meta_robert

JQuery vs Prototype (and Scriptaculous)

This weekend, I did a partial rewrite of the Identica version of BeTwittered.  I moved from using Prototype to using JQuery.  I’m not actually a programmer, so take my opinion with a grain of salt: I really prefer JQuery.  I feel more at home writing things like $(”#fieldID”).html(”Shiny, New HTML Content!”), and I really like the way that it allows for binding events.  It just seems to work in a way more compatible with my disfunctional, possibly ozone damaging, thought patterns.  I also have to say that the widgets that come standard in the framework seem to be better, and there are more available (compared to Scriptaculous, which builds on Prototype)  It should be interesting as I get deeper in to the rabbit hole. If you are looking at the differences for yourself, you might also want to look at the differences between the AJAX stuff… JQuery gave me much more of what I wanted.  The simple ajax “update” stuff is nice, and it I’m sure it helps throw quick little things together, but the core request API is more useful in jQuery.  I dont recall the exact differences off of the top of my head, but a couple things I really like are “nocache” and “timeout” options.  I no longer have to send a timestamp to keep the browser from giving me a cached ajax response, and having control over the timeout at the client end is crucial for a browser application.

I really would prefer to move straight to Sproutore, which is a much more comprehensive framework which is very “client app” oriented, but it’s just not quite ready for me; meaning it’s not quite done, but mostly that I’ve not figured it out enough yet.  It’s not you, Sproutcore, it’s me!  But I’m still working on it.  When onitunes (sorry, I forget his real name, we only chatted on IRC) finishes up the in-browser GUI IDE, I’ll probably push hard to move to Sproutcore. That looks like a REALLY killer feature.

By the way, if you can think of a good name for an Identica client, I’m desperate!  So far I’ve stumbled and have only iDentify, BeDented, and BeDentica.  iDentify is OK.  Any thoughts?  Please help me!