Microsoft Adding jQuery To Visual Studio

Tim Anderson writes "Microsoft's Scott Guthrie, Corporate VP of the .NET developer division, announced that the open source jQuery Javascript library will be integrated into Visual Studio, the main Windows development tool. Further, Microsoft will treat jQuery as a supported product within technical support contracts, and will use jQuery to build new controls for ASP.NET, its web platform."

Comments

And We'll Discuss It Again!

[Anonymous Coward]

If this sounds familiar to you it's probably because we already talked about it.

Re:And We'll Discuss It Again!

[Jason Levine]

Ah, but did you hear that Microsoft was adding jQuery to Visual Studio? Maybe I should submit it as a Slashdot story.

(Seriously, I wonder what the record is for the most times the same story has made it onto Slashdot? Two? Three? A dozen?)

Re:And We'll Discuss It Again!

[beuges]

Not exactly what you were looking for, but how's about a dupe with only one story between it and the original?

Re:And We'll Discuss It Again!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It's just one more VS thing to get in the way when I push F1 on the "class" keyword in VC++ to look up some obscure syntax.

You'd think MSDN would be capable, in an intuitive manner, of putting the C++ stuff first, since I pushed F1 editing a .cpp file in a .cpp project.

But no, I have intermingled all obscure uses of the word in Java, SQL, VBA, this or that server scripting language, Foxpro, Access, .NET framework, and the secret language only identical twins understand.

So heave this one into the mix too. WTH.

Dupe

[Reality Master 201]

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/29/0249226&from=rss

It's a week ago, though, and this doesn't include Nokia, so I can see how you'd get confused.

Re:Dupe

[ccguy]

Your post is also redundant since the first post says the same thing :-)

(Yes I read *all* post before posting this - so your revenge will have to wait)

Re:Dupe

[punkass]

He posted less than a minute after the first poster...don't be a douchebag.

Re:Dupe

[Poltras]

We're on the internet. Being a douchebag is not only his right, but a duty for every interneter.

Re:Dupe

[VGPowerlord]

He might have posted sooner, too, but Slashdot has this stupid "You only hit reply X seconds ago!" bullshit.

Scary

[dnoyeb]

Anyone that has used VisualStudio or any of MS programming options will cringe at MS definition of "integrate".

Hammer and duct tape...

Re:Scary

[pak9rabid]

Anyone that has used VisualStudio or any of MS programming options will cringe at MS definition of "integrate".

Uh, care to elaborate on that? I've used VS before and I've actually found their integration of technologies (SOAP for example) to be quite nice. VS is one of the few MS products that hasn't turned into a completely piece of shit over the years....but I'll still take Eclipse over it any day.

Re:Scary

[dnoyeb]

The studio itself is fine. I don't think its built with a bunch of different technologies. Its basically C++. But the products it creates are patched together with all sorts of things. They give you sort of, "widgets" that you just drag in. They try to abstract whether the widget was made in visual C++, C#, Visual Basic, etc. But in the end, it can be important to understand what these things are.

You can make some really nasty quick and dirty stuff in Visual Studio. Sure if you are out to make solid code you can do that as well. But it can get frustrating as you have to keep smacking down the widget approach.

Re:Scary

[Firehed]

No kidding. Ever look at how AJAX is handled on .net sites created in VS? javascript:__doPostBack('ctl00$cphMain$lnkTotalDnsManager','')
Talk about maintainable!

I have to give credit where credit is due - master pages are pretty damn handy, but the rest of what I've worked with in VS seems like a bunch of cobbled-together nonsense produced by people who failed their programming classes with the goal of creating the slowest IDE in the history of the known universe.

Re:Scary

[DivineGod]

Yes!

Plain ASP.NET is not a framework made for modern web development.

AJAX in ASP.NET is not really asynchronous either. As the stupid viewstate needs to be maintained between postbacks.

Re:Scary

[Bovarchist]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that was pissed to find out that the viewstate is still getting passed around with ASP.NET AJAX. I understand why they did it, but it's annoying and pointless. If you want to write a lean web application in ASP.NET you have to throw out all of MS's web controls and code straight HTML and http handlers.

Re:Scary

[aztracker1]

Actually, that isn't so bad... with the ASP.Net MVC, the Dynamic Data, and Jayrock, you have about all you need, in a set of libraries that aren't a total pain to work with. I love what Jayrock adds to HttpHandler myself.

I love master pages, as the way they work is above and beyond what most other template systems offer. I like C# and .Net itself more than most other languages/platforms as well. I just wish that MS stopped trying to over-engineer everything for the enterprise developer. That's my biggest gripe with the Java frameworks out there. Yeah, you can whip up a decent web application in no time at all with the ASP.Net controls stack, but when you want (or need) to scale out it falls apart. ASP.Net AJAX doesn't scale at all, and is hampered by its' own weight. Anthem and other similar frameworks worked better in a similar fashion, and Jayrock separates things out, and scales far better.

Silverlight sometimes seems like a solution waiting for a problem, but it's cool, and at least will scale with client growth. Silverlight + Dynamic Data (Astoria) is awesome, if limited to those with Silverlight/Moonlight installed. I don't know where development is going in the next couple years. I just hope that it doesn't all fall down.

Re:Scary

[n_are_q]

Care to elaborate on how asp.net doesn't scale? There are number of very high traffic sites, MySpace.com for example, that use asp.net. Truth is, asp.net is one of the most performant and easy to use stacks there are. It's main drawback if licensing costs for win2k3 servers.

Re:Scary

[Firehed]

Depends how the app is designed. If you code well, it's not really that big of an issue (like most languages/frameworks, just throw more hardware at it and the load balancer should figure most of it out). Most .NET-based code/apps I've seen tend to be... unusual, and very often in ways that seriously harm scalability.

If you're writing a system that requires multiple servers, chances are that Win2k3 licensing costs are the least of your worries. It's not insignificant, but it's probably a pittance compared to the developers' salaries.

Re:Scary

[giantweevil]

As a stage crew worker, I take offence to that.

A hammer and duct tape integrate things much better than Microsoft does.

Re:Scary

[aztracker1]

Well, if you nuke .Net sessions, and view-state you can get a lot more performance out of a single server... The more servers you use, the harder it is to maintain a release cycle, and make *SURE* they all match up. Win2k3 licensing really isn't that bad. The web edition works well, and to be honest I am not talking about cost so much, as maintaining a site with several million users on a default ASP.Net stack. Any big site that uses .Net is *NOT* using the default controls, or ASP.Net AJAX. Most are avoiding the use of built in sessions (requiring sticky session context from the load balancer). Also, while viewstate can be nice for some things, it doesn't work well when you are trying to do anything AJAX-y, as sending a few K of data for something that should be *fast* doesn't work so well. Rebuilding a page's context object for something that should be a fast client-server request doesn't work so well either. Aside from the fact that the increased network traffic slows things down.

Those are just two of my gripes. You can use .Net for a well done, scalable, fast site. Just not by using the typical development pattern for ASP.Net and MS's AJAX. ASP.Net 4's system for AJAX handling looks like it will work much, much better though.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because heavyweight ASP.NET AJAX components were probably written for maximum ease of transition of developers coming from non web backgrounds, especially enterprise developers, who don't want to get their hands dirty with javascript and such. It's easy, well abstracted, but it comes at a cost.

If you just use client side library and web service call wrapper, it's much more lightweight.
The rest of the stuff, even UpdatePanel, can also be lightweight if used judiciously.

In general, given the nature of your post, I have to add that most people can use simple tool... if, however, I can use complex tool efficiently and someone else cannot and blames the tool, I would say, as we do in Russian, that he has "hands growing out of the wrong place". Which is why, it might turn out, he cannot afford a computer mid-end enough to run VS with decent speed :>

Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[paniq]

Holy moly, Microsoft actually integrating Open "ewww" Source with one of its products?

In other news:

- Hell frozen over, Jesus Christ returned.
- Duke Nukem Forever released.
- Administration actually _cuts_ taxes ... no, wait!

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[mspohr]

I think this is Step 1 (embrace). They have also announced Step 2 (extend... new ASP.NET controls).

I think you know Step 3.

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[plague3106]

You realize that asp.net controls can USE a library without the library itself being extended, right?

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[mspohr]

Yes.

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[dedazo]

Because the jQuery maintainers are going to happily incorporate Windows-only modifications made by Microsoft to the library, correct?

Because "we'll be shipping jQuery as-is, and submit patches to it like everyone else" means something weird and wacky you must have deduced ahead of us. Correct?

Actually I'm at a loss here. Could you enlighten us as to how these evil tricksies will take place.

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[paniq]

Step 3: Mess it up?

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[paniq]

Aww come on, "Troll"? That is a really miserably failed attempt at humour I did there.

I wish comedy writers could tag their comments with a different color so it is not interpreted as serious information. Totally kills the joke if people start to believe that you ARE stupid enough to mean it. ;)

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[Svippy]

Step 3: Mess it up?

I was going to say "Profit!", but we all know that has to be preceded by "???", so maybe that is Step 3.

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Actually I'm at a loss here. Could you enlighten us as to how these evil tricksies will take place.

People are nervous because we seen this pattern before on a non-open source (at the time) language/library. It went like this:

1. Incorporate JQuery into visual studio and add windows specific code to "enhance the productivity within visual studio".

2. Books and MSDN will refer to the Microsoft extensions as cool ways to get thing done in JQuery, and people new to the software will gravitate to the Microsoft version, colleges will teach it (most colleges use Windows in their labs), and since most people use windows anyway they see no harm in adopting the extended edition.

3. Continue to refer the extended version as JQuery, causing confusion between the Microsoft version and the official version.

4. JQuery loses enough share to the Microsoft version to cause some grief to the non-microsoft developers. Especially since a lot of enterprises are sold on the Microsoft method of IT, and would like their developers to take advantage of the Microsoft technology.

5. By the time damage is done and JQuery complains, Microsoft will rename their version JQ++

6. Eventually Microsoft will abandon JQ++ and move all new development to Query.net.

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[dedazo]

Your first point invalidates the remainder, since this is a JavaScript library. What exactly "Windows-specific" do you figure Microsoft will introduce into jQuery? There's already a ton of code to deal with IE's shortcomings, so that doesn't count.

Besides, assuming for just a minute that your scenario is correct, the net result is that a bunch of Microsoft developers are better off and everyone else who uses jQuery is no worse for it. Nobody wins, nobody loses.

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Dude, I was just pointing out WHY people are nervous, and used Microsoft's handling of Java as a template to illustrate a point.

Not worrying about Microsoft's extension to a competitor product, is like not worrying about a certain one glove singer from the 80's babysitting. They both have a history that warrants a skeptical look on their intentions...

Re:Microsoft incorporating Open Source?

[Richard_at_work]

That seems like a hell of a lot of work to actually do, considering MS already has a pretty good AJAX library thats well integrated into the development platform.

and it is still good news

[Captain Arr Morgan]

If nothing else comes from this, hopefully Microsoft will help to fix the outstanding Internet Explorer bugs. Congratulations again to the jQuery team, keep up the great work.

Slashdot - release twice - read once

[MosesJones]

As an engineer I was always taught, "test twice, release once" which was the IT version of "measure twice, cut once". Slashdot has taught me the error of my ways.

Re:Slashdot - release twice - read once

[Anonymous Coward]

I think read once is optimistic.

Next new feature

[Tridus]

Fearful of the power of Slashdot, Microsoft also announced the release of .net® auto-dupe(TM) support to Visual Studio. From now on anything you publish will have a random chance to be published again a few days later.

This feature is expected to solve the widespread problem of users not wanting to use a first release for fear of bugs. Now they'll see a second release and plunge in! An ASP.net(TM) version will be forthcoming with the next service pack, allowing your website to fill its content needs by duplicating random articles.

Heard This

[techsoldaten]

Heard this last week and thought it was a joke. You mean I can refer clients to Microsoft for support on an open source javascript library?

One big thing about jQuery is how well it works cross-browser. While some of the plug ins can be browser specific, I have rarely had issues deploying it across all browsers. But I just can't see MS supporting a cludgy issue with anything but IE.

M

Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[IGnatius T Foobar]

jQuery is really just Microsoft's ripoff of Prototype and Scriptaculous, a pair of open source libraries that do the exact same thing. I might even add that they do it better, because one is built on top of the other, so if you only want the lower-layer stuff you only need the one library.

This is just one more in a long line of examples of Microsoft's "Not Invented Here" attitude problem. They could have joined the existing communities and worked with them. Open sourcing jQuery will not fix the problem -- the open source community still hates Microsoft's guts for exactly this type of behavior.

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[soliptic]

I assume this is a deliberate troll because nobody could actually be that stupid. After all, you don't need to google jquery to see you have it completely backwards, it only requires reading the summary.

In short: jQuery is not Microsoft's ripoff of anything, and they are not open sourcing it. It already WAS open source (dual MIT/GPL licensed), and it wasn't written by them. It was created by John Resig who now works for Mozilla.

So far from being the latest example of MS's "Not Invented Here" problem, it's actually a suggestion that they may be overcoming NIH. And when you say "They could have joined the existing communities and worked with them" - that's what they did.

If you really must come out with a standard-issue anti-MS troll, I believe the "they'll embrace, extend, extinguish it, just you wait and see" one is the correct one to use in this situation.

Oh, and as for Prototype/scriptaculous doing it better... *shrug* well I prefer jQuery but it's obviously a matter of opinion to some extent, so if you found you prefered them (or mootools, or YUI, or whatever), fair enough. That said, your given justification is off target, jQuery has a plugin system so if you don't want a bunch of UI level stuff but just the "lower-layer stuff", that works too. Admittedly the distinction of what is lower layer and what is plugin may be slightly different between projects, and jquery core does include some animation related stuff, but still, you can't realistically imply jquery is monolithically bloated.

*sigh* I guess I shouldn't feed the trolls.

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF. jQuery is OPEN SOURCE, for gods' sake. I do my Microsoft bashing every day, and I'm a pretty good free software geek, but your post here is nonsense.

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[ccady]

This is just one more in a long line of examples of Microsoft's "Not Invented Here" attitude problem. They could have joined the existing communities and worked with them. Open sourcing jQuery will not fix the problem -- the open source community still hates Microsoft's guts for exactly this type of behavior.

"You speak of what you know not, O trollish one."

jQuery was not written by Microsoft. It has been used by many web pages/applications before this announcement.

jQuery was written by John Resig, who currently works for the Mozilla Corporation.

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

parent comment is so far off base its not even funny. If you RTFA then you'd realise that:

1. jQuery is not an MS product, and has not being bought by MS.
2. jQuery is an open source product that they have no control over. They've explicitly stated they will not fork from the main trunk.
3. The reason this is news is that it is going against the track record of "Not Invented Here"

But why let reality get in the way of being able to put down MS (surprised you resisted the temptation to use a $)!

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[omnipresentbob]

Um, pretty obvious that you really have no idea what you're talking about. jQuery was not created by Microsoft. Nor was it even funded by Microsoft to begin with (and probably won't be in the future). jQuery is already opensource (seeing as how it's openly available from the jQuery site).

Secondly, I see you must be operating under the delusion that "bigger is better" - jQuery has a MUCH smaller footprint than Prototype (and, therefore, Scriptaculous. I haven't worked with either Scriptaculous or Prototype, but just from my brief glance-over, jQuery does both of their jobs.

Personally, even though you have the layering option w/ Prototype/Scriptaculous, I'd rather just have both and still have a smaller footprint.

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[francium de neobie]

Have you ever even learned jQuery?

Have you ever read the project founder's book? It's not from Microsoft Press.

As an open source JavaScript developer I hate IE and Microsoft just as much as the next guy. But if you're going to bash Microsoft, please keep to the facts.

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[Maudib]

I really doubt that this is a case where extend and extinguish is really viable or intended. Its not like jquery is some fundamental piece of open source that it's destruction would advance ms in any way, as you note there are tons of other similar active great projects.

If they wanted to extinguish it then I doubt they would make it such a core piece of Visual Studio. It sounds to me like they finally realized how retarded visual studio was compared to what was freely available and decided to just integrate with a good existing project. If anything I think that in this specific area they plan on working with the community in a positive way.

so at worse I think we will see some unpleasant branching or the addition of some lame IE specific code. Its a rare case where one can say kudos MS! They integrated with a good project for the right reasons.

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[dedazo]

This is just one more in a long line of examples of Microsoft's "Not Invented Here" attitude problem. They could have joined the existing communities and worked with them. Open sourcing jQuery will not fix the problem -- the open source community still hates Microsoft's guts for exactly this type of behavior.

Just had to quote this so I can read it again later when I'm ready for some comedic relief.

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[naoursla]

I am one of the developers working on javascript support in VS. I am working very closely with jquery support. Our goal is to get as many developers as possible using our tools. That means supporting libraries that web developers want to use.

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

It's clear that you have the facts completely wrong. jQuery is a Microsoft product -- a ripoff of Scriptaculous and Prototype. But don't let your blind delusion get in the way. Oh, and by the way, you are ugly.

Re:Yet another Microsoft ripoff

[soliptic]

I really doubt that this is a case where extend and extinguish is really viable or intended

No, nor do I. That line was supposed to be sort dryly sarcastic. Point being, at least that copy/paste troll / knee-jerk slashbot-ism would make some basic sort of "plausible" sense given the situation, even if I don't personally think it an argument worth any real weight in practice.

Product Placement

[Doc Ruby]

So what? This "story" on Slashdot's front page doesn't even bother to identify what "jQuery" is. All it does is make a press release pimping jQuery, "now with Microsoft's support!".

Re:Product Placement

[hclewk]

google it

Re:Product Placement

[Doc Ruby]

In your interactive advertiser dreams.

Re:Product Placement

[prockcore]

Embrace ignorance! It's what you do best.

jQuery rocks, no comment on Microsoft

[operator_error]

Folks, lemme tell you whatever you remember from learning javascript is largely irrelevant, especially memorizing and learning to 'read' all those ugly syntactical structures of text. In a word, jQuery is 'efficient'. Also, you know all those ajax modal & pop-up windows you see on 'web 2.0' sites, with the soft rounded corners. That's probably jQuery, more likely than not, and it is *easy* to code for, across browser. If you've avoided learning Ajax, you were smart to wait for jQuery.

Re:jQuery rocks, no comment on Microsoft

[operator_error]

Oh, also jQuery seems to be a viable competitor to Adobe Flash/Flex/Air, and Microsoft's Silverlight, using conventional open DOM standards. Please note that by using a 'hook' technique (like Drupal uses) both Google Chrome & the next Mozilla Firefox puport javascript speed increases of 30x, making my first statement theoretically realistic. I can tell you I feel fairly competitive already using only Drupal and jQuery, and do not feel the need to learn Adobe Air, for example.

Re:jQuery rocks, no comment on Microsoft

[Shados]

Whats the point of comparing this with Adobe Air? Adobe Air is to leverage your web programming skills (yes, including jquery!), to make desktop applications (applications that normally are impossible on the web...for example, one that needs to access local ressources). Its complementary to everything else, it doesn't replace anything.

For things like Silverlight, the goal isn't even the result the end user sees. Ignoring the joke that was Silverlight 1, the idea is to be able to reuse .NET code (or to some extent, .NET skills if you don't have any code to reuse) in a browser. If you don't have any already existing code to reuse, and you're just as good in javascript as you are in another programming language, then of course Silverlight is pointless.

Different problems, different solutions.

Re:jQuery rocks, no comment on Microsoft

[richtaur]

Ugh. More people need to learn JavaScript and *then* DOM and *then* make an intelligent decision on which library to use. Avoiding learning JavaScript and instead learning jQuery pretty much guarantees you will produce awful code. Please spare those of us who may someday have to work with you and don't do that.

Re:jQuery rocks, no comment on Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, jQuery was the main contributor to liberate the Czechs from their cute--yet evil--mole overlords, it helped the Loyal Officers to overthrow Xenu and is furthermore known for its brave stand against the last ice age.

USE. IT. NOW!

eclipse/netbeans

[jefu]

Is there any similar effort toward building eclipse/netbeans/??? IDE's for jquery?

Re:eclipse/netbeans

[aiht]

I don't know about netbeans, but there is an Eclipse-based web IDE called Aptana which comes with just about every JS library I've heard of - jQuery, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Dojo, ExtJS & YUI, to name a few.
It supports a range of serverside platforms too (ruby, python, php etc).
Is that the kind of thing you're thinking of?

Cooperating with Evil.

[myCopyWrong]

This is an evil goal and yours is an evil task. You use free software to entice people to surrender their software freedom. Steve Ballmer put it this way:

I would love to see all Open Source innovation happen on top of Windows. So we've done a lot to encourage, for example, the team building, PHP, the team building, many of the other Open Source components, I'd love to see those sorts of innovations proceed very successfully on top of Windows.

Because our battle is not sort of business model to business model. Our battle is product to product, Windows versus Linux, Office versus OpenOffice.

You might not think of this like calling GNU/Linux a "cancer" and people who like to share "pirates" but the spirit is the same. It is not good to help people like that.

Re:Cooperating with Evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me while I go hang myself, moron.

Re:Cooperating with Evil.

[myCopyWrong]

I'd rather you just moved to a reputable company.

Re:Cooperating with Evil.

[naoursla]

erm... that reply wasn't me.

I don't agree that non-open-source software is evil.

I do believe that creating value for others is good. I also believe that I deserve a share of the value I create as a reward.

I respect your right to give away all of the value that you create. However, that does not compel me to do the same.

Re:Cooperating with Evil.

[freenix]

I do believe that creating value for others is good. I also believe that I deserve a share of the value I create as a reward.

The economic advantages of free software are overwhelming. You are always rewarded for writing free software. Sometimes you are paid but you always get the software and your job done and that is what you get paid for in the first place. Non free software locks you and the rest of the world out of that value forever for the sake of owners who seek to control their users. M$ also uses business method patents to threaten others who might provide that value and really share it. You should not cooperate with such an evil company. The society they would create is so much poorer than a free society that your salary is no longer a personal advantage. You would be richer working for an honest company in a free society.

I can not compel you to abandon evil, but I can remove legal protection for M$'s abuse. Business method patents can and will be eliminated. Copyright law can and will be reformed. These things and the far greater value produced by free software will eliminate the non free business model. The alternatives are dysfunctional.

Re:Cooperating with Evil.

[dedazo]

I can not compel you to abandon evil, but I can remove legal protection for M$'s abuse.

So you're waiting for the rapture, when you'll hunt down and execute all "M$" employees and collaborators? *snort*

Did you really lose your job twitter? You seem angrier and angrier lately. Certainly missing that singsong voice of yours.

Or are you just increasingly frustrated because you finally managed to ruin the last of your 14 accounts and can't troll Slashdot effectively anymore? Maybe it's time for a new tactic. Shilling your comments in AC mode might work. Or then again it might not.