Thread

This is really starting to aggravate me tbh.
I can not, for the life of me, decide which framework to start learning and using.

First there’s jquery, i love its syntax, but i hate its documentation and the fact that i don’t really know what it’s capable of, or not capable of. Then there’s mootools, i Love their effects but it seems too long to code for (compared to jquery). The thing is, I don’t really know what I need, I just want the one which fits with CI, which is extensible, and which won’t get outdated. Oh and it’d be sweet if it’s easy to use.

What do you guys think? YUI, jQuery, Mootools, dojo..too many

I personally prefer ExtJS.

Ext isn’t a framework - it’s a UI toolkit.  There is a distinction

jquery + moo + prototype = simple frameworks.
yui + ext + dojo + interface = ui toolkits.

I’d use just plain jQuery.  It’s wonderful, simple and to the point.  It’s also damn fast unlike nearly all other frameworks and toolkits.

Keep it as simple as possible and let it degrade gracefully.  Use it to “assist” the user, not do gee-whiz stuff.  More people will appreciate it.

I’ve used it on 2 major commercial sites (12 million distinct visitors a month between them) with no complaints at all so far!

I decided on jQuery some time ago. jQuery seems a good and safe bet. There’s also a book out.

Ext isn’t a framework - it’s a UI toolkit.  There is a distinction

jquery + moo + prototype = simple frameworks.
yui + ext + dojo + interface = ui toolkits.

I’d use just plain jQuery.  It’s wonderful, simple and to the point.  It’s also damn fast unlike nearly all other frameworks and toolkits.

Keep it as simple as possible and let it degrade gracefully.  Use it to “assist” the user, not do gee-whiz stuff.  More people will appreciate it.

I’ve used it on 2 major commercial sites (12 million distinct visitors a month between them) with no complaints at all so far!

So the difference between the two is that frameworks don’t do ui work?  I guess I need more clarification on the difference here because I’m a little confused.  I don’t know of a thing that jQuery does that ExtJS does not do.  Now there is a lot more to ExtJS than just working with the dom, but you can add as much or as little to your library as you like/need.

Frameworks do DOM manipulation.  UI toolkits provide “controls”. 

Ext is really heavy!  I wouldn’t want to “inflict” it on my users or my bandwidth bill (currently a small fortune!).

Frameworks do DOM manipulation.  UI toolkits provide “controls”. 

Ext is really heavy!  I wouldn’t want to “inflict” it on my users or my bandwidth bill (currently a small fortune!).

So the fact that EXT has a dom manipulation library doesn’t count? I can agree that it can be heavy if you deploy the entire package right out the door, but why deploy an entire library if you are only using a couple pieces of it.

The DOM manipulation part of Ext is considerably larger and more verbose to write code with than jQuery and is aimed at supporting Ext rather than doing DOM manipulation (which is all that is needed to enhance the user’s experience).  Ext is also a heavy user of “dependencies” which by definition does not scale predictably when a new feature is introduced.

http://chrisjsmith.me.uk/images/extjs.jpg

Typical ext site for you - ext documentation.  This is to load ext docs and navigate to the AJAX page.  297k is unacceptable and will a) increase load on your own kit ... b) kill all low speed users instantly.  Noone wants to wait for.  Oh and the 35 round trips (firefox can concurrently handle 4) increases latency somewhat.  Terrible performance.

Ext promotes misuse to start with!

I’ve gone through most of the frameworks but i stick with jQuery for the reason you stated yourself, you can write short readable code. But sometimes they put out buggy code, it happens to the best. If something new comes out i wait 1 or 2 revisions before i use it on a website. But they are quick with their revisions because it’s an active community.

Ext isn’t a framework - it’s a UI toolkit.  There is a distinction

jquery + moo + prototype = simple frameworks.
yui + ext + dojo + interface = ui toolkits.

I’d use just plain jQuery.  It’s wonderful, simple and to the point.  It’s also damn fast unlike nearly all other frameworks and toolkits.

I subscribe to this view as well.  I don’t like working with widget libraries and prefer the language-level enhancements to get things done. 

I know of at least one fallout between a “HTML designer” and a “java programmer” over YUI and usability—YUI is one a widget library.  Let the designer design the forms and widgets in their preferred notation and you the programmer use jQuery to manipulate the DOM.

EXTjs may be pixel perfect,  but if you modify it you have to be a CSS guru,  which means you won’t.  And to get your designer to deal with that codebase would be pretty hard.

Of course,  at the moment I don’t have a designer,  and I’ve got 2 days to put out some pretty CRUD pages.  I think I will ditch the CRUD framework and use EXTjs…

-R

OK i use YUI, and no YUI is NOT just a ui toolkit, it has alot of stuff which isnt ui based.

Sure it has alot of custom widgets and what not but what doesnt.
I also chose YUI because it does get a decent amount of updates as its made by YAHOO.

Here’s what I decided, I’m going to go get a JS book from Barnes & Noble, read it, try to write my own code, after a while, I’ll migrate to a framework where I actually know what everything does. Thanks for the replies guys

I used the “heavy” Ext library on my project because my user wanted an app that closely resembled a desktop app. Ext provided this.

I’ve used jQuery on other projects because it was lighter than others. My personal choice is propotupe - robost and basic enaough to mold.

However, its all about the best tools for the job, rather than what looks nice on a developer, isn’t it?

Here’s what I decided, I’m going to go get a JS book from Barnes & Noble, read it, try to write my own code, after a while, I’ll migrate to a framework where I actually know what everything does. Thanks for the replies guys

Writing your own code can be a time loss because most of the time you are not aware of the browser inconsistencies.

However writing your own code is good if you want to get an understanding of the possibilities javascript already possesses.

xwero well yeah, that’s what I was aiming for. My goal is to start using a framework and have enough understanding of javascript to modify and extend it to my own needs.