Front end rewrite and modernization

It was time to bring the sales platform into the current decade!

More information

Having the AngularJS EOL looming over the project's head was slightly concerning, however this also proved to be a great opportunity to rewrite it in more modern technologies! Notably, Vue, which had already been used previously in another few projects, alongside the features provided by the latest versions, such as the Composition API, which is in some ways nicer to use than React hooks, as well as state management solutions as Pinia and PrimeVue for ready made components.

What I did

This time, I got to start over from scratch in regards to the front end. I already had the old back end API with which I intended to keep compatibility, but in regards to the rest I mostly had my hands free. Because of this, I created a nice containerized solution which could run in parallel to the old front end, as well as one that was even better suited to devices of all sorts of types and sizes (responsive design), with properly decoupled components.

While I left the company before finishing this migration all the way, I had even created component showcase pages to bring anyone up to speed with what basis I had already provided and how they could take over the development.

What I learnt

Frankly, most projects out there should have storybooks or development pages of some description, they're quite useful! Apart from that, I'm inclined to say that the stack of Vue, Composition API, Pinia and one of the more popular component libraries out there is a surprisingly productive and simple development stack, at least when compared against something like React with Redux. As for using TypeScript instead of JavaScript, personally I think it's a decent idea, but this time I stuck with what the other developers knew better.