11 ms·

Ext JS + jQTouch + Raphaël = Sencha

53 points by _pius 16y ago

JoelMcCracken 16y ago
Funny, I was actually just browsing the ExtJS site last night, and decided I would almost certainly never use it. Its way too crazy corporate. I just hope Raphael and jQTouch will continue to be developed independently.
- threepointone 16y ago
  What do you mean, corporate? I've used it, and it does incredibly well for performance and stabilty, has a beautifully consistent API, and the best documentation for such a big js lib. Give it a go, man, you won't be disappointed (I hope).
  - buster 16y ago
    My company had some big performance issues to the point that the original decision to use ExtJS for all future JS projects will be revised.
    - eli_s 16y ago
      care to elaborate? I've been developing with it for a couple of years and am quite happy with performance. Of course its going to be sluggish if you're targeting ie6 or something since the DOM the framework creates is HUGE. Would be nice if they ditched support for ie6 which would probably help a lot with DOM bloat.
      - buster 16y ago
        In reality the Web UI was quite complex. IE6 was in the original requirements and was ditched because it was unusable (luckily the customer agreed, were would have been in a really bad position if not). IE7 has performance issues as well, even after many resources thrown at it. I wasn't involved directly, so i can't tell you technical reasons, but i know the WebUI was "state of the art", Ajax, etc. The generated HTML code was not only huge.. it was extreme ;) Also some JS functions were quite slow and adopting the latest ExtJS release also not possible because of not backward compatible changes. All in all, everyone thought in the beginning ExtJS offers probably the most (featurewise). In the end, many are thinking of either going more lowlevel (jquery) or more highlevel (GWT). This will be evaluated.
      - ronaldj 16y ago
        From my experience with ExtJS and IE, the problem with IE is that it lazily evaluates stuff. Your ExtJS will load lightning fast in IE6, but when you start click on stuff it then runs the JavaScript to generate the HTML. Other browsers don't do this (or their JavaScript engines are fast enough to compensate). This is all a bit fuzzy. Haven't touch it in months, so I could be wrong or things could have changed.
  - erlanger 16y ago
    The documentation leaves something to be desired. Working with ExtJS heavily for over a year, I found myself digging through the source code far too often.
    - ebiester 16y ago
      +100. I was continually frustrated until I finally settled down with a glass of hot chocolate, some romantic mood lighting, and started getting... intimate... with the source code. Even then, with GXT, it would be some nasty fights with a mediating debugger when it would stop talking to me and I had to pry out the reasons why. Usually, it was because some event wasn't being listened to. A bad library is much like a bad relationship. When it's good, it's really good, but you forget that far too much.
  - JoelMcCracken 16y ago
    The massive support drop down (with all really prominent I'm-a-middle-manager-can-i-pay-you choices) The highlighted quote from Adobe. The fact that Sencha is named "in the tradition of Java". If you look at the front page, you easily tell that it isn't oriented toward developers. Contrast this with, for example, http://jqtouch.com/ http://jqtouch.com/, http://jquery.com http://jquery.com, and http://raphaeljs.com/ http://raphaeljs.com/ When you finally figure out where the API and demos are, it still takes quite a while to figure out if some jslib things are supported -- for example, some kind of rich text editor. I just looked again, and I don't think it is, but really I'm not sure. I very well may try it, though. I've been looking for a project that makes a beautiful, cohesive interface, largely for web game programming purposes. I'm glad to hear that, despite its homepage, developers find it to be a nice project to use =)
    - _pius 16y ago
      The fact that Sencha is named "in the tradition of Java". I found that rather chilling, myself.
- smiler 16y ago
  'Way too crazy corporate' It's great though if that's what you want. Something which is actively developed, support to hunt down and solve gnarly JS bugs if you need it and the documentation is extensive and covers everything you'd want to know. Each to their own I guess :)
sant0sk1 16y ago
My biggest concern is what happens to jQTouch as a result of this acquisition. Will it continue to sit on jQuery or will they switch it to ExtJS?
- jeresig 16y ago
  It's a concern of ours (the jQuery Project) as well. We've been actively working on mobile over the last couple months (mostly getting jQuery core in a better state with regards to supporting more mobile platforms). We see one major gap in the market though: The lack of any sort of UI framework tailored towards cross-browser mobile development (frameworks like jQTouch and iUI both primarily target the iPhone and replicate an iPhone-like experience). Having jQuery core capable of supporting all major mobile platforms will make it much easier to develop a mobile UI framework specifically tailored to the smaller screen sizes. Either way, jQTouch is an incredibly popular jQuery plugin - and since it's MIT licensed - we'll do everything we can to make sure that a copy that runs on jQuery will exist in the long term (either by providing an alternative set of tools or by making sure that a jQuery-using version of jQTouch has a good, well-maintained, home).
- ntulip 16y ago
  it won't switch to ExtJS unless it gets trimmed down to like 40kb. It won't. I think this is just a diversification for ExtJS since other frameworks are doing UI components now (jQuery UI will catch up to it soon)
  - erlanger 16y ago
    > (jQuery UI will catch up to it soon) I seriously doubt that. jQuery UI is a hack compared to ExtJS.
_pius 16y ago
Where's Jack Slocum in all of this?
- jeresig 16y ago
  It's been over a year since Jack posted to the ExtJS forums: http://www.sencha.com/forum/member.php?2-jack.slocum http://www.sencha.com/forum/member.php?2-jack.slocum Probably safe to say that he's no longer involved.
erlanger 16y ago
Tacky name change clearly aimed to counter the mass of online content critical of their licensing model.
- steve19 16y ago
  +1 This is why they changed the name!
huherto 16y ago
Be careful with this company. They've burned open source developers with a bait and switch tactic. I lost about six months of work. http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thread/thread/2918164133ac9b2e http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thr...
- boucher 16y ago
  This seems disingenuous. While it certainly sucks that something which was once completely free to you now costs money or comes with several strings attached, it's hardly unfair or dishonest. What you had for free continues to be free, forever. That's the nature of open source. You could fork that code base and continue to improve it, or start your own project around it. Sencha decided they couldn't build a sustainable business by continuing to not charge people for their hard work, a reasonable and dare I say responsible decision. People who are making money off their work now have the choice to financially support that work, rather than simply seeing it die completely, which is what would have otherwise happened.
  - jonpaul 16y ago
    While the point you make is true, the parent is correct. Beware of this company if you use their GXT product. They continually treat their GXT CUSTOMERS poorly.
  - huherto 16y ago
    We couldn't fork; it turns out that mygwt was not really LGPL as it was originally stated. We couldn't even use the old versions. http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thread/thread/2918164133ac9b2e http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thr... It is not about the money. It is about changing the license after you've made a big commitment.
warfangle 16y ago
I understand that lots of the modules are optional. However, I cannot see a several megabyte framework [yes, it is: the ext js download is nearly 11MB, zipped(!!!)] working very well for mobile development.
- erlanger 16y ago
  Google Closure's codebase, which powers Gmail, etc. is well over 33MB, and ExtJS' size includes image assets, etc. So you can see that this is a poor metric. ext-base.js and ext-all.js, minified, are fairly light. Further, there's no ExtJS builder that I am aware of, so there are no optional "modules." I'm not sure what you're talking about. While the components are technically decoupled, using a GridPanel without Ext.data's offerings, for instance, would be pretty clunky.
- boucher 16y ago
  This is a silly metric. Development downloads have nothing to do with code deployment size. Cappuccino's download, for example, comes with two complete versions of the code, plus the documentation, plus a sample app. And there's also a separate tools download. Hardly representative of anything at all.
111 16y ago
fdgfd

53 points by _pius 16y ago

Funny, I was actually just browsing the ExtJS site last night, and decided I would almost certainly never use it. Its way too crazy corporate. I just hope Raphael and jQTouch will continue to be developed independently.

threepointone 16y ago
What do you mean, corporate? I've used it, and it does incredibly well for performance and stabilty, has a beautifully consistent API, and the best documentation for such a big js lib. Give it a go, man, you won't be disappointed (I hope).
- buster 16y ago
  My company had some big performance issues to the point that the original decision to use ExtJS for all future JS projects will be revised.
  - eli_s 16y ago
    care to elaborate? I've been developing with it for a couple of years and am quite happy with performance. Of course its going to be sluggish if you're targeting ie6 or something since the DOM the framework creates is HUGE. Would be nice if they ditched support for ie6 which would probably help a lot with DOM bloat.
    - buster 16y ago
      In reality the Web UI was quite complex. IE6 was in the original requirements and was ditched because it was unusable (luckily the customer agreed, were would have been in a really bad position if not). IE7 has performance issues as well, even after many resources thrown at it. I wasn't involved directly, so i can't tell you technical reasons, but i know the WebUI was "state of the art", Ajax, etc. The generated HTML code was not only huge.. it was extreme ;) Also some JS functions were quite slow and adopting the latest ExtJS release also not possible because of not backward compatible changes. All in all, everyone thought in the beginning ExtJS offers probably the most (featurewise). In the end, many are thinking of either going more lowlevel (jquery) or more highlevel (GWT). This will be evaluated.
    - ronaldj 16y ago
      From my experience with ExtJS and IE, the problem with IE is that it lazily evaluates stuff. Your ExtJS will load lightning fast in IE6, but when you start click on stuff it then runs the JavaScript to generate the HTML. Other browsers don't do this (or their JavaScript engines are fast enough to compensate). This is all a bit fuzzy. Haven't touch it in months, so I could be wrong or things could have changed.
- erlanger 16y ago
  The documentation leaves something to be desired. Working with ExtJS heavily for over a year, I found myself digging through the source code far too often.
  - ebiester 16y ago
    +100. I was continually frustrated until I finally settled down with a glass of hot chocolate, some romantic mood lighting, and started getting... intimate... with the source code. Even then, with GXT, it would be some nasty fights with a mediating debugger when it would stop talking to me and I had to pry out the reasons why. Usually, it was because some event wasn't being listened to. A bad library is much like a bad relationship. When it's good, it's really good, but you forget that far too much.
- JoelMcCracken 16y ago
  The massive support drop down (with all really prominent I'm-a-middle-manager-can-i-pay-you choices) The highlighted quote from Adobe. The fact that Sencha is named "in the tradition of Java". If you look at the front page, you easily tell that it isn't oriented toward developers. Contrast this with, for example, http://jqtouch.com/ http://jqtouch.com/, http://jquery.com http://jquery.com, and http://raphaeljs.com/ http://raphaeljs.com/ When you finally figure out where the API and demos are, it still takes quite a while to figure out if some jslib things are supported -- for example, some kind of rich text editor. I just looked again, and I don't think it is, but really I'm not sure. I very well may try it, though. I've been looking for a project that makes a beautiful, cohesive interface, largely for web game programming purposes. I'm glad to hear that, despite its homepage, developers find it to be a nice project to use =)
  - _pius 16y ago
    The fact that Sencha is named "in the tradition of Java". I found that rather chilling, myself.
smiler 16y ago
'Way too crazy corporate' It's great though if that's what you want. Something which is actively developed, support to hunt down and solve gnarly JS bugs if you need it and the documentation is extensive and covers everything you'd want to know. Each to their own I guess :)

sant0sk1 16y ago

My biggest concern is what happens to jQTouch as a result of this acquisition. Will it continue to sit on jQuery or will they switch it to ExtJS?

jeresig 16y ago
It's a concern of ours (the jQuery Project) as well. We've been actively working on mobile over the last couple months (mostly getting jQuery core in a better state with regards to supporting more mobile platforms). We see one major gap in the market though: The lack of any sort of UI framework tailored towards cross-browser mobile development (frameworks like jQTouch and iUI both primarily target the iPhone and replicate an iPhone-like experience). Having jQuery core capable of supporting all major mobile platforms will make it much easier to develop a mobile UI framework specifically tailored to the smaller screen sizes. Either way, jQTouch is an incredibly popular jQuery plugin - and since it's MIT licensed - we'll do everything we can to make sure that a copy that runs on jQuery will exist in the long term (either by providing an alternative set of tools or by making sure that a jQuery-using version of jQTouch has a good, well-maintained, home).
ntulip 16y ago
it won't switch to ExtJS unless it gets trimmed down to like 40kb. It won't. I think this is just a diversification for ExtJS since other frameworks are doing UI components now (jQuery UI will catch up to it soon)
- erlanger 16y ago
  > (jQuery UI will catch up to it soon) I seriously doubt that. jQuery UI is a hack compared to ExtJS.

_pius 16y ago

Where's Jack Slocum in all of this?

jeresig 16y ago
It's been over a year since Jack posted to the ExtJS forums: http://www.sencha.com/forum/member.php?2-jack.slocum http://www.sencha.com/forum/member.php?2-jack.slocum Probably safe to say that he's no longer involved.

erlanger 16y ago

Tacky name change clearly aimed to counter the mass of online content critical of their licensing model.

steve19 16y ago
+1 This is why they changed the name!

huherto 16y ago

Be careful with this company. They've burned open source developers with a bait and switch tactic. I lost about six months of work. http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thread/thread/2918164133ac9b2e http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thr...

boucher 16y ago
This seems disingenuous. While it certainly sucks that something which was once completely free to you now costs money or comes with several strings attached, it's hardly unfair or dishonest. What you had for free continues to be free, forever. That's the nature of open source. You could fork that code base and continue to improve it, or start your own project around it. Sencha decided they couldn't build a sustainable business by continuing to not charge people for their hard work, a reasonable and dare I say responsible decision. People who are making money off their work now have the choice to financially support that work, rather than simply seeing it die completely, which is what would have otherwise happened.
- jonpaul 16y ago
  While the point you make is true, the parent is correct. Beware of this company if you use their GXT product. They continually treat their GXT CUSTOMERS poorly.
- huherto 16y ago
  We couldn't fork; it turns out that mygwt was not really LGPL as it was originally stated. We couldn't even use the old versions. http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thread/thread/2918164133ac9b2e http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thr... It is not about the money. It is about changing the license after you've made a big commitment.

warfangle 16y ago

I understand that lots of the modules are optional. However, I cannot see a several megabyte framework [yes, it is: the ext js download is nearly 11MB, zipped(!!!)] working very well for mobile development.

erlanger 16y ago
Google Closure's codebase, which powers Gmail, etc. is well over 33MB, and ExtJS' size includes image assets, etc. So you can see that this is a poor metric. ext-base.js and ext-all.js, minified, are fairly light. Further, there's no ExtJS builder that I am aware of, so there are no optional "modules." I'm not sure what you're talking about. While the components are technically decoupled, using a GridPanel without Ext.data's offerings, for instance, would be pretty clunky.
boucher 16y ago
This is a silly metric. Development downloads have nothing to do with code deployment size. Cappuccino's download, for example, comes with two complete versions of the code, plus the documentation, plus a sample app. And there's also a separate tools download. Hardly representative of anything at all.

111 16y ago

fdgfd