Discuss: weblogs : ikks : javascript_libraries

I prefer not to use libraries. You don't need a lot of JS to do what you need to do.

arhuaco, Thu Aug 2 15:21:11 2007

Well, I've been thinking about this. For Svnwiki, we've written down all the JavaScript it uses pretty much from scratch, but that has the drawback of requiring lots of testing on different browsers on our part. Sometimes I think it would be easier just to switch to using one of those JavaScript libraries that you mention... I guess I would recommend that you take a look at how one of those libraries implements the functions you need and you just copy the functionality you need (of course, you copy it from onw having the right license to permit the copying).

azul, Thu Aug 2 16:08:07 2007

All the libraries I mentioned are mit like licensed avoiding copyleft, but I started from ground up, the browser compatibility is a real issue, but for most of the project I have the opportunity to make the people use iceweasel/firefox , so I guess I won't have portability issues. For now my main site of info for this sort of things is http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/JavaScript, and I'm using Firebug which I certainly recommend.

I had the opportunity that Firefox is a lot merciful than IE. :)

Ikks, Fri Aug 3 04:01:01 2007

Although I have little experience with it, I like Prototype.

I hesitate between Alejo's proposal (copying bits) and using the unmodified version of the library. In the latter approach one can trust browser caches so that the penalty of loading the full library is incurred only the first time someone visits your website. The downside is that browser caching will not be effective for visitors using computer rooms at Internet cafés, schools, etc., hence your site might be slightly slower to load in those situations. (Also for people that do not visit your website often, but the penalty is unimportant in those cases: it should matter for people that use your site regularly.) The advantage is that you can easily replace the library with each successive version, taking advantage of bug fixes, compatibility fixes, etc.

tagae, Thu Aug 9 07:14:31 2007

I hesitate between Alejo's proposal (copying bits) and using the unmodified version of the library. In the latter approach one can trust browser caches so that the penalty of loading the full library is incurred only the first time someone visits your website.

Uh, doesn't that also happen with the first approach? I'm missing something.

azul, Fri Aug 10 04:21:25 2007

I've used Prototype (with script.aculo.us) and YUI, but JQuery and Mochikit are interesting too.

Prototype is interesting but I think it tries to make Javascript more like Ruby and, while doing so, it misses some of the most important features of the language, like prototype based inheritance.

I like YUI because it's well designed and has great documentation; is really useful when you have to use widgets, like menus, containers or treeview elements. Yahoo Developers frequently post articles about it, and about Javascript and web development in general, on the YUI Blog (yuiblog.com).

Finally, maybe this presentation (http://simonwillison.net/2007/May/16/libraries/) could be interesting for you, it describes some of the libraries you have reviewed.

cavorite, Tue Aug 14 05:05:13 2007

cavorite, tagae, thanks, I'm realizing that there is need for cross browser support, so I will go for a library, the learning of javascript itself making some tests should make me be a better user of the whichever I finally choose. Arhuaco, azul, thanks also ;)

ikks, Tue Aug 21 01:30:08 2007