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New Poll: What is your Javascript library of choice?

frameworks

I know I’ve been talking a lot about jQuery lately, but I promise I won’t stray too far off the CSS path. I would like to find out what everyone else’s favorite Javascript libraries, hence the new poll, “What is your javascript library of choice?”. I know for a fact we have some serious advocates for jQuery, MooTools, and Adobe Spry around here, which is awesome we have that diversity. But it will be interesting to see how popular the others are and if there are another advocates for other frameworks out there I don’t even know about.

Poll is in the sidebar as usual.


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Responses


  1. 1

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    jQuery (and interface or UI) is the best for me. I try to use Moo but i really don’t like the documentation (i think is pretty hard to read for non-technical users). I also try to use Prototype, but is huge…


    Comment by Staicu Ionut — April 17, 2008 @ 6:05 am

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    Each library has it’s benefits and it’s cool gadgets. The problem is that you can’t use them togehter (eg. Prototype & Mootools).


    Comment by Daniel — April 17, 2008 @ 6:07 am

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    jQuery is the more convenient solution in terms of documentation, tutorials, and speed to deploy even for non technical people.


    Comment by Yasser — April 17, 2008 @ 6:11 am

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    I’ll vote for Mootools.
    Its pretty easy to understand and the effect built over it are very neat.
    and moreover its very small.


    Comment by Nitin Hayaran — April 17, 2008 @ 6:30 am

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    jQuery… I just felt in love with it
    http://codeclimber.net.nz/archive/2008/04/17/Having-a-crush-on-jQuery.aspx


    Comment by Simone — April 17, 2008 @ 7:09 am

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    easy answer - > jQuery!


    Comment by Webstandard-Team — April 17, 2008 @ 7:16 am

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    I have played with prototype & scriptaculoius, but though that the file sizes were too big.

    I played with Mootools, but could not understand the documentation at all and the code I wrote seemed to turn into a maze of (({{}})) characters so after a few lines I could not figure anything out and did not find it very intuitive when I wanted to create something from scratch.

    JQuery on the other hand is light weight and really easy to get going with.


    Comment by David Madden — April 17, 2008 @ 7:23 am

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    SPRY

    What else would expect from an adobe spry community expert :$


    Comment by V1 — April 17, 2008 @ 7:49 am

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    I’m new in using Javascript, but I tried many jQuery examples and this is my choice!


    Comment by Elyézer Mendes Rezende — April 17, 2008 @ 8:10 am

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    Yahoo! definitely. It has excellent documentation with examples, lots of widgets, frequent updates through community-based development and utilizes research Yahoo has done regarding visual behavior people expect from the real world (physics of a ball bouncing off the floor).

    Plus I don’t know how important it is to some, but Yahoo’s extension of event and XHR handling is superb. Custom events and the ability to specify the scope of any event (XHR, traditional or custom) is excellent for developing OO-based libraries.


    Comment by Eric — April 17, 2008 @ 8:33 am

  11. 11

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    Mootools, because I like italian cows.


    Comment by Delapouite — April 17, 2008 @ 8:55 am

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    jQuery, I just love the simplicity :D


    Comment by Fabian | Onyx Design — April 17, 2008 @ 9:00 am

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    ExtJS all the way. The most complete library available, and it can also work as a full fledge javascript framework on your client side. It has almost every feature from every other library and can also play nice with all of the other libraries (it has adapters for jQuery, Prototype and YUI, as well as a user extension for MooTools).

    It is the most extensible library available, as it even says it in it’s name, Ext means Extension (it used to be YUI-Ext).

    The down side is that it is a larger library but with proper compression that is not too big of a deal. You can also pick and choose which files need to be added into a page to help limit the page size.

    If I need something small for a quick fix or a small project, I go with jQuery, but for everything else it is ExtJs.


    Comment by Brandon — April 17, 2008 @ 9:01 am

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    prototype is the best!!


    Comment by emilio — April 17, 2008 @ 9:22 am

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    Which one has the easiest learning curve?


    Comment by Niki Brown — April 17, 2008 @ 9:27 am

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    Moooooooooooooooooooooo!


    Comment by David Walsh — April 17, 2008 @ 9:28 am

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    Jquery, definitively the best Javascript library for me :)


    Comment by julien — April 17, 2008 @ 9:38 am

  18. 18

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    Base2 : http://code.google.com/p/base2/


    Comment by Yves — April 17, 2008 @ 12:43 pm

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    Jquery! I started out with Scriptalicious, then MooTools, but finally Jquery. Really easy to interact with elements in a document. Documentation is great.

    It gets my vote.


    Comment by shoo — April 17, 2008 @ 12:57 pm

  20. 20

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    jQuery.


    Comment by Anthony Ettinger — April 17, 2008 @ 3:44 pm

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    Mootools is programers oriented.
    YUI and its “industrial strength” is for huge websites & web apps.
    JQuery targets people that don’t want to learn Js but need to add effects or Ajax calls.
    Prototype is an attempt to enhance Js by implementing new features. Like Mootools, I would say it’s more programers oriented.

    You can’t compare these librairies, they don’t compete on the same field.

    Practical answer : on my blog, I use Mootools. I find its syntax beautiful. And as you can see, it has nice looking effects and Ajax.

    Menu elements coming from the left + menu hover animation
    Reflections under the thumbnails + hover effect + lightbox port
    “Express message to the author” at the bottom of the post, using Ajax and a Growl-like animation when sent


    Comment by Louis — April 17, 2008 @ 4:00 pm

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    Tried most of them except YUI. MooTools and Prototype are pretty cool, but I definitely like jQuery the most.


    Comment by JR — April 17, 2008 @ 11:12 pm

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    Is it possible to use prototype and YUI together?


    Comment by Masood — April 18, 2008 @ 6:26 am

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    Where’s Dojo?


    Comment by Eric Wendelin — April 18, 2008 @ 6:26 am

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    As a css developer with only some js skills, I find jQuery the easiest to work with. The selectors for targeting elements are just like css selectors. So from my perspective it’s the easiest to understand and work with.

    I’d recommend jQuery to anyone who has a good understanding of css but minimal js skills.

    If you’re a real js hotshot, you’ll probably just pick the right framework for the job and sometimes it will be jQuery and sometimes it won’t.


    Comment by Andy Ford — April 18, 2008 @ 10:17 am

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    by the way…
    The “Cycle” plugin for jQuery is probably the most awesome and easy to use js slideshow I’ve come across. http://www.malsup.com/jquery/cycle/

    I’ve been wondering if there is an equivalent to Cycle for Prototype.js. That would really come in handy when I need to use prototype instead of jquery


    Comment by Andy Ford — April 18, 2008 @ 10:20 am

  27. 27

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    jQuery is King. Plus, the jQuery community is helpful and huge. A definite plus.


    Comment by Joe — April 18, 2008 @ 11:58 am

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    “JQuery targets people that don’t want to learn Js but need to add effects or Ajax calls.”

    I am not totally sure what you were getting at but I am assuming you only mean that you don’t “have to” learn Js if you don’t want by using jQuery. But jQuery is powerful enough to be used by any level of programmer from beginner to the expert. So, jQuery targets anyone that wants to code for just about every browser and wants a library that will do the initial heavy lifting of being cross browser compatible so that the programmer can do what they need.


    Comment by Benjamin Sterling — April 18, 2008 @ 12:44 pm

  29. 29

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    JavaScriptMVC! (http://javascriptmvc.com)


    Comment by Brian — April 18, 2008 @ 12:44 pm

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    @Benjamin Sterling: yes, I meant that JQuery targets both novices & experts. I oppose that orientation to Yahoo/Mootools orientation.


    Comment by Louis — April 18, 2008 @ 1:32 pm

  31. 31

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    Jquery!!!


    Comment by noth — April 18, 2008 @ 11:45 pm

  32. 32

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    Jquery has my vote to


    Comment by Zeljko A — April 20, 2008 @ 1:52 pm

  33. 33

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    I said jquery, more documentantion!


    Comment by Juanma — April 21, 2008 @ 6:33 am

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    I’m voting for mootools. I started out learning prototype, went to jQuery, currently use MooTools, but am trying to get back into jQuery and Dojo on the side.


    Comment by keif — April 21, 2008 @ 8:58 pm

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    I’ve looked at jQuery a bit due to the buzz it’s been getting, but to be honest I haven’t given it a good shake…

    My longtime preference is prototype.js, and I’m really into using the small but effective lowpro.js extension on top of it for unobtrusive behaviour. (IMHO, this should be made part of core prototype.js.) LowPro makes things really modular for adding self-contained logic unobtrusively to any element or group of elements. It makes assigning event handlers super clear (including onload), and you can pass in different parameters for each of your Behavior instances. Very clear and infinitely flexible.


    Comment by Andrew Vit — April 23, 2008 @ 12:03 pm

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    I started out learning Ajax/JS coding on prototype three years ago (I come from Java/J2EE) and liked a lot of stuff but understood less. Then I tried Dojo, which I’ve more or less stayed with since then.
    I’ve done some small things in jQuery but the stuf I do don’t need quick CSS queries, and the OO and widgetry are (IMHO) more advanced in Dojo, especially since the 1.1 release.

    Also, it has a completely smashing svg/vml/canvas wrapping 2d library called dojox.gfx with its of charting package - and offline (Gears) support, and encryption, functional programming, message buses,et.c. So it might be a little bit unfair to compare Dojo on the same level.

    Cheers,
    PS


    Comment by peter svensson — April 23, 2008 @ 12:17 pm

  37. 37

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    jQuery all the way. Once you get used to it, everything else seems unnecessarily cumbersome.


    Comment by Jason Huck — April 23, 2008 @ 5:45 pm

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    been using framework like Mootools and Prototype, but I think JQUERY is a most powerful right now….and it is so easy to implement.

    Same thing like i fall in love with Drupal right now… :P


    Comment by Ardi — April 23, 2008 @ 9:20 pm

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    JQuery forever, it’s the simplest way to get things done.

    The interface plugin is also great.

    Prototype is too heavy and it’s difficult to code with.


    Comment by Friky — April 24, 2008 @ 4:28 am

  40. 40

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    If I see correctly, jQuery is pwning the competition like no other. ;)


    Comment by Riddle — April 24, 2008 @ 1:13 pm

  41. 41

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    yes, jQuery, but please make jQueryUI more powerful!

    Thanks…


    Comment by Henry — April 25, 2008 @ 9:07 am

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    Well, I compiled my library out of all of those well known libraries out there and added some other features and I think it’s the best library around. All features and mods in one.


    Comment by Thomas — April 27, 2008 @ 1:47 pm

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    Was reading this post from Greader. But can’t help coming here to vote. I know a lot of people will vote for jQuery but do count me in!


    Comment by Abhisek — April 29, 2008 @ 7:55 pm


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