jQuery wins

Cameron Moll mentions today that Javascripting is now a required skill for any front end web designer worth his salt. I’m inclined to agree, as Javascript has made its way from the rainbow-coloring of text in the mid-nineties to a mainstay of the most used websites in the world (I’m thinking of Yahoo and YUI, in particular). While Javascript used to be about the most language I’ve ever developed with, thanks to highly different engine implementations in the various browsers and non-existent or bad tools, it’s come a long way for developers in the past few years, due to the emergence of several cross platform libraries. The big three I’m familiar with are prototype, jQuery and MooTools.

These competing libraries offer equivalent functionality. Prototype is built into Ruby on Rails, and has a big developer base as a result. MooTools is lightweight, and the library can be built to only include the functionality you need. jQuery has proven to be my library of choice, not because it is better than prototype or mootools, but because it’s easy to extend and a many of developers have done just that. There are already hundreds of widgets and plugins listed on the jQuery site. Like pretty much everything in life, someone else has probably already had to solve the same problem you have now. Being a good developer is just as much about knowing when to stand on the shoulders of others as being able to build everything yourself.

On the flipside, there is no such ecosystem in place for Prototype and mooTools. I’ve got to rely on Google to find extensions for the other libraries. While Google is great, it’s a driftnet. In my particular information seeking case, I prefer a targeted, community managed, categorized list. Are there an equal number of great extensions for Prototype? I don’t know, I’m still paging through the Goooooooooogle….

On a somewhat tangential note, this is a compelling argument for the power of information architecture. The jQuery team thought beyond the code to the way it would be used, and designed their site to address the needs of their users. It’s simple concept, but one that is missed by many sites. jQuery did it right, won me over, and I think it will win many more.