With each passing day, it becomes easier to have (build) a website, as well as to build applications. Because this is the need of the world and the market. (When I say it gets easier, I mean web and app developers as well as business owners, not non-professionals). It can be claimed that we have actually entered the era of web applications or web apps.
In simple words, web apps are updated websites or updated part of websites. Web apps make user interaction easier and faster. If we want to talk about web apps in a slightly more specialized language, so that their difference from websites and their advantages over sites become clearer, it should be said that a web application is a computer program that performs a specific task on the internet for the user, such as Gmail or Skype or Facebook.
Web apps have three parts: Web Server, Application Server and Database. Therefore, web app developers use server-side (such as Java and Python) and client-side (such as JavaScript) languages to build and develop them. We can talk a lot more about web applications. But our discussion in this article, although it is directly related to them, is not about web apps. (See indeed.com for more information.)
So what is this article about? Web developers have the help of other software for the coding necessary to develop web apps: Web Application Frameworks, which are divided into two types of frameworks: server-side frameworks and client-side frameworks. The subject of this article is to introduce one of the frameworks (EMBER.JS or Ember JS) that helps developers to build web apps.
What is Ember.js? What is web framework and how many frameworks are there in the market? What features, disadvantages and advantages does this framework have (compared to strong competitors like React?) Why should EmberJS be your choice? Read this content till the end to find the answers to these questions.
Table of Contents
Ember.js
Ember.js is a JavaScript framework that greatly reduces the time, effort and resources needed to build any web application. It is focused on making you, the developer, as productive as possible by doing all the common, repetitive, yet essential, tasks involved in most web development projects.
So, Emerjs is one of the JavaScript frameworks, which means it is used to develop client-side web applications. Ember JS is free and open source. Ember provides a complete set of solutions for the developer. The original name of this framework was SproutCore MVC Framework and it was released in December 2011. The creator of Ember is a developer named Yehuda Katz.
To work with Ember, you must be very familiar with HTML, CSS & JavaScript. Because the basic level of development in Ember is based on HTML & CSS. You should also be well aware of Modern JavaScript combinations and features (such as classes and modules), because Ember has used them a lot.
What is web framework?
As mentioned, Ember is a web framework. So what is this framework and what exactly does it do?
Web framework is a software platform for developing web applications and websites.
Web frameworks are a collection of pre-made components, code snippets and templates. Frameworks have wide applications. They make the work of developing websites, web applications, mobile applications, software, etc. easier, faster and less costly. The use of frameworks also systematizes the developer’s programming process, and as a result, the amount of errors and bugs is greatly reduced.
Features of the Ember JS framework
Why Ember.JS? What features does Ember have and what facilities does it provide to the developer?
- Ember JS allows the use of Glimmer rendering engine and increases the rendering speed.
- The Command Line Interface (CLI) integrates Ember templates into the development process. This feature allows the developer to proceed with more complexity.
- Ember is compatible with data binding technique. So it connects two properties to each other so that when the value of one changes, the value of the other is proportional to it.
- The Ember Inspector tool allows the developer to debug.
- Routing (which is a fundamental concept in Ember) allows the management of URLs.
- If the content of the apps changes, the Ember templates are automatically updated. In general, web apps built with Ember are easy to maintain and modify.
- Everything that is built with this framework, a three-step test for its efficiency is built inside.
- Ember is constantly being upgraded and new versions are released. It is not difficult to upgrade it. If a radical change is about to happen, Ember will announce it.
- Plugins can be added to Ember.
Ember.js is a productive, battle-tested JavaScript framework for building modern web applications. It includes everything you need to build rich UIs that work on any device.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Ember.js (compared to React & Angular.js)
What are the advantages and disadvantages of EmberJS compared to other JavaScript frameworks on the market? As we mentioned, EmberJS is not the only framework available for client-side (front-end) development and it has strong competitors. Two of the strongest competitors are React.Js and Angular.Js frameworks.
Google, Microsoft and Netflix use EmberJS. Ember is often used for the development of single-page web applications or SPAs (that is, pages that are not completely refreshed when they are requested, but the part that is related to the user’s request is reloaded and responds to him).
In this section, we will compare Ember JS with both of these to better define its advantages and disadvantages.
Ember.js v. React.js
React.js is not actually a framework. The front-end library is JavaScript. Facebook and Instagram use this framework (Facebook itself participated in building this library). Like Ember, React is free and open source. But React is very specialized for creating user interface (UI) design. This library/framework uses DOM. For this reason, development with this framework requires the use of other libraries.
Ember. v. Angular.js
This one is a real framework just like Ember. Angular has been introduced to the market by Google and a group of developers. Google, YouTube and Google Translate use this framework. Angular.js is both open source and a front-end framework. Developers turn to Angular when they want to build highly interactive and functional large-scale web applications and websites. This framework, like Ember, has tools for debugging and testing. Angular.js is constantly being updated and improved.
Ember installation and its basic components and concepts
Installing this framework is not a difficult task for developers. It only has prerequisites that need to be installed first (eg Node.js). If you have a problem with the installation, you don’t need to worry at all. The ember website itself provides you with a comprehensive and complete guide. To work with Amber, you need to be familiar with 5 basic components or concepts:
- Command Line Interface (CLI): Ember CLI is nothing but the backbone of this framework. The thing that makes up the core development environment in Ember and puts every file in its proper place.
- Router: This component’s task is to manage URLs (that is, it combines asynchronous data loading with search parameters as well as dynamic parts of each URL).
- Templates: It is with this component that the web app UI (front-end) is built in this framework.
- Models: This component deals with the database and Ember Data (the library within this framework).
- Components: A component that controls the user interface design based on the user interface behavior.