Is jQuery worth a second look?

**Joost Diepenmaat** · Sep 28 '08, 10:45 PM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

RobG <rgqld@iinet.ne t.auwrites:

Do some of the regulars here need to re-think their (sometimes
strident) opposition to libraries? Both Microsoft and Nokia have
announced support for jQuery.

Why would they need to "support" it? It ought to be cross-platform
already. Right?

Oh, I see... MS and Nokia are talking about *using* it. Not sure if
that's much of an endorsement.

It seems to have gained quite a bit of momentum, can it be considered
a reasonable choice for those who want to use a full-featured, well
supported library?

FTR: I'm not against libraries at all. It's just that most I've looked
at solve the wrong problems and/or solve a small subset of interesting
problems in quite a convoluted and ugly way (I'm looking at you,
Prototype.js)

--
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/

**RobG** · Sep 28 '08, 11:45 PM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

On Sep 29, 8:36 am, Joost Diepenmaat <jo...@zeekat.n lwrote:

RobG <rg...@iinet.ne t.auwrites:

Do some of the regulars here need to re-think their (sometimes
strident) opposition to libraries? Both Microsoft and Nokia have
announced support for jQuery.

>
Why would they need to "support" it? It ought to be cross-platform
already. Right?

"Support" as in encourage developers on their platforms to use it.

Oh, I see... MS and Nokia are talking about *using* it. Not sure if
that's much of an endorsement.

They've gone a bit further than that, they are supporting it with
their development tools. Microsoft is including an intellisense-
annotated version in Visual Studio and not developing competing
components, Nokia are putting in in their "Web Run-Time" for their
WebKit-based browser running on Symbian and basing their built-in
widgets on it.

It seems to have gained quite a bit of momentum, can it be considered
a reasonable choice for those who want to use a full-featured, well
supported library?

>
FTR: I'm not against libraries at all. It's just that most I've looked
at solve the wrong problems and/or solve a small subset of interesting
problems in quite a convoluted and ugly way (I'm looking at you,
Prototype.js)

Prototype.js supporters seem a bit intimidated by the success of
jQuery. It's strategy of extending a native object rather
Prototype.js's extension of host objects seems to be a better choice.

--
Rob

**dhtml** · Sep 29 '08, 06:15 AM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

RobG wrote:

On Sep 29, 8:36 am, Joost Diepenmaat <jo...@zeekat.n lwrote:

>RobG <rg...@iinet.ne t.auwrites:

>>Do some of the regulars here need to re-think their (sometimes
>>strident) opposition to libraries? Both Microsoft and Nokia have
>>announced support for jQuery.

>Why would they need to "support" it? It ought to be cross-platform
>already. Right?

>
"Support" as in encourage developers on their platforms to use it.
>
>

>Oh, I see... MS and Nokia are talking about *using* it. Not sure if
>that's much of an endorsement.

>
They've gone a bit further than that, they are supporting it with
their development tools. Microsoft is including an intellisense-
annotated version in Visual Studio and not developing competing
components, Nokia are putting in in their "Web Run-Time" for their
WebKit-based browser running on Symbian and basing their built-in
widgets on it.
>
>

Absolutely worth taking a look at objectively. The code is taken quite
seriously by the industry, so it's a good idea to understand it and to
do that, it should be objectively reviewed.

>>It seems to have gained quite a bit of momentum, can it be considered
>>a reasonable choice for those who want to use a full-featured, well
>>supported library?

Good question. I think it's time for a code review.

>
>
--
Rob

**Conrad Lender** · Sep 29 '08, 04:05 PM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

On 2008-09-29 08:09, dhtml wrote:

Absolutely worth taking a look at objectively. The code is taken quite
seriously by the industry, so it's a good idea to understand it and to
do that, it should be objectively reviewed.
>

>>>It seems to have gained quite a bit of momentum, can it be considered
>>>a reasonable choice for those who want to use a full-featured, well
>>>supported library?

>
Good question. I think it's time for a code review.

Just what I've been thinking. JQuery has often been summarily
disqualified as "bad" in this group, but looking back the issues mostly
seemed to center around how it's implemented, not how it's designed or
what it's meant to be doing. At the moment, my experience with JQuery is
pretty much limited to fixing bugs in other people's code (like Drupal
modules, for example), and it may be time to take a closer look again.
I'm sure that much of the criticism is justified. There were a couple of
postings highlighting inefficient or incomplete or plain buggy passages
in the JQuery core, and it seems to me that submitting patches may be
more productive in the long term than cultivating our negative opinion
of this library, and dismissing all JQuery related questions in this
group with short "bad idea" replies.

Some things may be impossible to fix at this point, like the naming of
the "$" constructor. Personally, I don't have a problem with $(), even
though it's not what the $-prefix for identifiers was originally meant
for, but then I've always been more interested in pragmatic solutions.

- Conrad

**sasuke** · Sep 29 '08, 05:55 PM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

Another toolkit/library worth looking at is extJS. Though it has a
large memory footprint and considerable size, it is good choice for
developing extreme JS dependent eye candy applications which require
you to have a toolkit which provides almost every conceivable way you
can use Javascript out of the box. A real good choice for intranet UI
intensive web based applications.

On the other hand, if one is looking for an extremely lightweight
library which though doesn't provide everything but still allows you
to build up on itself and drastically cut down boiler plate code,
DOMAssistant is a nice toolkit to look at.

<http://extjs.com/>
<http://www.domassistan t.com/>

/sasuke

**dhtml** · Sep 30 '08, 04:15 AM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

Conrad Lender wrote:

On 2008-09-29 08:09, dhtml wrote:

>Absolutely worth taking a look at objectively. The code is taken quite
>seriously by the industry, so it's a good idea to understand it and to
>do that, it should be objectively reviewed.
>>

>>>>It seems to have gained quite a bit of momentum, can it be considered
>>>>a reasonable choice for those who want to use a full-featured, well
>>>>supported library?

>Good question. I think it's time for a code review.

>
Just what I've been thinking. JQuery has often been summarily
disqualified as "bad" in this group, but looking back the issues mostly
seemed to center around how it's implemented, not how it's designed or
what it's meant to be doing. At the moment, my experience with JQuery is
pretty much limited to fixing bugs in other people's code (like Drupal
modules, for example), and it may be time to take a closer look again.
I'm sure that much of the criticism is justified. There were a couple of
postings highlighting inefficient or incomplete or plain buggy passages
in the JQuery core, and it seems to me that submitting patches may be
more productive in the long term than cultivating our negative opinion
of this library, and dismissing all JQuery related questions in this
group with short "bad idea" replies.
>

What is this?

else {
var fn = jQuery.expr[ m[1] ];
if ( typeof fn == "object" )
fn = fn[ m[2] ];

if ( typeof fn == "string" )
fn = eval("false||fu nction(a,i){ret urn " + fn + ";}");

// Execute it against the current filter
r = jQuery.grep( r, function(elem, i){
return fn(elem, i, m, r);
}, not );
}

This is apparently so a string can be passed in for evaluation in the
'grep' function. Passing in a function would seem to be a better solution.

isFunction - still uses function decompilation. Kangax posted on
es-discuss that that was changed but I still see the isFunction in the
latest 1.2.6.

The jQuery offsets function still uses with() to augment scope with
jQuery.browser, uses an add() and border() functions inside two loops.
That will be slow and I've tested it to be slow, so it's not just
conjecture.

The |clean| function is a little strange.

The jQuery library uses tabs for indentation, has few comments, uses
very short names (e.g. from that function I excerpted, there are all of:
m, r, t, a, z, variables). Despite this, the uncompressed source still
comes in at nearly 100k. Just for the base library.

I would, given a problem, try to use the most appropriate strategy to
solve it.

That is the answer I provide when asked which library I like best. The
person asking will sometimes react incredulously. I have been asked (as
a follow-up question) why I would use such a non-standard approach
instead of using a library.

Garrett

>
- Conrad

**kangax** · Sep 30 '08, 05:25 AM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

On Sep 30, 12:13 am, dhtml <dhtmlkitc...@g mail.comwrote:

Conrad Lender wrote:

On 2008-09-29 08:09, dhtml wrote:

Absolutely worth taking a look at objectively. The code is taken quite
seriously by the industry, so it's a good idea to understand it and to
do that, it should be objectively reviewed.

>

>>>It seems to have gained quite a bit of momentum, can it be considered
>>>a reasonable choice for those who want to use a full-featured, well
>>>supported library?
Good question. I think it's time for a code review.

>

Just what I've been thinking. JQuery has often been summarily
disqualified as "bad" in this group, but looking back the issues mostly
seemed to center around how it's implemented, not how it's designed or
what it's meant to be doing. At the moment, my experience with JQuery is
pretty much limited to fixing bugs in other people's code (like Drupal
modules, for example), and it may be time to take a closer look again.
I'm sure that much of the criticism is justified. There were a couple of
postings highlighting inefficient or incomplete or plain buggy passages
in the JQuery core, and it seems to me that submitting patches may be
more productive in the long term than cultivating our negative opinion
of this library, and dismissing all JQuery related questions in this
group with short "bad idea" replies.

>
What is this?
>
else {
var fn = jQuery.expr[ m[1] ];
if ( typeof fn == "object" )
fn = fn[ m[2] ];
>
if ( typeof fn == "string" )
fn = eval("false||fu nction(a,i){ret urn " + fn + ";}");
>
// Execute it against the current filter
r = jQuery.grep( r, function(elem, i){
return fn(elem, i, m, r);
}, not );
}
>
This is apparently so a string can be passed in for evaluation in the
'grep' function. Passing in a function would seem to be a better solution.
>
isFunction - still uses function decompilation. Kangax posted on
es-discuss that that was changed but I still see the isFunction in the
latest 1.2.6.
>

Garrett,
their trunk is using `instanceof` [1]. Wrapping a single operator into
a method seems like an overkill, but... whatever works for them. We,
in prototype.js, are more inclined to get rid of is* methods at all.
Having such "helpers" seems to solve very few (if any) problems.

The jQuery offsets function still uses with() to augment scope with
jQuery.browser, uses an add() and border() functions inside two loops.
That will be slow and I've tested it to be slow, so it's not just
conjecture.
>
The |clean| function is a little strange.
>
The jQuery library uses tabs for indentation, has few comments, uses
very short names (e.g. from that function I excerpted, there are all of:
m, r, t, a, z, variables). Despite this, the uncompressed source still
comes in at nearly 100k. Just for the base library.
>
I would, given a problem, try to use the most appropriate strategy to
solve it.
>
That is the answer I provide when asked which library I like best. The
person asking will sometimes react incredulously. I have been asked (as
a follow-up question) why I would use such a non-standard approach
instead of using a library.
>
Garrett

[1] http://dev.jquery.com/browser/trunk/...c/core.js#L617

--
kangax

**Henry** · Sep 30 '08, 10:15 AM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

On Sep 30, 6:23 am, kangax wrote:

On Sep 30, 12:13 am, dhtml wrote:

<snip>

>isFunction - still uses function decompilation. Kangax
>posted on es-discuss that that was changed but I still
>see the isFunction in the latest 1.2.6.

>
Garrett,
their trunk is using `instanceof` [1].

<snip>

Unreleased development code is irrelevant. Nobody in their right mind
will be using it on public web sites and where it differs from
previously released code there is no way to tell whether changes won't
need to be reversed (say, in the event that they turn out not to be
back-compatible and/or effective when (and if) fully tested). It is
the code that is released that should be judged (and so if the authors
want to be judged as having corrected some of their mistakes then they
should release a new version).

**Bruno Desthuilliers** · Sep 30 '08, 01:15 PM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

Henry a écrit :

On Sep 30, 6:23 am, kangax wrote:

>On Sep 30, 12:13 am, dhtml wrote:

<snip>

>>isFunction - still uses function decompilation. Kangax
>>posted on es-discuss that that was changed but I still
>>see the isFunction in the latest 1.2.6.

>Garrett,
>their trunk is using `instanceof` [1].

<snip>
>
Unreleased development code is irrelevant.

I beg to somewhat disagree. It at least gives indications about the
current direction.

(snip)

**Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn** · Sep 30 '08, 01:45 PM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

kangax wrote:

dhtml wrote:

isFunction - still uses function decompilation. Kangax posted on
es-discuss that that was changed but I still see the isFunction in the
latest 1.2.6.

>
Garrett,
their trunk is using `instanceof` [1].

Irrelevant, except that it shows their cluelessness.

PointedEars

**Matt Kruse** · Sep 30 '08, 03:05 PM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

On Sep 28, 5:24 pm, RobG <rg...@iinet.ne t.auwrote:

Do some of the regulars here need to re-think their (sometimes
strident) opposition to libraries? Both Microsoft and Nokia have
announced support for jQuery.

I think it is warranted, and I thought so a year ago :)

I realized quite some time ago that jQuery was gaining momentum and
would soon be one of the de-facto standards for Javascript
development. It's not perfect. It has some design flaws. Its internals
could use some cleaning up. But what general-purpose technology
doesn't?

HTML is seriously bastardized and has been abused for over a decade.
CSS is far from perfect and has some seriously questionable design
decisions. Javascript as a language itself has some drawbacks, quirks,
and missing features that would make life better. So here comes
jQuery, which is not perfect by any means, but is ridiculously useful
and has made interactive javascript more accessible to the mainstream.
I'm in favor of it. And I'm in favor of improving it, because it is
quickly becoming a tool that is used by many people.

Some important points for me:

1) It works. I know it has some internal problems like browser
sniffing and code that isn't as accurate as it should be. But in every
case where I have decided to use it, it has worked and worked well in
most cases. Argue all you want about it being 1px off or slow or how
it _could_ work in browser X if it just didn't browser sniff... but in
reality, in many cases, it works and works well.

2) It's supported. The discussion lists are very active and there is a
huge community around it. It's under constant development. Momentum is
in its favor. That's a good thing.

3) It encourages unobtrusive scripting. Sometimes too much, IMO. But
by its nature it encourages people to put classes on their HTML tags
and add the behavior after the page is ready. It doesn't encourage all
the best practices, but it's a step in the right direction.

4) Plugins are questionable. The base jQuery library has a lot of
fundamentals, but if you want "controls" then you need to venture into
the plugin territory. And sometimes this is bad news. The quality of
the plugins is, generally, much lower than jQuery itself, IMO. Be
careful what you use. In some cases, I have been writing my own
because the ones that exist aren't good enough.

I don't think jQuery (or any general-purpose lib) is the right tool
for everyone. If you have the skill, time, and money to build all your
components from scratch, then go for it. For everyone else, I think
jQuery is the best possible route to go right now and the foreseeable
future.

Matt Kruse

**Matt Kruse** · Sep 30 '08, 03:25 PM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

On Sep 29, 11:13 pm, dhtml <dhtmlkitc...@g mail.comwrote:

isFunction - still uses function decompilation. Kangax posted on
es-discuss that that was changed but I still see the isFunction in the
latest 1.2.6.

I'm not sure why this hasn't been updated. I posted a more reliable
fix for isFunction quite some time ago but it seemed to be ignored. I
think perhaps because the existing code really only fails in odd,
isolated cases.

The jQuery library uses tabs for indentation, has few comments, uses
very short names (e.g. from that function I excerpted, there are all of:
m, r, t, a, z, variables). Despite this, the uncompressed source still
comes in at nearly 100k. Just for the base library.

True, it has grown quite a bit larger than its original intent. I use
the minified version in production, which is just about 50k. I've
never been in a situation where that was a problem.

Matt Kruse

**Oltmans** · Sep 30 '08, 04:15 PM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

On Sep 30, 6:38 pm, "Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn" <PointedE...@we b.de>
wrote:

kangax wrote:

dhtml wrote:

isFunction - still uses function decompilation. Kangax posted on
es-discuss that that was changed but I still see the isFunction in the
latest 1.2.6.

>

Garrett,
their trunk is using `instanceof` [1].

>
Irrelevant, except that it shows their cluelessness.
>

Why using "instanceof " considered to be not so good? Can you please
explain it to me with a few examples? That will be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

PointedEars

**dhtml** · Sep 30 '08, 04:45 PM

Re: Is jQuery worth a second look?

Oltmans wrote:

On Sep 30, 6:38 pm, "Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn" <PointedE...@we b.de>
wrote:

>kangax wrote:

>>dhtml wrote:
>>>isFunction - still uses function decompilation. Kangax posted on
>>>es-discuss that that was changed but I still see the isFunction in the
>>>latest 1.2.6.
>>Garrett,
>>their trunk is using `instanceof` [1].

>Irrelevant, except that it shows their cluelessness.
>>

>
Why using "instanceof " considered to be not so good? Can you please
explain it to me with a few examples? That will be highly appreciated.
>

Instanceof won't work like you want it to across frames. This is because
self.Function != frames[0].Function.

frames[0].fun instanceof Function will return false across frames.
Two documents example:
document1.html
myframe.html:

document1.html:
<body>
<iframe src="myframe.ht ml"></iframe>

<script>
onload = function() {
var f = frames[0].fun;
document.write(['<pre>',f instanceof Function, f].join('\n'));
document.close( );
};
</script>

</body>

myframe.html:
<script>
function fun() {}
</script>

Result:
false
function fun() {
}

So we can see that instanceof won't work across frames like you'd want
it to, and the isFunction uses instance of.

Garrett

Is jQuery worth a second look?

Is jQuery worth a second look?

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