Hi, I should have said: If you do decide to switch, beware that jQuery only covers about 3/4ths of the ground Prototype covers. It does all the DOM stuff, but doesn't do much of anything in terms of language enhancement. So no equivalent to `Class`, for example, nor any of the added methods on `Array`, `String`, or `Function`. (It does have a subset of those on offer, just not as extensions to the built-ins -- for instance, `jQuery.trim` rather than `String#strip`, `jQuery.proxy` rather than `Function#bind`). If you need a `Class`-like thing, I did one you might look at: http://blog.niftysnippets.org/2009/09/simple-efficient-supercalls-in.html
My main point being: jQuery is great, but its scope isn't as broad. In some ways that may be what you want with this ECMAScript5 stuff coming in -- or not. -- T.J. Crowder Independent Software Engineer tj / crowder software / com www / crowder software / com On Sep 23, 5:19 pm, "T.J. Crowder" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > This was _JUST_ gone into, in > depth:http://groups.google.com/group/prototype-scriptaculous/browse_thread/... > > I think this is a fair-ish (but incomplete) summary: > > 1. Prototype is a spare-time activity for a very small number of > people. In fact, at the moment I think it's mostly just Andrew, and he > has other things he does (like, you know, hold down a full-time job). > Just recently the project largely lost another major contributor to > his job and family commitments. > > 2. Andrew has no plans to stop working on Prototype on any time soon. > > 3. Prototype work is done in fits and spurts, long periods of > inactivity followed by a period (couple of weeks) of feverish > activity. > > 4. jQuery has multiple corporate sponsors, not least Microsoft, and > there are people paid to work on it full time. Thus it's able to be > much more up-to-date and proactive than Prototype. > > A quote from Andrew in the thread linked above: > > On Aug 23, 1:07 am, Andrew Dupont <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > I will say, though, that if we're crowning winners and losers, then > > jQuery "won" a long time ago. It is certainly the _de facto_ > > JavaScript library for web development. The good news is that the > > "losers" of the war aren't looking so bad; libraries like Prototype, > > MooTools, and Dojo still have loyal user bases, and I doubt they're > > going away. > > My personal perspective, for what it's worth (e.g., possibly exactly > what you're paying for it, nothing :-) ) is based on some data points: > > 1. The last blog post on the Prototype blog was 10 months ago. > > 2. The library has had basically no activity since v1.7 was released > November 2010. > > 3. The most recent three releases were: > v1.7 - November 2010 > v1.6.1 - September 2009 > v1.6.0.3 - September 2008 > > Three releases, in total, including "dot" releases, in the last three > years. Compare with 16 releases (four major ones) of jQuery in that > time period (v1.3 through v1.6.4). > > 4. Absolute use and trends: > > Absolute use:http://trends.builtwith.com/javascript > Prototype trend:http://trends.builtwith.com/javascript/Prototype > jQuery trend:http://trends.builtwith.com/javascript/JQuery > > 5. Questions tagged on StackOverflow: > > jQuery: 114,842 > Prototype: 2,152 > > ...which could, of course, just mean that Prototype is so much better > it generates fewer questions, or that people using Prototype don't use > StackOverflow, or that people are mis-tagging JavaScript questions > "jquery" (I see that a fair bit), or some combination of those. > > Does all this mean Prototype is dead? No, not a bit of it. But it has > a very small staff with other major demands on their time, and has no > funding. Andrew's quite clear that it's not dead, and also that it > will continue in much the way it has these last three years. > > I made the business, not technical, decision years ago to use jQuery > rather than Prototype. In many ways I prefer Prototype, although there > are some good ideas in jQuery (also some phenomenally bad ones, such > as how overloaded the API is). I still pitch in and moderate this > mailing list, and still answer questions, but for me the business case > is: Which library amongst the large number out there is kept up-to- > date; jumps on testing new browser versions for compatibility; has a > large ecosystem of code I can use; has a large pool of talent I can > hire or contract; has well-maintained, frequently updated and > extended, reliable, and documented UI helpers (jQueryUI vs. > Script.aculo.us); and is likely to be around long-term without heroic > effort from a single individual, or a small set of individuals. So I > went with jQuery, despite preferring Prototype in many ways. [I also > looked at Dojo, ExtJS, (more recently) Closure, and a few others.] > > It could have gone another way. People like me could have done more to > contribute to the project; leadership could have focussed on core > functionality, community-building, and developer (um) development > rather than side-issues; corporate sponsorship could have been courted > and perhaps ultimately found. But that didn't happen, and it didn't > happen because the Prototype community and leadership didn't make it > happen (perhaps corporate sponsorship wasn't desirable; fair 'nuff) > and because luck didn't go Prototype's way. (And don't think luck > isn't a big factor here.) > > I have nothing but respect and admiration for Andrew and everyone else > who has made Prototype what it is. And there's absolutely no reason > not to use it on your websites if you test with your target browsers > and it does what you need it to do. Again, Andrew is clear he'll keep > going with it, and I'm sure he'd be very happy to have help from > anyone reading this. > > So does Prototype have a future? Yes. What kind of future depends a > lot on the people reading this note. If you all, like me, don't have > time to contribute and Andrew has to largely work on his own, that's > one kind of future. If you can make time to help, get your companies > to let you help a bit during paid time, that sort of thing, then it > will have a different kind of future. I hope all these recent > questions about Prototype's future mark the beginning of a renaissance > for the library, a turning point of talent looking to help out. I wish > I could be part of it. > > Best, > -- > T.J. Crowder > Independent Software Engineer > tj / crowder software / com > www / crowder software / com > > On Sep 23, 12:34 pm, buda <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > It has long heard nothing about plans for the future. > > Browsers are evolving, and many library functions are duplicate the > > functions of JavaScript. > > Already implemented in all browsers support ECMAScript 5, but the > > library is not reflected. > > I would like to be able to not pull in hundreds of kilobytes to > > support older browsers and have only the functionality you need - as > > it is implemented in other libraries like JQuery. > > > What is the future of Prototype.js? > > Is it live or dead? Should I start to learn JQuery? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Prototype & script.aculo.us" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. 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