On Jan 15, 2008, at 5:03 PM, Andrew Dupont wrote: > Steve, > > You've hit upon something that we're aware of on the Core team. I > think jQuery is a fantastic framework, but that its success has as > much to do with its evangelism (and the resulting ecosystem) as with > the quality of the code itself. > > We have ideas on how to foster this same type of community, but like > most contributors to open-source software, we have day jobs, so > there's never enough time to do as much as we'd like. Enthusiastic > users like kangax help fill that void. Scripteka is still young; I > know we have plans to highlight it on the Prototype blog. > > Beyond the extension library, I know we'd like to do more to advance > the *idea* of Prototype. We've talked about some sort of "pimp my > code" thing, where we take good JavaScript and make it better, as a > way to expose people to artful Prototype code idioms. (jQuery is > really good at letting their code speak for them.) Soon there will be > two books on the stands about Prototype 1.6. And several of us have > plans (or are proposing) to speak at upcoming conferences like SXSW, > RailsConf, and The Ajax Experience. > > If anyone on this list has the enthusiasm to help out, or even some > ideas on how we can get started in this area, then let's start talking > about this on the prototype-core list. > > Cheers, > Andrew
I have some bandwidth to help out but am not certain occupying space on the general list is a great use of everyones' time. So, I've done this: I created a new GoogleGroup called ror-spinoff-ecosystem (http://groups.google.com/group/ror-spinoff-ecosystem?hl=en ). Let me explain why I think this topic is of general interest/use. In my original post, I used jQuery as an example. I think they are a good example of how a particular implementation catches fire. But this isn't an us versus them type of thing. It's more about the untold story. I have the bungee book (wonderful work!) and it goes some way toward getting people oriented in the frameworks. However, I don't see a couple of things that I believe were present in Rails from the start and appear to be present in jQuery: - A clear "right way" to do something. Rails is opinionated software. How many times have you heard that. Well Prototype isn't. Sometimes the developer is left at sea with respect to the "Prototype" approach to a given problem set. jQuery is much more specific about how they expect their framework to be used. Start with the DOM and everything else will fall into place. - An easily articulated extensibility story. Rails has had this since day two. Once they put components behind them and moved to plugins, Rails has had a ton of easy to install add-in functionality springing up all around. jQuery, too, has a well-articulated plugin framework. - Stability story. This is a strength of Prototype and Scripty that just doesn't get mentioned. This ain't new code -- it's battle tested on some of the most heavily visited sites around. - Testing baked right in ... sort of. This is a strength of Rails and with the test plugin, it is a strength of Prototype. There is, however, little guidance regarding how to do this. Less for the non- Rails developer. TDD and BDD are hot topics and I know it's something the Core team considers. If this can be pushed out to the community it will be (IMO) a strength. Anyhow, join the group, share your ideas, and post announcements for extensions/plugins/enhancements. Steve --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Spinoffs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-spinoffs?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
