If you work with Rails but are unhappy with Prototype . . .
I'm excited about the launch of my new JavaScript library called Fork
at http://forkjavascript.org with the MIT license. Below are snips
from the front page of the Fork site...
Fork is a JavaScript library with Ajax, Events, DOM manipulation, etc.
Fork is a general purpose library with a few bonus lines in the Ajax
library specifically for use with Ruby on Rails however the library
can be happily used outside of Rails also.
advantages
* an aspiration for the highest quality code
* author documentation
* in-browser unit/integration tests
* namespaced code
* does not augment JavaScript built-in prototypes
* does not add a layer of sugar on top of JavaScript to make
writing JavaScript like writing in another language
* Is minimizable with jsmin
* MIT License
There are many JavaScript libraries out there. Why add another one to
the list? To create a quality library with a liberal license.
I like Ruby on Rails. I want Rails to have a better JavaScript
library. I (and many others!) think the Rails default Prototype
JavaScript library has many seriously poor design decisions and is
poorly coded. Suggestions to improve the Prototype code sit on the
Rails trac seemingly forever and author Sam Stephenson does not
interact openly with the community of Rails and Prototype users.
Because Prototype does not play well with other JavaScript libraries
it isn't necessarily possible to use Prototype in combination with
Fork. This fact likely will never change because of Prototype's
fundamental design. On the other hand, Fork does plays well with other
respectful libraries.
I like the Yahoo! UI library. Of the JavaScript libraries I've used it
has the best API. The YUI library has many valuable nuggets of
information about browser bugs and workarounds. The code approach of
YUI suits browser scripting well. However there are more than a few
places in the code where I'm left scratching my head and thinking "why
did they do that?" Maybe that is how every developer looks at another
developers code. The YUI API is the starting point for much of the
Fork API.
Most libraries seem to develop too quickly. API's are fixed from the
first alpha version and code is not allowed to morph for the early
part of it's life. I like the general debian attitude of careful
growth because the browser execution environment is wildly varied and
deserves a certain degree of conservatism in the JavaScript we send to
it.
Most JavaScript libraries settle for "good enough" and don't seem to
aspire to the high level of quality to which the Fork library aspires.
By keeping an eye on other JavaScript libraries the good parts can be
brought into the Fork code.
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