Dojo is interesting, but I'm surprised to read what almost sounds like
an endorsement from you. The current version of Dojo still relies
heavily on browser sniffing via navigator.userAgent. Will all that be
gone in the next release?
Dojo is *very* interesting. Yes, like virtually every script (scripts
in this case) written since 2005, it relies on the UA string. I said
it had a bright *future* because:
- The browser detection is going away (of course.)
- High degree of modularity and flexibility
- Fastest by far
- Well documented and supported
- Adding state of the art feature testing throughout
- Lots of ready-made widgets with consistent UI
- Active community creating add-ons
- Intelligent and thoughtful people involved
- Backed by major players and an established foundation
It's got a bit of a bad rap for being too large, but that's a myth.
It is certainly expansive, but there is no requirement to use *all* of
it. Same for the perception that toys like jQuery are easier to use.
I was surprised to find out that there is a ready-made single file
version, served via AOL's CDN that can easily replace the toy
monoliths.
As for speed, see the TaskSpeed results, which runs tests supplied by
the each script's author(s). It's not even a horse race. Appears
jQuery broke down and will have to be destroyed.
If you are going to bet on a horse, I'd definitely pick this one. I'm
now involved and as for the other contenders:
- Who would put a penny on John Resig at this point?
- Prototype is dying, despite the best efforts of Kangax.
- YUI is nothing but an ongoing public Beta for Yahoo. I find their
marketing to be disgustingly disingenuous.
What else is there for those who want/need a toolkit? I don't even
consider things like jQuery to be toolkits, more like random
collections of related scripts ranging in "quality" from very bad to
completely unusable (e.g. jQuery UI, which is only for those bent on
career suicide.)
I'm not saying it is perfect for everyone. But it seems virtually
everyone wants something in this mold. The powers that be at Dojo
have asked me to help out, which is certainly a credit to them and
will result in lots of improvements over the next few months. Seems
like that is what the jQuery proponents have been begging me to do for
years (except with *their* script.) They should have asked in a more
*polite* manner.
And, of course, you should learn Javascript and basic browser
scripting techniques, regardless of what is out there.
