[kyllo]

ng-if, ng-switch, ng-repeat? There's already a language in the browser that does these things, it's called JavaScript.

Why do you even need dependency injection and singleton services and factories in a dynamic language with closures and first-class functions? You don't. Client-side testing works fine without DI. Angular is just a way to do Java in JavaScript. It's a pile of unnecessary complexity designed to sell to enterprises that love over-designed Java projects and want to make client-side development feel more similar to what they know. In that regard I suppose Angular is a little better than Google Web Toolkit, but that isn't saying much.

[andybak]

> ng-if, ng-switch, ng-repeat? There's already a language in the browser that does these things, it's called JavaScript.

It's nice to have a largely declarative way to specify markup but still allow simple loops and conditionals.

Hasn't every template language in the world has come to a similar conclusion?

[jarrettc]

> Hasn't every template language in the world has come to a similar conclusion?

No, not even every mainstream template language. For example, I still use ERB and EJS extensively, and so do many other engineers. ERB and EJS use the control flow constructs of the underlying languages (Ruby and JS, respectively).

There is of course debate about whether templates should expose the full power of a programming language. I have tried templating languages that do and ones that don't. For now, I'm sticking with templates that let me mix in arbitrary code as I see fit. Could I abuse that power and make a mess? Absolutely. But I try not to, and my code stays pretty maintainable.