In November 2016 we were all shocked when Google announced release plans for Angular 3, just 6 months after Angular 2. Then it turned out Angular 3 was nothing to happen. Instead, Igor Minar announced a release plan for the fourth version of the famous JavaScript framework on December 9th 2016 at the NG-BE Conference in Belgium.
After eight Beta Releases from december till february angular 4 is finally out and we tell you what you can expect!
What’s new?
Angular 4 is toward compatible with 2.x.x. and supports TypeScript 2.1 and 2.2 with the goal to make it faster and slimmer. If the Team is to believed, the follow-up will even go the extra mile.
Angular Universal
Universal, the project, that allows developers to run Angular on the server, is now up-to-date again. Furthermore the improved *ngIf and *ngFor can now also be used in Template-Binding.
Animation Package
Animations are now an own package and not part of @angular/core anymore. That means for those, who don't use animations, the code won’t be provided.
View Engine
View Engine was improved in Angular 4 and can reduce the size of generated code up to 60%. This represents a significant improvement for mobile applications.
There’s a catch - StrictNullChecks
With the latest release the team decided to make TypeScripts strictNullChecks-Setting incompatible with the current version. In the RC-Phase it became clear, that the integration of this function needs more work and the support won’t be possible till version 4.1. Thus problems with existing applications can be avoided.
Prospects - Angular 5
The team has a strict time frame. Each week one Patch/Bugfix release. Each month a minor release and each 6 months a major release. So if we’re lucky, we can calculate on Angular 5 in October this year. In Angular 5 we can expect a model for ServiceWorker, whereat notifications can be imaged.
We are eager to find out what other optimisations are waiting for us!
What do you expect of Angular 5?
Want to read about AngularJS? Check our Blogpost about it here!
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