There are many Javascript frameworks built by both professionals and individuals, and most of them, are powerful tools for web developers to use in their projects. The following ones, are the most popular and useful frameworks that programmers use everyday.
jQuery - Now a decade old, jQuery is one of the plugins that need no introduction. It is the most used Javascript framework in the world and hardly any app on the web ignores it. It is responsible for making cross-browser sites a reality and offers a ton of other features like:
• DOM Traversal
• Event Handling
• Animations
• AJAX
AngularJS - Developers are more and more using AngularJS to build and maintain complex web applications. AngularJS is also widely used to create Single Page Application in a rather clean and maintainable way. The following are the most important core features of it.
• Data-Binding - which is the automatic synchronization of data between the model and view components.
• Scope - objects that refer tot he model. They serve as a middleware between controller and view.
• Controller - Javascript functions that are bound to a particular scope
• Directives - markers on DOm elements, used to create custom HTMl tags that serve as new, custom widgets.
• Routing - the concept of switching view.
• MVC (Model - View - Controller) - MVC is a design pattern for dividing an application into several different parts, each with it’s own unique responsibilities.
• Deep Linking - allows you to encode the state of application in the URL so that it can later be bookmarked. That actually means the application can be restoren from the URL to the same state.
• Dependency Injection - AngularJs has a built-in dependency injection subsystem that helps the developer by making the application easier to develop, understant and test.
React - this nice open-source Javascript library provides a view for data rendered as HTML. Views are typically rendered using components that contain additional components specified as HTML tags. Some of the main uses of it include:
• Just the UI - A lot of people use React as the View in Model-View-Controller. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of the technology stack, it is easy to try it out on smaller features in an existing project.
• Virtual DOM - React abstracts away the DOM from you, giving a simpler programming model and way better performance.
• Data Flow - React implements one-way reactive data flow which reduces boilerplate and is easier to reason about than traditional data binding.
Backbone - yet another Javascript framework with RESTful JSON interface and based on the MVC design pattern. Backbone helps you make code modular.
Ember - Also a MVC framework, which includes a templating and view engine that automatically updates when data changes, like Angular, Backbone and React. It presents the concept of web components that let programmers extend HTML with their own tags.
