Ask HN: "best" UI JavaScript library/framework? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: "best" UI JavaScript library/framework?

2 pointshippich8 comments

I have an idea for another application and want to do it "right" this time just to learn new stuff. This will be desktop-like web application. Right now I am trying to decide which library/framework to learn and use for browser part. I really like Cappuccino look'n'feel, but their Objective J look weird to me. Is there is something like Cappuccino with plain JavaScript or it's better to invest some time into learning this Objective J thing? Any thoughts are really appreciated!

Update: I am looking for open source libraries/frameworks =)

View on HN

I would recommend Dojo over ExtJS for building "web applications", out of the "heavy duty" frameworks Dojo leads the pack by far.

If you want to get up and running quick then I would suggest jQuery, it is drop dead simple and extremely light weight. But it can start to fall down (in terms of maintainability) when you are trying to manage a large code base.

From a pure employment perspective (what job postings are looking for) jQuery is the hottest followed by Dojo.

I would love to see a pure Java version of Cappuccino as well.

In the meantime I use Google Closure. Certainly not the best library but it suits my needs (web applications for the Google Marketplace). Even though it looks ugly at first sight, it is actually an effective solution.

One drawback is the relative lack of support from Google regarding docs, tutorials.

While it's relatively immature in terms of widgets available, I like yui3 (NOT 2) for building application type sites. It has a strong component model and the attributes/events system and widget base are excellent and I believe it's the only one that's really serious about progressive enhancement.

ExtJS would be a good bet. Its parent company, now known as Sencha, just "acquired" 2 popular Javascript frameworks, jQTouch and Raphael. They also received an investment from Sequoia capital recently. The only downside is that it requires a license for non open source projects.

ExtJS is definitely a great solution for building a "desktop-like" application on the web. However, if you have solid design skills, a framework such as jQuery UI provides a great deal of freedom in creating some really interesting and remarkable interfaces for the web.

SproutCore (http://sproutcore.com/) is essentially like Cappuccino, but not Objective-J.

Thank you for this hint. Any idea about licensing? I can't find anything about it on their site. Is it GPL or something else?

It's under a permissive (MIT/BSD-style) open-source license, though you're right that it doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere on the site, at least that I can find. There's a license.js file in the actual distribution, though: http://github.com/sproutit/sproutcore/blob/master/license.js

Reply on news.ycombinator.com