Seeking opinions regarding JavaScript frameworks 1

[MissouriTiger]

Hi all,

I would be grateful for any suggestions/advice regarding JavaScript frameworks. My boss wishes to adopt a JavaScript framework to streamline development, and we are currently researching them. There are several of them out there, and it's confusing.

I'm hoping someone can clarify what the differences are among some of them, and perhaps answer a few questions:

What should we be looking for in a framework to help us decide?

What framework are you currently using, and why do you like/dislike it?

Does anyone know of an article out on the web that compares various frameworks?

Any information will be greatly appreciated.





Greg Norris
Software Developer & all around swell guy

http://www.GregNorris.net

__________________________________________________
Constructed from 100% recycled electrons.

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

Some general thoughts - in no particular order:

- I've looked into Prototype, Dojo, and DWR, and they all do much the same sort of thing (quick access to commonly-used DOM methods, easy AJAX functions, etc). DWR also provides some server-side routines (AFAIK) as well.

- You might not need a library. If all you want to do is make things easy for yourself, why not write your own libraries. One advantage would be not bloating your code with things you don't need (or you could take one of the above-mentioned libraries and cut them down).

- Prototype seems to be more understandable (code-wise) than Dojo. Dojo has a lot of non-meaningful variable names, which, if you're not familiar with the code, can be hard to work out.

Hope this helps,
Dan

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[BillyRayPreachersSon]

Also, Prototype is a lot smaller than Dojo (although you can choose not to use all of Dojo, as it is split into smaller libraries). It also seems to have a lot of good OO-related "helper methods" (for creating and extending classes, etc) that Dojo hasn't (unless I missed them).

Dan



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[BillyRayPreachersSon]

Greg,

Was the above information helpful?

Dan



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[BillyRayPreachersSon]

I guess it was!

Dan



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[BlindPete]

Sitepoint did a good review of Y!, Dojo, Rico and Prototype

http://www.sitepoint.com/newsletter/viewissue.php?id=3&issue=132&format=html

I concur with BillyRay your better off building up your own library with only exactly what you need. Thats not to say you build it from scratch, but you will learn a great deal building up your own. I found Y! library particularly interesting.

If you are interested in AJAX there is a very good (and very small) library called My-Bic complete with video tutorials.

http://www.litfuel.net/mybic/

There is also the Google GWT, but you'll need a good level of JAVA knoweldge for it to be useful to you.

-Pete