enter the pirate

A poorly maintained blog of technology

Prototype JavaScript framework

May 1, 2008 at 8:01 pm · Filed under AJAX and tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve made up my mind (at least until tomorrow). The Prototype JavaScript framework is by far my favorite JS framework. It’s not the lightest framework available, but it makes up for that with functionality.

I’ve spent the past few days comparing mootools 1.11 with Prototype 1.6.0.2, and while I like the effects of mootools, from a programming standpoint I prefer Prototype.

The online documentation for Prototype is outstanding (They also have a downloadable PDF and CHM version of the documentation). The code for creating classes is logical and fully featured. One thing that impressed me in comparing mootools to Prototype was that Prototype supports class creation as well as inheritance, and overriding, whereas mootools does not.

The Perfect Solution

Perfect might be a stretch; but, from what I can tell it’s pretty close. moo.fx (by the creator of mootools), is a super-lightweight JavaScript effects framework that can be used in combination with Prototype. Using the two frameworks together would allow you to harness the robust functionality of Prototype, and the rich interface effects of mootools.

6 Comments »

  joshteam wrote @ May 2, 2008 at 4:28 am

Sorry, but MooTools 1.2 (trunk) is far superior to prototype from a programming/functionality stand point. Prototype is a nice framework, don’t get me wrong, but Moo is a breed i in it’s own. I’ve been playing with MooTools for about 6 months now from the 18 months I’ve had with Prototype. It was a quick transition :)

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  enterthepirate wrote @ May 2, 2008 at 1:07 pm

I’m sure you know exactly what you’re talking about, but look at mootools credit for the love of God: “Some functions are inspired by those found in prototype.js http://prototype.conio.net/ © 2005 Sam Stephenson sam [at] conio [dot] net, MIT-style license”

Inspired?? We both know what that means. We took a good chunk of Prototype and folded it in to our framework… Until I see mootools drop their class expansion functionality and get onboard with inheritance, I’m going to happily stick with Prototype.

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  joshteam wrote @ May 2, 2008 at 6:16 pm

I don’t want to get into a irrelevant argument of semantics & wording. One could argue that the evolution of all “languages and frameworks” are inspired in one way or another by it’s predecessor. In fact, that is, in my opinion one of the core strengths with the internet and especially open source. Innovation over invention. With that being said, the simple components that Moo offers such as inheritance (known as implements) in there docs, physics library built into it, interfaces, and so much more allow programmers from traditional languages to utilize the best practices with little to no transition into the new domain of javascript.

This alone is a superior functionality set which puts MooTools as a front runner in JavaScript in terms of “Advanced Usage”.

This is just one example however of Moo being inspired by “Good Ideas” and taking them to the next step. I challenge you to read more about some of the brilliant, imo, things they are continuing to do to push the boundaries in: http://docs12b.mootools.net/

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  enterthepirate wrote @ May 2, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Ok, one thing I think we both need to get on the same page with is versions. Any post that I’ve made I’ve been very specific that I’m talking about mootools 1.11 (the only released version of their framework). Everything that you’ve cited has to do with their latest beta.

I’ve looked over their documentation for their 1.2 beta and I’m impressed by some of the changes that they’ve made to Class.js.

This syntax is something that I can live with:


var Cat = new Class({
Implements: Animal,
setName: function(name){
this.name = name
}
});

You’re not on their payroll are you? ;) (I’M KIDDING!) Opinions are like @ssh0les, everybody has one. (And sometimes they change?? … wait, that makes no sense)

I think we’ll have to live with each others differing opinions for the moment. You never know, reading the docs for v1.2 and the announcement of a release may have me changing my opinion.

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  joshteam wrote @ May 2, 2008 at 7:54 pm

Haha, I wish I was more affiliated with the core team tbh, they have some pretty smart people (from the ones I’ve gotten to talk to in #mootools) but I think we can agree to disagree. Both frameworks are very good for the evolution of javascript development.

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  Veejay wrote @ June 19, 2008 at 7:23 am

Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation :) Anyway … nice blog to visit.

cheers, Veejay.

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