Ultimate guide for Accessible Javascript Frameworks: by Irfan Ali Princeton

Keeping up with JavaScript frameworks can be a challenge. There are a lot of them, and seemingly another one every month. How do you know which ones might be right for your project? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do you get started? What are the frameworks that provide accessible widget? How can you customize these widgets and fit into your own projects? There are the important questions when you decide any javascript framework. -A review by Irfan Ali Princeton new jersey

Irfan Ali Princeton, New Jersey, USA

a graphical representation of top 3 JS framework by Irfan Ali Princeton, New Jersey

Why Is This Useful?

Some of you may be wondering why a guide like this is useful. Most readers will end up using one of the frameworks I call the “Big Three” — React, Angular and Vue. That’s OK. They’re great choices. That said, a guide like this has value. Here’s an example…

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Dojo framework. Probably not, though. Dojo focuses on a couple of things that make it unique — accessibility and internationalization. All Dojo widgets are accessible by default and it provides everything needed to internationalize an application.

Another example…maybe you’re making an app that needs excellent performance on mobile networks. There are a number of very good, high performance libraries and frameworks listed below that may just fit the bill.

JS Article explained by Irfan Ali from Princeton, New Jersey, USA

There are also small frameworks that provide a fantastic opportunity for learning. You can dig into the code and find out for yourself how one goes about building this kind of software. Ultradom is a library that you can use to build your own framework. Very cool, right?

Irfan Ali Princeton, New Jersey, USA

React

react logo

React was introduced as an open source project in May, 2013. The original author was Jordan Walke, an engineer at Facebook.

React bills itself as, “a JavaScript library for building user interfaces”, as opposed to a full framework like Angular. Concerns like routing, state management and data fetching have been left to third parties. This has resulted in a large and very active ecosystem around React.

Many large React applications will use the popular Redux library for state management and React Router for routing, but there are other good alternatives available.

Irfan Ali Princeton, New Jersey, USA

React is responsible for popularizing functional programming principles among a new generation of developers. Although not a purely functional library, it allows developers to work in a largely functional style, particularly when combined with Redux.

For more information on how React compares to the other popular frameworks, see my article on React and Angular, and this one on React and Vue.

Pros

• Hugely popular with a strong job market
• Lots of training resources and third-party libraries to help accelerate development
• Best choice for cross-platform teams (web, mobile, desktop, other devices)
• Versatile
• Strong corporate support (Facebook)

Cons

• Abundance of choice can be overwhelming at first
• Best practices not always clear to newcomers
• Learning curve can be steep for building larger applications

Additional Resources

• Yes, React is taking over front-end development. The question is why.
• 10 Reasons why I moved from Angular to React
• A Functional Front-End with React
• The Beginner’s Guide to ReactJS (Free video course)

Irfan Ali Princeton, New Jersey, USA

Angular

Angular is the successor to AngularJS. It is a full-featured and opinionated framework that provides defaults for data fetching, state management, development language, and build toolchain.

The most notable feature of Angular is its use of TypeScript as the development language. This has made the framework well-suited to those coming from traditional object-oriented languages like Java and C#, as TypeScript takes inspiration from those languages.

It’s been said that “enterprises” are the the target users for Angular. In the sense that many large companies have teams familiar with Java and other object-oriented languages, this may be correct.

Pros

• Full-featured framework with well-tested defaults
• TypeScript provides familiar language for those with background in object-oriented programming
• Strong corporate support (Google)
• Clear best practices

Cons

• Learning curve can be steep
• TypeScript may be a barrier to adoption
• Poor start up metrics in benchmarks

Additional Resources

• Why would I use Angular?
• The Case for Using Angular 2 on a New Project
• Angular 4 In 60 Minutes (Free video tutorial)
• Making use of RxJS in Angular
• Learning Angular 5 as a React and Vue Developer

Irfan Ali Princeton, New Jersey, USA

Vue.js

Although often seen as the “new kid on the block”, Vue has been around since 2013. Evan You is the creator and primary developer, and unlike React and Angular, Vue is not directly supported by a major company. It instead relies on individual and corporate donations. Of the three most popular frameworks, Vue is widely considered to be the easiest to learn. It is similar to React in many respects, but also has things in common with AngularJS — for example, directives and templates.

Vue’s relative simplicity, developer experience, and good performance have contributed to a huge surge in its popularity.

One notable feature of Vue is that it’s a “progressive framework” and can be used as a jQuery replacement as well as for large single page applications. From the Vue documentation:

Unlike other monolithic frameworks, Vue is designed from the ground up to be incrementally adoptable. The core library is focused on the view layer only, and is easy to pick up and integrate with other libraries or existing projects.

While Angular is opinionated and React agnostic about concerns like routing and state management, Vue takes a middle approach, with official routing and state management solutions that are optional, but kept in sync with the core library.

To learn more about how Vue compares to React, see my article that reviews the differences.

Irfan Ali is based in Princeton, New Jersey

Pros

• Easy to learn
• Good documentation
• Surging in popularity and usage
• Best performance of top three frameworks

Cons

• Current job market is less than that for React and Angular

Additional Resources

• Comparison with Other Frameworks
• Why We Chose Vue.js
• Learn Vue 2: Step By Step (Free video course)
• Reactivity in Depth

Irfan Ali is an UI architect and accessibility engineer from princeton, New Jersey. This article is based upon Irfan Ali’s personal research. You can follow him on twitter at thea11y