The route these libraries/frameworks are taking is allowing you to build and thus include only the js you need for your particular use case. For instance, the best JS lib IMO is Ext http://extjs.com/ which has a dependency builder where you specify the framework you want to use (YUI, JQuery, or Prototype) and the capabilities you need (e.g just Core, DD, or choose from umpteen UI components).
At any rate the Dr Dobbs article was pretty poor, seriously outdated and lacking much in the way of details. Dojo is nice, but I found it to be too slow and recently I think they realized they needed to re evaluate some design decision and set a clearer path on where they are taking dojo in the future. They have not released much in the last 6 months (a minor dot release to 4.1 I believe). It does have the great feature of graceful degradation cause it can take existing markup and convert to supa nice UI widgets, but this requires it to traverse the whole DOM and look for 'dojo' widgets. There are workarounds, e.g specifying the element ids for your widgets to be dojo-ized though. Still though, pages (really when using UI JS frameworks they are not pages anymore but applications) with a lot of dojo widgets can be very slow to render. In addition dojo has some rough edges such as poor docs, too many grids that make it feel like there is a lack of direction etc. I look forward to the next major release though, Dojo certainly has a ton of potential.
But the kick ass JS library right now is Ext http://extjs.com/. Its well documented, very polished, has just about any widget you need, a super nice data abstraction for the grid/editable grid/combo box, and simplifies DOM manipulation and XHR. All the while being written in very nice OO JS style (yes I said OO and JS, for those you are ignorant of JS capabilities take a look at http://www.litotes.demon.co.uk/js_info/private_sta tic.html and http://phrogz.net/JS/Classes/OOPinJS.html
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The route these libraries/frameworks are taking is allowing you to build and thus include only the js you need for your particular use case. For instance, the best JS lib IMO is Ext http://extjs.com/ which has a dependency builder where you specify the framework you want to use (YUI, JQuery, or Prototype) and the capabilities you need (e.g just Core, DD, or choose from umpteen UI components).
a tic.html and http://phrogz.net/JS/Classes/OOPinJS.html
At any rate the Dr Dobbs article was pretty poor, seriously outdated and lacking much in the way of details.
Dojo is nice, but I found it to be too slow and recently I think they realized they needed to re evaluate some design decision and set a clearer path on where they are taking dojo in the future. They have not released much in the last 6 months (a minor dot release to 4.1 I believe). It does have the great feature of graceful degradation cause it can take existing markup and convert to supa nice UI widgets, but this requires it to traverse the whole DOM and look for 'dojo' widgets. There are workarounds, e.g specifying the element ids for your widgets to be dojo-ized though. Still though, pages (really when using UI JS frameworks they are not pages anymore but applications) with a lot of dojo widgets can be very slow to render. In addition dojo has some rough edges such as poor docs, too many grids that make it feel like there is a lack of direction etc. I look forward to the next major release though, Dojo certainly has a ton of potential.
But the kick ass JS library right now is Ext http://extjs.com/. Its well documented, very polished, has just about any widget you need, a super nice data abstraction for the grid/editable grid/combo box, and simplifies DOM manipulation and XHR. All the while being written in very nice OO JS style (yes I said OO and JS, for those you are ignorant of JS capabilities take a look at http://www.litotes.demon.co.uk/js_info/private_st