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Brian Altenhofel
07-13-2013, 08:14 PM
Any of you front-end developers work with this? What's the learning curve?

PayForWords
08-05-2013, 01:26 AM
Never heard of it. Sorry!

vangogh
08-05-2013, 02:11 AM
I've heard of it though I haven't worked with it. It does look interesting and it comes out of Google so I assume it's done well. I usually don't jump on every framework I see though since it seems like a new one is out every week. net.tuts+ had an article explaining why you'd want to use angular.js (http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/3-reasons-to-choose-angularjs-for-your-next-project/) a few months ago in case you hadn't seen.

zellwk
08-07-2013, 06:10 AM
I've worked with Angular JS for a small little app that I'm trying to develop on the side. Bear in mind that I'm quite new to Javascript and my reviews might be twarted a little.

Basically, Angular JS is extremely different from all other frameworks like you might have known, you might have to drop everything that you previous knew and relearn angular. That might be one learning curve already (I used a little jquery and I got totally stumped in the beginning)

Easy stuff are real easy to learn in Angular JS, then the learning curve quickly escalates upwards since there are no great documentation.

You will probably need quite a bit of time to learn Angular if you're trying to pick it up.

On the flipside, its a fabulous framework and the way I write in both HTML and JS makes me understand what actually is happening, and it is easier to find mistakes.

Just my two cents on it. If you want to find out more / have some basic questions to ask about angular, let me know :)

Brian Altenhofel
08-07-2013, 06:54 PM
I don't work with Javascript except in very rare circumstances, so I'd pretty much be starting clean.

Basically, I have an application where the primary part is the REST API, and I've decided that I want the front-end of the application to just interact with the API as another client, and chose Angular.js based on how well it seems to work as an API client (based on a couple of quick overviews).

However, I've found that people who know Angular.js are either a) unavailable to hire, and/or b) out of the budget (and that's coming from someone in the Drupal world where we have notoriously above-average budgets). So I've considered just learning it on my own. I'm a fast learner that learns through reverse engineering (books, docs, and tutorials don't do it for me --- to slow, specific, and boring). So mostly wondering if this is something I should budget 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, etc for so I have a real cost/benefit comparison between learning it on my own or getting a budget increase and bringing someone on.

How well does it do with continuous integration and automated testing?

PayForWords
08-09-2013, 12:16 AM
I don't work with Javascript except in very rare circumstances, so I'd pretty much be starting clean.

Basically, I have an application where the primary part is the REST API, and I've decided that I want the front-end of the application to just interact with the API as another client, and chose Angular.js based on how well it seems to work as an API client (based on a couple of quick overviews).

However, I've found that people who know Angular.js are either a) unavailable to hire, and/or b) out of the budget (and that's coming from someone in the Drupal world where we have notoriously above-average budgets). So I've considered just learning it on my own. I'm a fast learner that learns through reverse engineering (books, docs, and tutorials don't do it for me --- to slow, specific, and boring). So mostly wondering if this is something I should budget 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, etc for so I have a real cost/benefit comparison between learning it on my own or getting a budget increase and bringing someone on.

How well does it do with continuous integration and automated testing?



Tried eLance? They have quality programmers on there if you know how to find them.


While oDesk and Guru would probably be better on a tighter budget, you get what you pay for.


What kind of budget are you on? I know a guy that could do it but not sure what he would charge. I can ask though.

vangogh
08-09-2013, 12:28 AM
@zellwk - Glad to see you took the plunge and joined in Zell. Now we'll have another place to chat.


Basically, Angular JS is extremely different from all other frameworks like you might have known

jQuery might the one that's different, since it tries to be more like css. Have you worked much with javascript without a framework? I'm wondering if that's where some of the learning curve is coming from. It sounds like you were able to get angular.js to do some basic things pretty quickly, but after that the curve got steeper.


I'm a fast learner that learns through reverse engineering (books, docs, and tutorials don't do it for me)

I like a combination of both. I find starting with a general book gives me an overview of a subject. I usually don't try pick up specifics right away. In the beginning I'm mostly trying to familiarize myself with the general nature of whatever I'm learning. I'll keep that general knowledge in the back of my mind while doing some practical work. For the practical I tend to try an idea and see if I can build that idea. Usually I hit points where I get stuck, which is when I dig a little deeper into a tutorial, though often I'm just scanning them for the bits that I need. Then I go back and read more books, but on more specific topics and start the cycle again.

I know learning from books isn't for everyone, but I find the mix between the theory and the practical works best for me.

Brian Altenhofel
08-09-2013, 02:29 AM
Tried eLance? They have quality programmers on there if you know how to find them.


While oDesk and Guru would probably be better on a tighter budget, you get what you pay for.


What kind of budget are you on? I know a guy that could do it but not sure what he would charge. I can ask though.

The people I've talked to are close to triple digits for contract work. If it was a project for a client, it'd be no problem as the billing would just be passed on at my hourly or daily resource rate, but it's internal so it's basically directly out of my pocket. Considering I'm looking at around 120 hours (guesstimate based on writing similar PHP clients and comparing development and testing workflows on YouTube), plus further maintenance, I'm thinking it might be better to keep it in-house.

I do have a possibility of hiring an employee, but right now that depends on closing a couple of more projects to make sure the workload is there. After Drupalcon, I learned how to say "no" and significantly cut back my workload because I was finding it nearly impossible to find people that needed jobs and not a lot of hand-holding. But recently I've had a few promising prospects for potential employees come up - now I just have to make sure the work is there.

I've hired off job boards in the past for Drupal projects and got pretty burned. In fact, I'm recovering from a project right now where a developer did two very wrong things: 1) customized a module without patches, and 2) customized core without patches (and no reason that I can tell that the same thing could not have been accomplished by writing a module. Makes life pretty fun when you do "drush up" on a site just prior to client signoff to ensure that everything is ready for deployment into production... and at his rate I could have hired an employee (including taxes, benefits, etc.) if someone had been available at that time. I've actually lost a lot of money on that project.

vangogh
08-15-2013, 01:01 AM
That sucks. Granted when you hire some full time or on contract, it's going to take some time to find out what the person can really do. Sorry you had to spend time fixing this person's work after paying for it.

zellwk
08-18-2013, 01:09 AM
Apologies for replying late. Somehow I didn't get an email notice when someone else replied to the thread and I totally forgot about this :)

I'ved actually only played with jQuery a little and I can't say that I'm an expert with Javascript. Haven't touch any other framework like backbone or ember though. I can only say with confirmation that the way to use angular is very different from the way you normally use jquery.

One fun fact though, is that you can still write jQuery as you have written it all along. There is another way of using jQuery that integrates with angularjs, but thats a little too far for my level now.

Vangogh if you're interested, I can send you the files to my current Angular JS project. (Its for the color app that I previously told you about). Its not perfect, but I think I'll be able to launch it pretty soon.

vangogh
08-20-2013, 02:18 AM
If you're interested in learning jQuery, Net Tuts has a nice course. 30 days to learn query (https://tutsplus.com/course/30-days-to-learn-jquery/). It's 30 videos. It used to be an email course where you'd get a link to one video a day, but now all the videos are online.

Sure email your project. As you know I like color tools and already know a little about yours. I'd be interested in seeing what you came up with.