JavaScript frameworks
So…. exemplar (our beloved ‘master’ site) is built on symfony (take it or leave it) which has inbuilt helpers and functions using the prototype/scriptaculous framework. It’s not necessary to use this, however at the time it was probably considered the best javascript solution and therefore was used in development. A couple of years down the line, and we realise that there’s better stuff around, and our current library is a little on the messy side. Time for a re-vamp 
We’ve been looking around at what’s available and what we think could possibly suit exemplar best. We’re looking for:
- simplicity
- extensibility
- good performance
I can’t see any of us wanting to build our own framework when there are so many good ones around, so that’s out of the question. So I guess the real competitors are:
I’ve personally looked at the 1st 3 in depth and wish to look at the last 2 aswell before making any proposal. So far I feel that once you’ve got to grips with any of them, they become very natural and easy to use.
The prototype framework was the first JavaScript framework I had ever used and was immediately impressed. The syntax is lovely and especially coming from a OO background, being able to create patterns and separate your code into classes and objects was a real relief and most of our work is already using this framework, we could simply revisit it. However, it is slow… real slow. When creating a mass of libraries the page load gets very heavy. I also found that some things didn’t seem consistent, and doing small tasks could take quite a while.
Next, I moved onto Mootools. It’s a very, very sweet framework. It felt like someone got hold of prototype, pulled it apart, tore out all the unnecessary bits and put it together again. It’s solid, really quick and the syntax is very familiar to prototype. I was originally introduced to it by our favourite French man Fabien about a year ago, but it’s lame website didn’t sell it to me. Now that I’ve actually used it I can’t see why this wouldn’t be a good one to choose, other than there isn’t a much of a community yet. This also means, less developers are going to know it. If we were to get another developer on board, there’s a small chance they will know how to use it.
Next, the mother, jQuery. Syntactically, totally different to the other 2, but it can live up to it’s name. It feels a bit strange to use after coming from the OO style frameworks, but it’s very, very simple. It’s so simple in fact, I felt like I was cheating. There’s no way that it would ever get confusing bouncing code from one developer to another and it’s real simple to pick up. The community is pretty large and a lot of people swear by it. Although the other two are good competitors and I wouldn’t mind using any, for IPC, I feel jQuery is the right move.
(So far anyway. To be continued…)
