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I think the comparisons with other frameworks like JQuery or Angular are a little out of place. I don't really see Ext as a competitor in that area. It's not re

by mhd 12y ago

I think the comparisons with other frameworks like JQuery or Angular are a little out of place. I don't really see Ext as a competitor in that area. It's not really a traditional JS framework, it's more a GUI library that just happens to use the browser as the backend and JS as the programming language. I mostly saw it used for intranet applications, where not being forced to deploy stuff for each change is a big bonus. In these cases, you're not coming from knockout, backbone or react -- you're fleeing from the wrath of Java Webstart and Swing. And compared to those beasts, ExtJS is a welcome change. Yes, all the bad things said in the post and this thread are certainly true, but that still makes ExtJS better than some of the alternatives in this peculiar shithole. And no other framework/library seems to move in that direction. Components, sure, but no full-fledged widgets that end up in providing a desktop-like experience. Most widget libraries I've seen were enhancements/additions to mostly conventional web pages (Cappuccino as a possible exception). Sure, you don't want to provide a 80%-ish emulation of native GUIs on the real internet. But for the corporate stuff like CRMs, it's darn useful. Even ravishing the DOM is better than Swing. (Did I mention that I don't like Swing?)

cjauvin 12y ago
I very much agree with all of your points. ExtJS is hard to beat in terms of the breadth of its widget set, layout configurations, data handling models, etc. Just for the almighty GridPanel, it's worth it I would say. But it's also more appropriate for internal, non-public facing apps. For that, you get pretty much all the usual benefits of a web application (ease of deployment, etc.) without getting lost in a traditional desktop GUI jungle. It's true that the library is frighteningly monolithic and the learning curve quite steep, but personally, I very much appreciate the declarative syntax, the very complete documentation, the multiple examples, the flexible MVC structure and the fact that it can easily result in nice decoupled code, as you can plug any backend you like, as long as it communicates through a well-defined protocol (I personally favor Python and Flask).
porker 12y ago
Wasn't Flex a better alternative to ExtJS in this problem-space? Recently I've seen entire apps packaged up as Silverlight, which seems to work well - especially where security (exam marking in this case) is important. Not sure how they're built mind, and it took an age to download, but for intranets it's another interesting approach.

by mhd 12y ago

cjauvin 12y ago

I very much agree with all of your points. ExtJS is hard to beat in terms of the breadth of its widget set, layout configurations, data handling models, etc. Just for the almighty GridPanel, it's worth it I would say. But it's also more appropriate for internal, non-public facing apps. For that, you get pretty much all the usual benefits of a web application (ease of deployment, etc.) without getting lost in a traditional desktop GUI jungle. It's true that the library is frighteningly monolithic and the learning curve quite steep, but personally, I very much appreciate the declarative syntax, the very complete documentation, the multiple examples, the flexible MVC structure and the fact that it can easily result in nice decoupled code, as you can plug any backend you like, as long as it communicates through a well-defined protocol (I personally favor Python and Flask).

porker 12y ago

Wasn't Flex a better alternative to ExtJS in this problem-space? Recently I've seen entire apps packaged up as Silverlight, which seems to work well - especially where security (exam marking in this case) is important. Not sure how they're built mind, and it took an age to download, but for intranets it's another interesting approach.