mootools vs.jQuery discussion

Way of topic,... but I can’t resist

Mootools is a fine library and I don’t mind using it but there is a (performance) difference, especially when using multiple events. The way mootools caches (or stacks) events can slow things down or create very interesting but unwanted effects I recently discovered this myself trying to develop a graphic intensive interactive grid (24 fields). I coded it in both mootools and in jQuery and the latter behaved much smoother. Besides that I like the namespacing (if there is such a word) you can use in jQuery wich makes it less prone to conflicts with other libraries.

Having said all that I’m quite happy with MODx using mootools. The previous post was made in jest, but you understood that already I bet.

Interresting... yeah I have heard the namespace thingy, thought mootools handled that too (but I am still learning).

Nothing prevents MODx users to choose jQuery for the frontend, except they’ll have to disable quickedit or suffer conflicts when logged in... Thanks for bringing up the differences, very interresting Jelle

If you really think jQuery would really be way better than mootools, why not submit that to the team for future release ?
It sure means a bit of work but I have no doubt if the reward is worth it this will make it into future release...

For 0.9.6, MODx will be using mootools for sure. A whole lot of work has gone into making that happen, and the results are generally excellent. But some of us would like to keep stirring the pot to see if that might change for 0.9.7 and beyond...

There’s already a lot of discussion on this throughout the forums, so I won’t belabor it here.

As for the QuickEdit frontend issue, I think that the folks at jQuery have actually provided a way to resolve that easily, which jester444 discovered and posted here: http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,2531.msg93221.html#msg93221

All libraries are under consideration, and jQuery definitely has strong support behind it (both as requests here and behind it in its community). If jQuery is your library of choice, both Ajax Search and Quick Edit should be pretty straightforward to port to that library.

And, if I may say so, the communities are completely different...
try making a newbie question in MooTools and you will get pummeled
and you probably will never go there again...
The jQuery community is much more friendly and understanding...

Before you guys start poking at me...
yes, the MODx community is the friendliest I have seen...
seriously... I thing sottwell put it nicely in one thread I read...
something like, "it takes a lot to make somebody angry in
this community"... and I think that is right, this is a comfortable place
to learn, communicate and work!!

charliez, you got a point here... I haven’t decided yet if I’ll use mootools or jQuery on the frontend... I’ve been learning mootools but the while the doc is probably very nice for a proficient js coder, it’s hard on beginners... jQuery doc provides context for the code and a step by step approach which makes it easier. Didn’t check their forum yet, but that’s good to know

And thanks for the kind words

A community is a learning place, and personnally, I learn a lot from others but also from trying to make as clear to others as possible what I know. Questions are as enlightening as answers and sometimes more !

About the team choosing mootools over jQuery :

Quote from: rthrash at Mar 01, 2007, 01:58 PM

Mootools meets a couple of important goals that fit philosophically with MODx. First it’s lightweight and fast. Second it’s very extendable. While there are other systems that are a bit faster, not many that I’m aware of can match MODx for flexibility and overall performance. I think the same is very true for Mootools.

Quote from: doze at Mar 01, 2007, 03:00 PM

Ok.. I have no experience from either of those, so I have to take your word for it but from what I understood with a bit of googling is that MooTools is truly much better extensible than jQuery. jQuery’s biggest advantage though is that the syntax is very simple. You don’t have to write as complex code as you do with other libs. But the result from my googling session is that MooTools really looks the best fit for MODx. The basic idea in both MooTools and MODx is very similar.

EDIT: And I dream of the day that MODx has the same kind of download than MooTools has.. And what the little birds are saying, the wait might not be that long..

About namespaces and mootools :

Quote from: rthrash at Mar 01, 2007, 03:07 PM

There is also now a namespaced version of mootools available if you look hard enough (like 2 minutes on the mootools forums).

I had missed that !
I’ll go look for it...

This being said, I took a longer look at jQuery and the doc is way easier to grasp no sweat...

Edit : To Moderator : Thanks for spitting the thread

i find the people over at jquery a lot nicer towards newbies

It´s always easy to get answeres from Jquery users, and even the developers.
Ive been on the mailing list for about 4 months now, and even "stupid" questions are being answered.

Now, I thought the licence was commercial, now it seems it’s not...that’s why I chose mootools originally.

Luke.