A couple years ago I had to agonize over which version of Angular to use for my front end development of a brand new project: AngularJs with all my currently built up knowledge, or the new framework that’s the future.

In deciding which technology to use in a project, we definitely need to be thinking of the future. However, is there a way to gage a technology’s longevity?

The Lindy Effect

In judging a longevity of an idea or non-parishable thing, there’s a concept called the Lindy effect that states:

The future life expectancy of some non-perishable things like a technology or an idea is proportional to their current age, so that every additional period of survival implies a longer remaining life expectancy.

AngularJs Probabilistic Future

AngularJs was initially released October 20, 2010; 7 years ago.  According to the Lindy Effect, it should a valid technology for another 7 years.  That’s a long time in technology years.  If you’re taking into account how long a technology is going to survive when choosing a technology for a project, then AngularJs looks pretty promising compared to the newer Angular Framework.

The Decision

Full disclosure: I love AngularJs 1.x!  Another disclosure: I really love the new Angular framework as well.  This concept of longevity was taken into account when I decided which framework to pick, but the decision was pretty easy since the new Angular Framework was still in Beta.  I wasn’t going to start a new project with a beta technology.

Overview

You can judge the probabilist longevity of a technology using the Lindy effect that states the life expectancy of a technology is proportional to its current age.  AngularJs has been around for a while and most likely will be around for just as long.