[Web-SIG] JavaScript libraries

[Carlos Ribeiro]

On 5/2/05, Shannon -jj Behrens <jjinux at gmail.com> wrote:
> It sure would be nice to have a common JavaScript library that we
> could all share.  People are wanting this for Aquarium, but I really
> don't want Aquarium to have its own JavaScript library.  It's too much
> of a niche within a niche.  Do you guys think it'd be possible to use
> the RoR one?  I've often talked with Donnovan about using LivePage
> from Nevow.  Do you guys know of any other really solid JavaScript
> libraries?

Just for the record.

I have spent six months writing a web-based workflow framework using
CherryPy on my own time. I experimented a little bit with several
templating systems, and one of the main problems that I had was with
the integration of JavaScript code. I thought, "I want to code in one
language as much as possible, and that's Python". So I wanted to have
a templating system that allowed me to forget about writing custom
Javascript code.

After lots of painful experiments, I wrote a simple form-based library
drawing on my experience with Delphi and other event-based toolsets.
Forms are composed of components; each component has associated
events. Event handlers are split in two parts: the form library itself
generates a Javascript callback using an IFrame (the code was borrowed
almost line-by-line from the example in the Apple's Developers site,
and worked off the shelf!). This callback in turn is automatically
associated with the even handler that is written in Python. The system
was amazingly simple and intuitive. The best part, I didn't had to
write custom Javascript code; I could rely on Python to handle events
that were fired into the web browser, using my two-way glue code.

All of this was prior to Ajax. I heard about it and it seemed to be
something along the same lines of the work that I was doing, but at
that time, I was hired for another project (I am a network architect
by profession, not a programmer!), and I had to spend the last two
months reading the latest Cisco manuals :-(

Now I am beginning to find some time for my happy workflow hacking...
and things have changed a lot, it seems. I think it's about time for
it to happen. It may seem a little bit simplistic of my part, but I
truly believe that the programmer's nirvana can only be attained when
we manage to hide the dozen different tools that are necessary today
behind a single & comprehensive framework. It makes no sense to me
that we have to learn Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS & SQL -- at a
minimum! -- to become productive in this profession.

The situation reminds me something about the beginnings of Windows
programming; one had to know C, the Windows API, the format of
resource files, the internals of event handling, memory models... just
to write a simple application. Tools like VB & Delphi managed to hide
all this complexity. I just feels that it's about time for it to
happen for Web programming.

-- 
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: carribeiro at gmail.com
mail: carribeiro at yahoo.com