angular vs react

[Jignesh Patel]

Which one is more appropriate to use Angular vs React.
Seems there are more developers available to hire for React vs Angular and it is faster for development?

[Tim Moores]

Appropriate for what purpose? Use the right tool for the right job - a lot of considerations can go into a decision like that.

[Tim Holloway]

"Faster to develop" is not a metric I think highly of.  Studies have indicated that the total amount of labour is about the same regardless of what programming language you use (probably excepting assembler) and likely regardless of platform.

Every one of the fast-development platforms, from 4GLs right up to Spring Roo have bombed. They could re-create the same set of apps over and over, but the second users asks for "just one small change", the developers were left floundering. Absent an as-yet unseen singularity, I don't expect any better from the latest fad (AI) either.

You can shift when something visible to Management will occur, but that will just present them with a "movie set" façade where the project is all front and no back. Then once the back is in place, it breaks very publicly in prodution. Often leaking vital user information to people who shouldn't have it.

That's why I still support Java. It's the very opposite of "quick and dirty". It takes a long time to set up and get going, but the chances that you'll have to explain unfortunate crashes and invasions to the CEO is much lower. Not that there aren't projects that are no more suited to Java than a bulldozer is to crack walnuts and are fine for quick-and-dirty, but I don't count major production systems among them.

The availability of developers is important, but only up to a point. I recall a manager telling me that he loved Visual Basic programmers because they were "plentiful and cheap". But probably not so much now that VB has been replaced by .Net. Java is still around and a lot of those old Java apps are still operational and servicable. There will always be tons of people available for the latest fad, but that doesn't mean that they're going to be of high quality.

And, incidentally my own take on React versus Angular is that I've never bother to learn either. For quick-and-dirty, I just use basic Node Express.

[Lou Hamers]

I don't know if front end framework recommendations are very useful without first laying out what your priorities are (even then it's hard to get non subjective answers). Since we're discussing hiring I'm assuming the OP isn't the actual lead dev.

So if "faster for development" is the only criteria, I would say you don't choose a framework at all! You should just ask the developer(s) what they already know or prefer. (And hopefully they agree, otherwise let the lead be the final decider since they're the most accountable.) That said there might be situations where you want to veto the decision, if they want to try something "new and innovative" which is way out there and clearly risky. But this is unlikely if they know the sword is going to fall on them first for making a wild decision.

Reasoning:
If it's something they already know and like, obviously they'd be quick at using that. If they're wanting to try something new, they're probably still going to be more efficient than had they been forced to use something they don't want to use, because they'll be far more motivated to learn and succeed at the new thing they chose. Not to mention, their reputation is on the hook if they were the ones who selected this thing and it fails.

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That concludes my own reply to the OP but I couldn't help but write an addendum section:

https://svelte.dev <-This is what I've been hearing about lately. It's supposed to be faster than both of those. Finding developers who know it already would be harder obviously, but IMO an experienced developer should be able to pick up a new JS framework fairly quickly. The front end ones should be used to doing this every other month anyway.  

Also I'm disappointed that nobody ever seems to mention https://vaadin.com . They appear to have a very efficient workflow going for them and the fact that you're doing most of your UI coding in Java is great when the same developers are also supporting a Java backend. I assume it's because most web developers are hipster types addicted to always using something "new" (which usually isn't really especially new) and would never prefer a mature, stable language like Java, just because it's old.

[Tim Holloway]

Javascript is one thing, and again, I consider it a really horrible choice as a backend for enterprise-grade systems, but in the Java frame, I'm old school. I use JavaServer Faces. Which has the advantage of being part of the JEE/Jakarta standard and is very well suited for form-based apps, as validation and error reporting are core features. And it plays nice with other systems such as Spring-web and Struts.

There's even a drag-and-drool UI design for JSF in the Eclipse IDE, although it's not a very good one,

I used it for my recipe manager app, which is a Spring Boot/Spring Data JPA application that extends core JSF with IceFaces.

And just for the record, JSF uses jQuery under the hood to handle AJAX and smart controls.

Then again, I have been moderating the JSF forum here on the Ranch since forever, so I'm slightly biased.