Challenges in working with new technology stack
For the past few months, I have been working really hard to understanding the concepts of Angular 7 CLI. When it comes to theoretical knowledge, everything looks very fancy but when I sit and make use of them, there are lots of challenges in writing the code. For the past few days, I have been trying really hard to implement a CRUD UI with the help of different libraries. Though I found it easier to implement things in my previous project, the current project is really giving me sleepless nights.
Datatables failed me
In my previous project, I was using datatables and it was very smooth and working fine. With that satisfaction, I tried to use the same datatables.js for the new project as well along with angular. The documentation for implementation was not very great but I still managed to implement it on my previous project. My first choice in the new project was to use Bootstrap 4 along with Datatables.js. But in my previous project, I was using Bootstrap 3 and not 4. But this time it failed me and I was having inconsistent data load issues. I tried finding answers from various sources online but none of which was very helpful to me.
I was wondering how it worked very well in my previous project and it is failing in my new project. With that puzzle, I'm continued to explore still further to understand what was the issue. I tried various possibilite but with no luck, I decided to chuck datatables. But unfortunately I couldn't find any robust library as an alternative for datatables because it had lots of functionalities like export as excel and pdf options along with pagination, sorting etc. I then spoke to one of the angular expert and he recommended Angular material to me.
Exploring Angular Material
For the past few days, I have been exploring Angular material to create a table layout with export options. So far I was able to create the grid layout and I'm also able to find sources easily to implement CRUD operations with the new layout using Angular Material. I'm really liking that. But it looks like I have to implement other functionalities like data export to excel and pdf manually. But when I try to do that, I have lots of challenges. I'm able to find resources online to implement these functionalities, but the resources are available for the lower version of angular CLI and its quite hard to find anything for Angular 7.
If I try to make use of existing code from online sources on my Angular 7 application, I get lots of issues. I'm now a bit worried that there is no stability here. Wondering if I will need to make changes to my application if there are any new features introduced in Angular 8 in the future. But from what I have read so far, the upgrade experience has not been very smooth so far for developers.
Challenges in using newer versions
Currently, I'm using Angular 7 CLI and there are lots of advantages in using that. But the only challenge that I have is that it is difficult to find contents online if I'm stuck somewhere. It is as if no one else in this world would have had similar issues and it would have been only me facing the issue. I end up troubleshooting everything on my own and I don't find resources online to help me out. As the newer version is not widely used by lots of people, people don't report so many issues online or ask questions in the forum. That's what makes it difficult to use the latest technology stack.
Some of the basic functionalities like import and export of data should be available with ease if a new technology is introduced. There should be internal support available to facilitate such features. I'm able to relate something from my office. In my office, people are working on a next-gen application and they are trying to sell that product in the US market. I had a chance to take a look at that product and it is fully built using microservices and React for the front end. The framework looks really amazing but the only problem there is that there is no proper reporting facility in the product. I'm able to sense that it can be a failure because every client will want their data to be displayed and exported in fancy reports. I feel the same thing when trying to build my apps as well. With the latest technology stacks, I'm finding it really hard to get a working basic functionality.
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There it is! A new developer post so soon. When working with new technologies my hardest time is usually with the configuration. Setting up the project and installing everything properly sometimes takes hours and I am just simply mad at that times because I do not feel like I advanced at all. Haha. Also I do not have too much experience with Angular, I am learning React now, but it is nice to read about it. It is nice to see that I am not the only one struggling with new stuff.
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A developer article already? Awesome.
My greatest challenge with new technologies is the configuration, setting up the project. It can take hours sometimes just to build up the environment, download and install all the libraries properly and at that times I get mad because I feel like I am not advancing at all haha. I have no experience with Angular, I am learning React now but it is nice to read about it. Feels good to see that I am not the only one struggling with new technologies :)
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It is painful to setup dev environment, too much time is lost. Docker or any other containerization is the answer for it. If you are not using Docker/Kubernetes or any such technology, I'd suggest you to have a look into it.
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Whenever you upgrade Angular version, their dependencies should also support that version otherwise you end up in a mess. We are still using Angular 5.2 for one of my project, we didn't upgrade for the same reason and we might move to 8 in may/jun but it depends on the other 3rd party libraries we use.
To be frank, it is not easy to upgrade/downgrade(Angular & NodeJS) every time. Are you using Docker or Kubernetes ?
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