StanSight

JavaScript Frameworks – Time to take them seriously?

Have JavaScript Frameworks now hit a level of maturity that a business can feel confident that if they use them that code will not be outdated and impossible to maintain in less than a year?

JavaScript Frameworks are cross-browser user interface JavaScript libraries designed to make it easier to develop complex Graphical User Interfaces (GUI’s) for web pages.

I’ve tended to stay away from JavaScript Frameworks. My view was that in an attempt to be generic libraries they have introduced complexity, making it harder to implement and debug. Frankly, I did not want to spend a lot of time learning proprietary syntax to a library which may not be around all that long. There seemed to be a new flavor-of-the month library coming out ever other month. Here is just a small list of the currently most popular:

The Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) – http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/
Prototype – http://www.prototypejs.org/
ExtJS – http://extjs.com/
script.aculo.us – http://script.aculo.us/
Dojo – http://dojotoolkit.org/
jQuery – http://jquery.com/
mootools – http://mootools.net/

And the list goes on …

BUT – Looking over some of the newer frameworks – such as Ext JS 2.0 : http://extjs.com/ it certainly looks like a lot of functionality and maturity is starting to creep into them.

So – Have JavaScript Frameworks now hit a level of maturity that a business can feel confident that if they use them that code will not be outdated and impossible to maintain in less than a year?

As a developer is it getting to the point where JavaScript Frameworks need to be taken more seriously?