Choosing a JavaScript library
Javascript Library requirements
- base for client-side restletport
- cross-browser issues:
- syntax
- DOM model
- event model
- dynamic loading of js-files
- event binding
- unit testing
- (widgets, effects)
- integration of external widgets (Simile)
- size, stability, maturity
- compression
The contestants
|
|
Latest (non-beta) release |
Size |
the good |
the bad |
Licence |
Browser compatibility |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dojo |
1.0.2 (12/15/07) |
50kb+ |
|
|
modified BSD or Academic Free 2.1 |
Safari 3.0.x |
| Prototype |
1.6.0.2 (01/25/08) |
~120kb |
|
MIT |
IE 6.0+ |
|
|
1.2.2 (01/14/08) |
~26kb |
|
|
MIT or GPL |
FF1.5+ |
|
| Ext JS |
2.0.1 (01/23/08) |
7kb+ |
|
|
LGPL 3.0 |
IE 6+ |
| Yahoo UI Library
|
2.4.1 (12/19/07) |
29kb+ |
|
|
BSD |
IE 6+ |
| MooTools |
1.1 (05/07/07) |
9kb+ |
|
MIT |
IE 6+ |
|
| qooxdoo |
0.7.3 (01/14/08) |
|
|
LGPL or EPL |
IE 5.5+ |
|
| Rico |
2.0rc (01/29/08) |
|
|
Apache 2.0 |
IE 5.5+ |
|
| GWT |
1.4.61 (11/03/07) |
|
|
Apache 2.0 |
IE |
Disqualified:
- MochiKit: seems to be deserted
Popularity (by number of searches)
The other frameworks (qooxdoo, Rico, Ext js) didn't have enough search volume to show up on the graph. The seeming popularity of Prototype is caused by the added searches for the prototype object of JavaScript.
The first 4 loosers
- Rico:
- small community
- low support
But for this: "We need a library to provide common, reusable functionality and save us from writing lots of repetitive code..." GWT is really not a contender.
It would be a good fit if your goals were to avoid maintaining any code in dynamically typed languages, or to be able to audit antipatterns with FindBugs, etc, or to leverage existing libraries written in Java that do interesting computations -- and you intend to do the whole thing, or at least large functional chunks, in GWT.