refers to structuring. At the very start of your application development activity using Angular JS, you may still be unsure about how to organize your files or even know which files you would need later on. 

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In such a case, it would be good to use the Angular-seed project, which is a skeleton of a regular AngularJS application. All that you have to do is clone the repository and continue. One other suggestion is to use Yeoman, as this is a tool to create the skeleton and further add tools such as Bower and Grunt.

However, before using one of these tools, it is vital to review their applicability in the context of your current project. Additionally, you must also consider the nature of your app to ensure that you use the most appropriate and optimal tools.

3: Using HTML extension

AngularJS is not a framework that is used to write codes to change or modify the (Document Object Model). You can do this using an HTML extension, and it will help you accomplish this through directives.

People who have worked on JavaScript alone or with jQuery, intend to create behavior in the DOM with JS. AngularJS offers many directives to do so. If you do not find something that fulfills your needs, you can create your directive to do the DOM manipulation. This proves to be an advantage, as all the DOM modification code resides in a single place, and it is easier to unit test all the directives.

4: Checking the Digest Cycle

Another significant aspect of AngularJS development is optimizing its performance. The digest cycle is an indicator that you can use to understand how your AngularJS app is performing. AngularJS triggers a digest cycle whenever the variable value changes in the model or view mode. The digest cycle runs automatically as soon as the code finds a new directive. Lastly, the digest cycle runs about 2-10 times when triggered.

Moreover, it is also a loop that keeps an eye on those changes used to monitor variables. A shorter digest cycle indicates that your app will run faster. It works to understand the competence of your app because if the app responds quickly during use, more end users will like using your app.

5: Restricting the number of watchers

Another important practice that relates to optimizing the performance of your AngularJS app is to limit the number of watchers. When introducing data bindings, you may end up creating more watchers and scopes. However, when the number of watchers and scopes is increased, the digest cycle is likely to become longer. This will introduce a lag and, if you want to enhance performance and avoid this lag, you must strive to limit the number of watchers. 

However, it does not mean you should not use watchers at all because then you cannot use the two-way data binding feature. It is recommended that you can have a maximum of a hundred watch functions as more of them may impact the performance of your app negatively.

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Scopes are those objects that refer to the application model and form an execution context for expressions. They are arranged in hierarchical structures that are similar to DOM structures. It is important to keep in mind to scope all the variables tightly so that the JavaScript garbage collector can free up the memory fast. If the memory does not free up fast then what you get is a slow, non-responsive website.

6: Decreasing the use of DOM

DOM expands to Document Object Model. It is a programming interface that is used in HTML and XML documents. It provides a structured representation of documents. It helps to define ways in which you can access and manipulate the documents using a scripting language.

It is important to remember to decrease the DOM usage and to not use the inline style of CSS in DOM. This is because images and heavy styles of CSS take up a lot of time while loading a website. This, in turn, will result in the slow loading of the website. Therefore, it is recommended to use optimized images and simple styles in CSS. If the website still loads slowly, you have to check for any other factors that may be affecting the website's loading speed.

Conclusion

Every programming language has its own set of dos and don’ts to get the most out of its code. These points mentioned above will help developers to enhance the performance of their AngularJS applications.

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