Tiffany B. Brown

a mish-mosh of stuff

JavaScript Holy War: What’s your favorite framework or toolkit?

Digital Web has two articles that are related to this post. Check out Excerpt: Accelerated DOM Scripting with Ajax, APIs and Libraries and jQuery Crash Course

As the number of web-based applications grow, so do the number JavaScript frameworks and toolkits with the goal of making cross-browser development an easier process. But which to choose?

Well, that’s where you come in: what is your preferred JavaScript framework or toolkit? Have you tried more than one? What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of your choice framework or toolkit as compared to others? Or maybe you hate frameworks and toolkits altogether. Duke it out in the comments.

Some of the combatants in this holy war (for those new to JavaScript frameworks and toolkits) include:

I explicitly left two libraries off of the list: Moo.fx and Script.aculo.us because they both build on other frameworks (Mootools and Prototype, respectively).

There’s also some debate about the definition and use of the terms ‘framework,’ and ‘library’ (a working definition: Frameworks tend to control the way an applications is structured and manage them from the outside). I doubt very many folks can or care to parse those semantics, and I’m pretty sure I have rolled some libraries into my definition of framework. I ask your forgiveness in advance.

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  • mike

    jquery: small footprint, super quick to develop, heaps of inbuilt functions, and the css style selectors are a dream, and you end up with 25% of the code you would with other libraries or plain DOM scripting.

  • mike

    jquery: small footprint, super quick to develop, heaps of inbuilt functions, and the css style selectors are a dream, and you end up with 25% of the code you would with other libraries or plain DOM scripting.

  • http://www.gapodcastnetwork.com/ Rusty

    Another vote for jQuery for the same reasons Mike listed.

  • http://www.gapodcastnetwork.com Rusty

    Another vote for jQuery for the same reasons Mike listed.