Everyday new JavaScript frameworks/libraries are emerging the world of JS. We have web application developed on Angular 1.6.4(We went to production six months ago). We are thought of upgrading to Angular 5. So, upgrading real-time Web applications good or bad?
Tonny Hideyori
Stay foolish
It's always beneficial to use latest frameworks and libraries but that solely depends on product owners decisions. As some upgrades are not only about updating library version but it also might mean you have to update/re-write your code as per latest version compatibility.
As for example: You are using AngularJS 1.x.x and thinking to upgrade to AngularJS 5. Which means you have to re-write your code to meet latest version requirements.
It's always best to pick the technologies you will need to use at the outset of a project, and usually hard to refactor or migrate your code to a different choice.
If I start a project with 'Bootstrap 3', and 'Bootstrap 4' comes out. I could migrate things over, but the real question would be: is refactoring your app worth the benefit of using the newer framework?
In this case I imagine choosing Angular1 is a much larger investment than a CSS framework is in terms of technical debt in your project, so unless you've hit a serious problem, or there's a major benefit to migrating to something newer, you shouldn't feel compelled to update or migrate.
What you are able to do is choose the newer Angular for newer projects, at their outset. And those projects will be Angular5 projects likely as long as they need to be maintained.
It's something we need to spend more time thinking about before we pick up tools and frameworks, because once you've chosen them, you're kind of married to them. A divorce from those original tools is possible, but messy and never a desirable option.
Well before planning to migrate, try to answer why you want to migrate ?
New technologies/ upgrades will keep on coming...and you don't need to be on cutting edge always to solve the problem.
Remember, Migrating from angular 1.x to 5 , may become a nightmare. If you have good experienced team familiar with Angular 2/4/5 then plan wisely. Otherwise, drop the idea till the team gets comfortable with it. Modular approach of angular has few problem / or less better solutions to problems you face while creating production grade applications.
We also tried to migrate our angular 1.5 application to Angular 4 and faced a lot of problems. ( Always, Check if your organization is ready for that big architectural change their SLA's , performance points and other things ).
Mike Chilson
Full Stack Developer
Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this question. The real question you need to ask is does it benefit the business to upgrade? How will it improve the business? If there is no business related reason to upgrade the framework then you shouldn't. In the future at some point it might be cost effective or beneficial to move to a newer version of a framework. Software is simply a tool to get business done. This is a fact we as developers often overlook. :-) Good luck!