For the new site, I put a lot of time into learning the ins-n-outs of jQuery. It's a pretty beast little library of javascript functionality. It mixes a lot of thing I liked about script.aculo.us and Behaviour, but without the overhead and having to string together multiple libraries. The compressed jQuery library clocks in ~20K with additional plugins varying from ~10K on up.
jQuery boasts a very impressive CSS selector mechanism whereby you point to an element or collection of elements based on class, id, etc. and then call any series of methods. I found the jQuery documentation a bit lacking and instead found http://visualjquery.com to be an invaluable resource.
Anyone else using jQuery or have any good/bad/indifferent experiences with it?
I haven't had the chance yet to really "play" with it. I've downloaded it and messed with it a little. Can anyone compare it the other JavaScript libraries out there? Does anyone in the group have a strong preference or opposition towards one or the other?
jQuery rocks. We've used it on a number of projects at work (navarts) and really are into it. The first thing that got me into it was the very cool CSS selector support, but now all the libraries seem to be adding that. It just makes doing some very complex things down to a few lines of code. As libraries go, it also seems as though the author, John Resig, is pretty plugged into what people need from a library. They've been working hard on getting their site and their documentation well organized.
It's funny, there's almost a competition going on between the authors of these libraries...
Ever since Jason posted his comment, I've been looking into jQuery. It looks really good.
My general fear of using a framework is the only thing stopping me from deploying it at work. That and a smaller, nagging, fear that perhaps YUI is better?
I feel like most frameworks should be like dojo, and do an import on demand of the features as needed. It's basic good programming practice, but to get it to work with most scripts you have to reinvent the wheel.
That said, I like how modular YUI is, love their browser grade system, their design patterns, what they've been doing for the community, but how verbose their namespaces are makes me crazy. I know, maybe it shouldn't matter with all the efficiencies with packing and gzipping, etc., but still.
@Rob: I have to agree w/ you on the length of the YUI namespace. It makes sense why they did it, but it sure is a lot of typing.
Scriptaculous has load-on-demand features similar to Dojo, but overall, it's still pretty hefty. The base of jQuery is pretty light (~20Kb I believe) and there are a number of plugins to add in if you need additional features (AJAX-y forms, etc.).
Kevin Lawver pointed me to this article from the Dojo guys comparing different libraries and their CSS selector-style query engines. Turns out jQuery didn't do so hot in the performance column, but I'd be interested in seeing a non-biased third-party perform similar tests. Not saying the Dojo guys are biased in any way, but independent confirmation would be nice to see.
I am please, though, that there is a bit of a rennaisance going on regarding scripting and scripting libraries. We've got a lot of good options out there.
Jason, yeah, I'd read that Alex R. over at Dojo had been adding a CSS Query-based engine. From Dean Edwards CSSQuery to jQuery, it's caught on as a great way to get to DOM elements (and why not), but yeah, between Jack Slocum's DOMQuery and the new Dojo engine, they do appear to be leaving poor jQuery in the dust performance-wise.
It was interesting to me to watch the jQuery presentation at The Ajax Experience in Boston last fall though, there were a bunch of back end application developers there and they were lost because they didn't know the complexities of CSS selectors. I was blown a way.
Coming back to that competition though, I'm sure they won't rest until they're all pushing the speed envelope. Maybe they should collaborate on a single engine and then fold it into their own libraries for people who like the different coding styles. Maybe someone should check into a Dojo-based plugin for jQuery. That'd be novel (although not that practical I'm sure). ;-)
All just crazy ideas of course.
The thing that first drew me to jQuery was the CSS selector support -- I'd been a fan of CSSQuery from Dean Edwards. After that, it was the light-weight footprint, it was also distributed in a modular way originally, which I buy into, and then the chain-able functions and methods produce some of the most compact code you'll find anywhere. So performance? Consider the application of what you're doing and the complexity I guess.
Honestly, though, I'm starting to think I should look more and more at Dojo. Thanks for the tip though too, I actually didn't know Scriptaculous had a load on demand, I'm going to have to look into that. Like I said, I really feel like that's the way it should be handled.
Oh, I ran across this script (http://www.jspax.org/), which is a similar notion... haven't been able to try it out though.
Yet another Library: http://dedchain.dustindiaz.com/ . This one's based on YUI, but takes the best of DOM CSS Querying (Slocum) and JQuery. Given that Yahoo! lets you link to their YUI files, it's looking pretty good.