So I'm a developer & so far I've used YUI and Prototype/Scriptaculous on my journeys with Javascript. I'm not very good at it yet & am trying hard to learn it, as well as trying to get my head around the frameworks as I need them at work.

 

I am quite fond of YUI. Although a bit bulky, it is built with developers in mind I feel and so it appeals to my sensibilities. It turns Javascript functionality into a more OO, easy-to-work-with API and makes it more reliable. All the widgets in YUI are also built with multiple use-cases in mind, so they are heavily customisable and 100% stylable, which is great as you can learn how one widget works and use it in multiple projects.

 

Prototype is much more lightweight and great for when you only need to do one or two bits and pieces, rather than needing full blown widgets.

 

JQuery & MooTools seem to be very popular in the community, with JQuery being featured a lot in the top blogs. I have heard that these are aimed more at designers/frontend developers and have shorter learning curves.

 

I'm just interested really to get a wide range of view points. I can't possibly learn & be good at them all so it'll be interesting to find out if I am really focusing on the right ones. Perhaps it will also help other people who are trying to figure out which one to start with?

 

I realise that like me, many of you may use more than one framework as it is unlikely that one framework is good for all tasks. They are all so different, with different focuses and feature sets. So you can choose more than one option!

I've only briefly touched on either - but here's my two pence worth:

 

YUI: while well constructed, and enjoying the backing of some of the best brains in the industry (i.e: Doug Crockford) - appears somewhat heavy handed and is one of the slowest performers. That aside, it has a real R&D vibe about it, excellent documentation - and Yahoo keep knocking out great projects that hook into it really well. I get the feeling YUI is more of a heavy lifter - something that could be turned to some major network scripting.

 

jQuery: love it or hate it, the selector engine is PHENOMENAL. However, once you get past the nifty DOM features and suite of animation effects - it's pretty limited IMO. You can get under the bonnet and extend it, but that's a bit hardcore for me...This is basically a quickfix kind of deal if you ask me - and obscures the core language it sits on (unlike YUI/Mootools). Sizzle is an alternative to jQuery in that it isolates the selector engine so you can just use that next to some vanilla JS. In short - jQuery is fine for average UI requirements

 

MooTools: In essence, is heavily influenced by classical object oriented design. Some love it - but others (Mr.Crockford among them) think it's wrong to force a class based inheritance structure onto a prototypal language. Also, destroys other libraries in the process by altering native Javascript objects - so it won't always play nice. Kind of an all or nothing lib. I'm most keen on this one personally - the syntax seems to be the right balance between brevity and clarity. Plus it has good performance and sweeeeeet FX. I wouldn't want to commit to it for a critical path project before I knew what I was doing with it though. This is "the programmers" JS library.

 

But the question is how best to spend one's time. I think the answer is really about where you want to go with your career. jQuery is very in demand for a lot of new roles these days - hence that's what I'm studying & also the library we've chosen to support at work, although personally I'd prefer to study Moo since it would allow you to transfer design patterns you've learnt in PHP for example.

I seriously disliked YUI at the outset because of it's seemed "Heavy-handedness" and it really is kinda slow. However, it's other benefits (having absolute flexibility & pretty much everything you'll ever need at your disposal) have swung it back into favour.

 

In addition YUI 3 is now in first beta, and it has been streamlined quite considerably. Definitely one to watch.

 

It certainly seems that most people either love jQuery or MooTools. I'm interested in the BBC's glow framework too. Will have to find time to play with all three of those and choose one to focus on methinks.

i voted jquery and mootools.

 

jquery is my personal favourite because i'm happy to admit i won't use it much past basic front end stuff like animations and so jquery is definitely the most suited to a web designer.

 

i've dabbled with mootools and can see immediately it's got far more potential.. it's just not as easy for me and jquery saves time for what i do.

I tend to avoid JS whenever I can but for the odd times when I've used it I choose Jquery, simply because there are loads of plugins around that are easy to configure, and cover probably 80%-90% of needs. This makes for quick development time as well

 

I should add I'm no JS guru!!!

Plus one for the glow framework - it looks very interesting. As far as general web design requirements go, jQuery really does have a bit of a killer app in it's selector engine. If only they could marry that aspect with the more powerful aspects of Moo/Yui

 

I kind of agree with D.Crockford that enforcing a classical OO structure onto JS is somewhat ham-fisted of Moo - but it just lends itself to a common programming paradigm. Yet I think you have to be fairly brave/skilled to start messing with the native types on your own.