I have personally used a few AJAX frameworks. Here is my view on some of the major players: YUI, GWT, jQuery, and Scriptaculous
1. YUI has been object-oriented to the point of uselessness. Everything requires YAHOO.blah.blah.blah(YAHOO.EventUtil.blah.blah.blah), and then they want you to have another line with YAHOO.AddListener.blah.blah(yourFunction) to add it to the execution list. I like objects. Wait, let me clarify, I like MY objects! I stopped doing what they asked and starting writing wrapper functions to their functions.
2. GWT requires a zillion steps. I spent half a day installing a Java IDE and compiler and running example projects to see how to use it. Perhaps this is useful for massive projects like Gmail, but for the rest of us who are just looking to add a few effects, instead of writing Java to generate JavaScript, you are better off just writing the JavaScript directly.
3. The Scriptaculous documentation seemed nonexistent. I was trying to find meaty documentation, and every page was essentially "LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!1!11"
In short:
1. YUI has a zillion files and still leaves you writing tedious DOM and your HTML ugly. They DO have some good stuff, which I will get to later.
2. GWT is like installing MS Word when you all needed was a good text editor.
3. Scriptaculous will leave you hanging.
(Side Note: I was just learning DOM when I tried out Scriptaculous. The bad taste may be the learning curve all beginner's must go through).
My recommendation:
-Go with jQuery + YUI's "reset-fonts-grids.css" file.
That YUI css file will reset all the browser defaults to an even layout saving you tons cross-browser tweaking. (Some things I disagree with though, like no bullets or numbers on your UL and OL tags. Still worth it though.) YUI Grids also has some nice templates to help you with div-based layouts. They have a few added extras too beyond just JavaScript code libraries.
jQuery is simply the most elegant and concise JavaScript library I've found. The idea behind it, "find this, and then do that", is great. The code looks simple, and your HTML code is left clean! People have developed modules for it too, so I may can replace my YUI added extras and just worry about 1 code library.
Hope that helps someone,
Dan
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