When Easier Is Not Better
Matthew Mullenweg is looking at JS libraries and trying to choose which will be bundled with future versions of Wordpress.
We need to make a final final decision about what JS framework we’re going to stick to for a year or more before we release WP 2.1.
This is something that will be very interesting as so far I have yet to find a framework I really like. I’m pretty old-school with coding, it takes a fair amount of research for me to just trust another’s code. Of course I do code using frameworks, libraries, includes, modules and platforms all the time but not to the extent I know others are prepared to do.
One of my main problems with many JS libraries (other than their sheer download size) is how they extend built-in types sometimes in strange ways. And they do this in ways that break your existing code. While I understand why they do this, and the incredible benefits to some this brings, it is pretty bad that they do. Having said that the world isn’t falling, the stuff it breaks is avoidable. It just shows how careful you need to be when selecting.
The best I have found are prototype and Moo. Moo is great for affects but can be slow, prototype is the main offender in the “extend and break” category.
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