Ever since ng-europe last month, people have been freaking out about Angular 2.0, initially I had written up some thoughts about this in the days following, but I decided to wait a while for things to settle down before writing about this. I am hardly an Angular expert, and though I do use it both at work and also in pet projects I wondered really how much I had to add to the discussion.
Onsen is another Angular based mobile UI framework, and this one actually (I checked, honestly) does have its CSS framework based on TopCoat, although they have modified it a fair bit. It hails from Japan (Onsen means Hotsprings or Spa in Japanese, so the name is cute pun) which may explain why it lacks the exposure of Ionic.
I just got a new computer, and joy of joys it came with Windows 8.1. I was seriously considering downgrading (upgrading?) to Windows 7, but I figured that if I was going to stay in the Windows world for a little while I would have to get use to direction that Windows was going and I would tough it out with Windows 8.1.
Ionic is the new hotness in the hybrid app development world, picking up steam and popularity at I high rate. It uses Angular to allow for declarative, interactive pages and their own CSS UI to create a modern looking UI. To this, Ionic adds its own special sauce: a collection of Angular directives, a CLI tool, some libraries and proscriptive structure for creating a mobile application.
Before I go too deep down this rat/rabbit hole, I should state that Libraries are what has allowed programming to develop from where only the best of the best can produce software to a place where a plumber like me can still produce some pretty amazing stuff.