As of today, Vue.js is present in companies such as Xiaomi, Alibaba, WizzAir, EuroNews, Grammarly, Gitlab and Laracasts, Adobe, Behance, Reuters. These are just examples on the tip of the iceberg, so this is pretty impressive, right? Let’s learn more about this programming language and what the pros and cons of Vue.js for developers are. Moreover, we will touch upon what opportunities this framework offers in terms of high-quality application development.
What is Vue.js?
Vue.js, or only Vue, is a JavaScript-based framework developed by Evan You and released in 2014. The name of the framework is the same phonetically in English as view. It was originally designed as a framework for building single-page applications (SPA) and user interfaces (UI). But as time passed, the range of applications for Vue.js has expanded significantly. Contrary to other frameworks like Angular, Vue is gradually adaptable by design. Similar to React, the core library focuses on the “View” layer only. Also, advanced features required for complex applications such as routing, state management, and build tooling are offered via officially maintained supporting libraries and packages.
Vue.js Pros and Cons
Pros
1. Lightweight
One of the pros of Vue.js, compared to more common frameworks, is its (unbearable) lightness. Thanks to its lightness, Vue is convenient to use for developing projects of various complexity – both small personal projects and multifunctional applications. Moreover, loading and installation of libraries are fast, which has a positive impact on SEO and UX. Plus, developers do not have to spend extra time optimizing the application.
2. Compatibility
An important aspect of any emerging technology is the ability to integrate with existing applications. Thus, compared to its competitors, Vue is a flexible framework, as it allows you to write templates using HTML or JS. As for its structure, the framework is similar to React and Angular. So it’s easy to switch from React or Angular to Vue.
3. Easy to learn
A tool can reach mass adoption only when it’s easy to understand, which might be the case with learning Vue.js. To start coding, it doesn’t require in-depth knowledge of libraries, JSX, and TypeScript, as is often the case with other front-end technologies. Vue.js is easy to learn even for a novice programmer, especially if he or she has a good grasp of JavaScript. Thus, the truth is that the Vue framework contains programming styles similar to those found in JavaScript.
4. Virtual DOM
Similar to React, Vue.js uses a virtual Document Object Model (DOM) to render a view. A DOM is a representation of HTML pages with their styles, elements, and page content as objects. When a user interacts with the page, the objects change their state, so that a browser has to update the information and render it on the screen. Nevertheless, the point is that the virtual DOM provides a better user interface without the need to render the real DOM if it needs to be changed. This immediately translates to improved application performance.
Cons
1. Risk of over flexibility
Flexibility is a positive as stated above. However, it becomes a controversial quality when it comes to a big project realization. Having so much flexibility and freedom can harm the integrity of the project, thus, instead of a working end product, you might encounter a flimsy piece of software.
2. Limited support community
On one hand, Vue.js still has a fairly small market share compared to React or Angular, which means that the sharing of knowledge in this framework is still at an initial stage. On the other hand, as already mentioned Alibaba and Xiaomi heavily rely on Vue.js. This helps popularize the framework and creates demand in the labor market. However, this resulted in a language barrier, since a significant part of the discussions is in Chinese.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the Vue development framework allows you to build various high-performance and adaptable applications that enable a quicker market entry. This tool is specifically perfect for a small and lightweight single-page app as well as existing product updating. All advantages of Vue are closely connected to its unique nature. This programming framework was created by a community of developers with a wide experience in React and Angular. This is why Vue.js does not follow the drawbacks of the latter systems but has pretty similar characteristics that contributes to the creation of this amazing framework.
