[JS Frameworks] What you use? Why you use it?

[Psy]

As you might know, every Javascript framework out there has their own philosophy: Dojo focuses on its unique syntax, for jQuery it's all about DOM manipulation, Mootools focus on a modular style and the code size... From the perspective of the developer or team, every approach has its strong points and weaknesses; thus, this is an important choice to make at the beginning of any web or RIA project.

This space is about sharing experiences, tips and ideas about why a particular framework fits the scope of a particular project better than others. Currently there are many to choose from, and many devs just don't have the time to test them all and explore their communities to get an idea of what's going on. Because of that, any comment about real-world experiences are important and always welcome.

Let's start

[Psy]

I'm not a hardcore Javascript programmer, but always liked the idea to have small effects and widgets on my pages. I started doing this myself, then I get introduced to Prototype and fell in love with its "$" function. Later, script.aculo.us showed up, but was evident that the footprint of both frameworks combined was too much for a simple webpage, so I started to use moo.fx for Prototype, and later the stand alone version, Mootools. jQuery was my next step, and so far I prefer it on most projects, but not all of them, because...

jQuery: I use jQuery on simple websites that only need some effects and enhancements. The DOM manipulation is pretty amazing, and you feel comfortable using its methods. It has a rich online community, full of examples, tips & tricks, and in fact, Aptana seems to love it . Most of the effects work fine and fast, doesn't matters how weird your CSS/HTML is, but if you try to put it into a serious RIA development, you start to feel its limitations: there are almost no methods or functions to facilitate the work on long and modular code, and better get careful on your code, or other co-workers will start to complain about the messy chain of events, properties and methods on it. Sure, you have a lot of plugins and extensions, but there are in fact too many, some of them not well programmed, and you can spare some ours just to find the exact function you want.

Mootools: Mootools is the next step. Its something different to jQuery, structured and rigid. You don't have all the freedom jQuery brings to your programming style (ex: you can't just trigger an effect, you must construct it first), but if you look as a Team Leader, you'll found that its better this way. Also, almost anything you need to start working on a medium size project is there: a nice class constructor, powerful cookies handler, inclusion and execution of external JS code on demand, special events to handle rollovers, etc. Sadly, DOM manipulation feels a bit weak: you have a function similar to jQuery “$â€

[claudiobosticco]

Smartclient LGPL. Simply the best

[blazar]

I mostly use jQuery and plugins for it, which you can see on the new Jaxer guide I also like Highslide for in-page popups like lightboxes.

I've used YUI, mootools and Prototype in the past but jQuery just seems to fit my mental model better, I've even used the jRails plugin to use it in Ruby on Rails apps instead of Prototype.

Please note that this post contains my personal opinions and not those of my employer

[Psy]

Thanks for the opinions! I can add to my previous post that sadly (because I really like the framework technical behave) we dropped Mootools for now. Reason: V1.2 is not consistent enough on its syntax and usage.

Mootools is not jQuery: you must be aware of the kind of data a function returns to properly use it and even chain it. Thats ok, but on version 1.2 some functions changed radically, meaning that instead of using function.hide() now you must use function.fade() BUT some functions still work using function.hide(). Long story short: I ended banging my head on the monitor

[fighne]

Have been using jQuery for a time now, like the capabilities and ability to extend with ease. Used it on projects for Pearson and Nokia.

[fliming99]

I use mootools a lot. When I was deciding which on to use, I first
looked at How big is the library ( how long is it going to take me to
learn ), how complex, does it do what I want/need. Does it fit the way
I think, does it make sense with python/django.Mootools, to me was a pretty good fit. The descriptor of mootools as,'It's not about cows or milk! It stands for My Object Orientated
Tools" The best thing about mootools is the Class implementation. It really
turns a muddy scripting language into a more OO lang like python. You can create new classes & objects which can inherit from each other, etc. Going from python to mootools is easy as you don't have such a RH302 big shift in gears. There is also project that can convert your python code directly to
mootools javascript. Also, while a topic of much debate, one of mootools strengths and
consequently it's weakness is that it extends some of the naitive objects in javascript. This makes coding faster and easier. However, the down side is that it doesn't really play well with some other javascript libraries. Personal experience has pointed out jquery and
the 2.X versions of the YUI ( at least with out some patching ). 640-721 But it has a host of built in methods for working with Javascripts native objects that just make life easier. I would really miss the Classes and ease/speed at which you can create applications. As of late Mootools has been under a pretty big surge in development. in the last 5-6 months it has gone from 1.2 to 1.2.4.1 and is on the verge of 2.0, so their has been a little frustration with backward
compatibility and change in some syntax. But they have all previous
versions on github making it pretty easy to stick with 1 version. 650-175 Obviously a little biased, but that's my 2 cents.