John: yes your suggested approach makes sense - the tag-orientated frameworks are definitely much easier to learn and become productive with. Sencha Touch takes quite a while to become familiar with - once you "get it" it's all pretty logical, but it's not helped by inconsistent examples that can throw you - eg unexplained differences in examples that turn out to be just stylistic rather than for any particular technical reason. Forum activity is always a good gauge as to the complexity and learning curve of any framework - and the Sencha Touch one is *very* active. The corollary is that the Sencha Touch forum is a great place to get answers to your own "now how the hell do I do x?" questions!
You might want to check out the Dojo Mobile demo pages and see if that offers you any advantage over JQTouch. It's also very tag-orientated (as you'd expect from the Dojo stable), and when I last looked it seemed to be providing quite an impressive range of Native UI-like features. Unfortunately I can't suggest my EWD technology for you since I don't have a Mongo port for it, which is a pity. Rob On Apr 17, 1:05 pm, "john.tiger" <[email protected]> wrote: > On 04/17/2012 01:51 AM, rtweed wrote: > > > Mobile web frameworks are something I've spent a lot of time working > > with and researching for several years, pretty much from their > > earliest days, so perhaps I can provide a bit of insight that may be > > helpful. > > appreciate your insights - > > our initial plan is to be agile - mostly server side template rendering > (node + mongodb) which we know well and can bang out fast to pass the > "fail fast" stage - then upgrade to more client side / native stuff in > version 2 > > so, in this approach does it make any sense to use the lower learning > curve jQTouch to get something out there asap, and migrate to Touch v2 > later if warranted ? > > ps: nice auto "folding" on your web site > > > > > > > > > Just to be clear, I am independent of all the key framework > > development companies and what follows are my own opinions based on my > > own R&D and experience. > > > I would class Sencha Touch (particularly the latest v2) as the current > > "Rolls Royce" of mobile web frameworks. Actually Sencha Touch was an > > offshoot of jQTouch - the original core developer of JQTouch was hired > > by Sencha and the ExtJS framework architecture was adapted to create > > Sencha Touch. > > > I've not really been impressed by jQuery Mobile, but then I'm > > personally not a big fan of jQuery generally. The general view is > > that jQuery Mobile is focussed more on mobile web *sites*, while > > frameworks like Sencha Touch are all about emulating the Native App > > experience (both iOS and Android) via the capabilities of WebKit > > mobile browsers, HTML5& CSS3. > > > As other posters have noted, a lot of people feel uncomfortable with > > the Sencha licensing policy, though, unlike ExtJS, Sencha Touch has a > > free license even for commercial use (interestingly Sencha changed > > licensing of Sencha Touch to a free license when they announced v1.0 > > and at that time jQuery Mobile was beginning to make a buzz - most saw > > this as a defensive move by Sencha to stop people defecting) > > > JQTouch is somewhat more rudimentary compared with Sencha Touch and is > > a bit of a back-water these days. It's much more CSS3 and tag > > orientated compared with Sencha Touch's pure Javascript approach. > > That makes it simpler to learn and use but it does tend to have > > limitations compared with Sencha Touch. Whilst Sencha Touch attempts > > (pretty impressively) to work across both iOS and Android platforms, > > JQTouch (certainly in the past) tended to focus on iOS Native App look > > and feel. > > > n my opinion, the one to watch is Dojo Mobile which, whilst still in > > its relatively early days, seems to be doing a lot of good stuff in a > > very nice way. There are, of course, a growing number of other > > frameworks appearing, but I personally would stick with the big guys > > who have been in this sector for many more years and who understand > > the many nasty devils that lurk in the detail. As with all software, > > anyone can create 80% of what's needed in pretty quick time. It's > > that remaining 20% that kills them and frustrates the hell out of > > potential users. > > > In summary, for now, my view is that Sencha Touch is the leader by a > > long way. Yes it has a steep learning curve. Their documentation is > > improving these days and they have done a great job of harmonising the > > ExtJS and Sencha Touch 2 API architecture, concepts and syntax. > > > As commented elsewhere, I've done quite a bit of work on abstracting > > and automating the use of both Sencha Touch and ExtJS, but my work is > > currently focused on their integration with the GT.M and Cache > > databases - though I have plans to open that up in the future by > > virtue of the ewdGateway Node.js module. In the meantime, if you > > don't use (or want to uee) those databases, I'm afraid you'll have to > > climb that steep learning curve, but the reward is a very cool set of > > mobile web capabilities > > > Rob > > > On Apr 16, 2:28 pm, "john.tiger"<[email protected]> wrote: > >> we've tried using JQuery Mobile but it's way too buggy (and note all the > >> unanswered posts on the forum which is not a good sign) > > >> Sencha Touch seems popular but looks complex to use with a node > >> framework so looking at JQTouch (I guess it's some sort of off-shoot > >> from Sencha). We want to keep things as simple as possible. > > >> any experiences / suggestions ? -- Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. 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