Frameworks

[Brandon W]

Well, over the the last week or so, when I am not at school or work I try to get on the computer. That is with the amount of homework I do aswell, but I seem to get on the computer more than what I have imagined.

So I have started to learn Ajax. It's not really hard at all! I know Ajax is a term, so I really should have said. I have started to learn how to use the XMLHttpRequest function.

In doing this, I have been looking around in my magazines and they talk a lot about Dreamweaver. So when I am reading through, I look at Dreamweaver as well and it made me think with their Ajax Framework, Spry.

I started to read about them on the web, and I found a few of the most popular ones. Prototype, jQuery and Sajax. So I downloaded them all, including Spry just wanting to look around.

I want to see what I can do with these Ajax Frameworks. I am wondering, what experiences you have had with these Frameworks and what you think of the frameworks you have used.

I am really interested in reading John's reply

[WingedPanther]

I'm actually looking at using jQuery in some of my work for my job. It looks like it brings a LOT of functionality to the table.

[Jordan]

jQuery is very powerful.

[Brandon W]

Any personal experiences with jQuery?

[Jordan]

Yes. I was just using it the other day, actually - but I cannot remember for what. I've never made anything using jQuery, I've only edited other people's work with it. MooTools is popular as well:

MooTools - a compact javascript framework

It is used for this template on CC. I know a lot of Joomla! templates use this compact framework. I've also used EXT JS, which is my personal favorite. I wrote a blog about it somewhere.

[Brandon W]

I noticed you changed your avatar

So I am guessing you know MooTools if you a lot of Joolma!? Yes I remember reading that blog It was EXT JS vs something, you wanted to get John to blog more. Is EXT JS powerful?

[John]

Jordan's blog was Ext Gwt vs Ext JS, and the difference is that EXT JS is a JavaScript library while Ext Gwt is a Java library which compiles into JavaScript. The compiler thus makes your code more efficient, in many instances. I have used Ext Gwt, Ext JS, jQuery, MooTools, and have dabbled with Dojo. Dojo seems to be the most powerful followed by jQuery. The Ext* libraries simply provide easy to use rich interfaces (something you could accomplish with other tool kits as well, but not as easily). jQuery has a funky syntax, but it seems to be widely supported. If I were to sit down and learn the ins and outs of a particular library with intent of large scale use, it would be jQuery.

[Brandon W]

As I said about John's post And you use Ext Gwt, right? What happens when some Java code could not compile into Javascript?

I have started learning jQuery now, also reading through the documentation. It seems to have many great plug-ins which make code so much easier! I always knew what a framework was, I also knew what they could do, but never knew how powerful they were till I tried one

Another great thing about jQuery, is it has many advanced selectors
API/1.3/Selectors - jQuery JavaScript Library

[John]

I use Ext Gwt for one of my undergraduate research projects I am involved with, simply because something needed to get done and I did not want to spend hours familiarizing myself with both the syntax and semantics of an JavaScript library. With Ext Gwt, I only needed to familiarize myself with the semantics since I was already proficient in Java.

To answer your question, when the Java doesn't compile, nothing happens. You have to fix the error that is causing the compiler to complain before you can proceed.

[Brandon W]

Hmmmmm interesting. Do you ever plan to learn JS or a JS Framework?