[Sugar-devel] discussion of which javascript framework to use for Karma

[Bryan Berry]

Subzero,

below is a conversation I had w/ my friend Christopher Marin who is a
web developer. El es ecuadoreno pero crecimos juntos en Los Angeles.

also, this google trends report should be of interest
http://www.google.com/trends?q=dojo%2C+extjs%2C+jQuery%2C
+mootools&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

 me:  hey dude, have a moment to chat?
 C:  Sure
 me:  I am working w/ a GSoC participant on Karma
the first thing to do is evaluate which js framework to use
we are going to evaluate dojo, jQuery, and at least 1 more
what do you recommend?
 Christopher:  Great
My favorite general use js framework at the moment is jQuery. It seems
to have the most momentum behind it, creator is js genius, and it is
easy to write apps with it.
The only thing it doesn't have a strong base in right now is widgets
 me:  and widgets are what?
 Christopher:  In my opinion ext is tops here.
Things like grids, windowing and layout systems, tabs, menus,
accordions, etc
 me:  will jQuery catch up in time? or is it limited architecturally?
 Christopher:  Ext can actually run on top of jquery
So in our app at my company we run both jquery and ext
Jquery has ui project
 me:  and jquery-ui is analogous to extjs widgets?
 Christopher:  They've made good strides lately, already have a book out
just on that subproject
Yes, but not as mature or near the range of functionality, yet, though
I'm sure they'll catch up eventually
Ext is coming out with a major new release soon, the base version of 3
is already outC
Best thing to do with them is to check out their samples, documentation
is also top notch. Also a few books came out on ext recently
 me:  what about extjs community? its leadership?
 Christopher:  Only issue with ext is licensing
 me:  i don't like licensing problems at all
 Christopher:  They made their licensing more strict as of 3. Free for
open source projects, uses gpl
But commercial is supposed to pay
 me:  but for-profit, closed-source companies have to pay?
 Christopher:  Community and leadership of ext good, though nothing
seems as large as jquery community nowadays
 me:  I don't like that. I want closed-source education companies to
switch from Flash to js
How do u compare dojo to jQuery?
 Christopher:  Yes, those have to pay
Microsoft and nokie recently standardized on jquery
Nokia
So lots of folks from those camps are contributing code and samples
 me:  cool, and big for-profit edu companies will like it better if uses
similar technologies to MS
 Christopher:  Dojo is mature, probably stronger in  widgets, or at
least more standardized in terms of look and feel
The thing is with jquery there are a million plugins, but until ui
project there was no standardization of look and feel, and how
components shoulkd interact
 Sent at 9:52 AM on Tuesday
 Christopher:  That's the beauty of ext, you can do a full almost
desktop like ui with sortable, filterable grids, even bake it all into
adobe air.  jquery not quite there yet
 Sent at 9:54 AM on Tuesday
 me:  it's pretty critical to me that commercial companies use our
little framework. Anything that slows down commercial adoption would be
bad.
 Christopher:  But back to dojo, my sense is that it has lost momentum,
along with prototype and scriptaculous. Mootools is another intersting
one.
 me:  could dojo regain the momentum? does it have good leadership?
 Christopher:  An interesting experiment would be to do a search of
these on google trends. You'll see how these have fared over the last
year
 me:  sure
 Sent at 9:56 AM on Tuesday
 Christopher:  If I had to pick one framework it would be jquery
Chances are, someone somewhere will have solved many of the challenges
you'll face
 me:  which is what I am really hoping for
what are more plusses, minuses for dojo?
here is an older trend report file:///home/hitman/Desktop/Personal/Link%
20to%20docs/javascript/jquery/jquery_beginning_part1_files/trends.jpg
 Christopher:  To be honest I haven't used it much at all. Tried one of
their widgets a couple years ago. I think the thing I didn't like at the
time was the skins, they weren't particularly pretty.
On my cell right now, can't see links
 me:  john resig is really impressive
 Christopher:  Yeah, just used one of his functions of his blog a few
hours ago to remove a specific element from an array (whish js had that
natively)
 me:  thanks this has been extremely helpful



-- 
Bryan W. Berry
Technology Director
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org