Angular 12 has introduced several new features and improvements to enhance the development experience with Google’s popular TypeScript-based web framework. The latest release, Angular 12.1, came out on June 24, bringing compiler support for shorthand property declarations. This update makes the codebase cleaner and more concise. In addition to this, Angular 12.1 includes fixes for various components, including the compiler, compiler CLI, router, and service workers. These fixes address key issues like unterminated interpolation, view restoration, and service worker cache management, improving the stability and performance of Angular applications.
A notable addition in Angular 12.1 is the inclusion of new APIs that help developers opt into correct test teardown behavior. This enhancement is particularly useful for testing, ensuring that tests are properly cleaned up and do not interfere with subsequent tests. This focus on testing improvements demonstrates Angular’s commitment to providing robust and reliable tools for developers building large-scale web applications.
Angular 12, released on May 12, builds on the foundation set by previous versions, offering more performance optimizations and new capabilities. One of the major changes in Angular 12 is the deprecation of the legacy View Engine, which has been replaced with the newer Ivy technology. Ivy is a next-generation compilation and rendering pipeline that provides faster ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation, improving the overall build speed and performance of Angular applications. The Angular team has indicated that the View Engine will eventually be removed in a future release, urging developers to transition to Ivy.
While libraries that currently rely on View Engine will still work with Ivy-based applications, library authors are encouraged to start moving their code to the Ivy pipeline to ensure future compatibility. This shift aligns with Angular’s goal of enhancing performance and streamlining the framework for modern web development. With these updates, Angular 12 continues to evolve, providing developers with powerful tools to build efficient, high-performance web applications.