Developer Pete Bacon Darwin detailed in an Angular blog post how release 1.5.0 serves as a precursor to Angular 2. "In this release we have added features that will enable developers to write Angular 1 applications that are closer to the way that applications are structured in Angular 2," he said.
Version 1.5.0 enables developers to easily define a component directive via the module.component() helper method. "For example a simple component only needs to provide a template, some bindings, and a controller," wrote Darwin. "For the remaining directive options, we set sensible defaults." Use of components already has been the primary way of building applications with Angular.
Lifecycle hooks akin to Angular 2 are featured as well. "If your directive/component controller has a method called $onInit() the compiler will now call it after the component has been initialized and all its bindings have been set up," Darwin said. "This provides a clear place to put the initialization code for your components."
Version 1.5.0 also features instantiation of native ECMAScript 6 classes. "Due to variable browser support, this is a volatile feature, so be careful to test on your target browsers before going to production," Darwin warned. Security has been enhanced in the release as well.
Due sometime early this year, Angular 2 is a rewritten, rearchitected version of the Google-developed framework. It focuses on speed in rendering and updating pages as well as support for building mobile apps for Google Android and Apple iOS. Development of Angular began in 2009, with the intention of making it easier for Web designers to add extra HTML to code, turning static content into dynamic content.