Library, Toolkit, or Framework
There's a discussion on comp.lang.javascript on what people like or dislike about prototype. It's an interesting read with many valid points. Most of the criticism of prototype is that it
is a big monolithic do-everything solve-every-problem approach to scripting.
Whether or not this is a valid criticism, I'll leave for another time, but I was struck by how everyone keeps calling prototype a library throughout the thread. I got to thinking that we throw around the terms library, toolkit, and framework fairly interchangeably with regard to JavaScript. I think of prototype as a framework, more than a library. Now do we really need frameworks? There's room for debate there, too.
However, I'd like to see more real libraries being developed for JavaScript. Something like Google's AJAXSLT. (I really don't mean to always bring up Google, but I'm spending lots of time there now.) If AJAXSLT we're in JSAN you could test for native browser XSLT support, and if not available, load XJAXSLT.
That's one example, at least, where a JavaScript library could prove useful.
Posted by deryck on March 20, 2006
