Comments on: Unobtrusive JavaScript Presentation with Sinatra

By: Gilbert Gutmann

Gilbert Gutmann — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:58:38 +0000

Andrew, I always prefer my own approach for show/hide: Element.addClass(‘hide’), Element.removeClass(‘hide’). I don’t like the ’style=”display: none”‘ stuff everyone is doing.

Let’s don’t start a war on this ;) – but I like this comparison:

http://mootools.net/slickspeed/

By: Andrew Okonetchnikov

Andrew Okonetchnikov — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:37:23 +0000

Heh, I’m working closely with mootools right now and I really miss lots of features prototype has. Of course you can always extend it to fit your needs, but why the fuck should I think about such things like Element.show and hide methods?

My opinion is that frameworks are here to help developers build apps faster with less effort. Each of these frameworks has some unique features and might fit different needs. For some neat animations only I’d go with Mootools, but for complex apps with lots of client-side logic I’d stick with Prototype for sure.

http://blog.reindel.com/2007/10/30/how-to-choose-a-javascript-framework/

By: Gilbert

Gilbert — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:12:49 +0000

Andrew, agree. It’s always about personal preferences. But if you have a look at jQuery and MooTools, you will agree that both have “something” that Prototype is missing.

By: Andrew Okonetchnikov

Andrew Okonetchnikov — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:33:57 +0000

Gilbert, I think it’s a matter of taste. Scriptaculous is a kind of addition to the Prototype, like all of these plugins Mootools and jQuery has.

Regarding filesize: consider compression of Prototype and you’ll come almost to mootools size. The difference in several KB isn’t that valuable these days also.

By: Geoffrey Grosenbach

Geoffrey Grosenbach — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:19:02 +0000

Also, I like the shared presentation idea!

I’d love to design a system where the viewers would be prompted to type into a text box and could interact with the content of the slides.

For example, in one of John Resig’s Javascript tutorials you can run the code interactively:

http://ejohn.org/apps/learn/

By: Geoffrey Grosenbach

Geoffrey Grosenbach — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:13:33 +0000

Unobtrusive Javascripting is definitely the way to go. For the record, there's a great add-on for Prototype that makes it dead simple. http://www.danwebb.net/lowpro

By: Gilbert Guttmann

Gilbert Guttmann — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:41:14 +0000

Andrew: Oh there is stuff like filesize, inconsistent API, poor documentation etc. Relying on two frameworks is really not a good idea. MooTools and jQuery are much better options. They don’t just want to create a good JS framework, they also introduce new cool and clever stuff which make your life with JS a lot easier.

By: Rafael Souza

Rafael Souza — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:13:18 +0000

I can’t wait to use Sinatra for production purposes. Sometimes, you don’t need all that stuff Rails provides. Less means more.

Me too! I’m waiting for Heroku to support Sinatra ;)

By: Andrew Okonetchnikov

Andrew Okonetchnikov — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:07:42 +0000

Hey Gilbert!

Great presentation. One question: why do you hate prototype+scriptaculous so much?