My first Ajax app

[dougo]

I want to get my feet wet with some Ajax programming. Should I start by using XMLHttpRequest directly? Or, which framework should I use, Prototype, jQuery, GWT, or something else? Wikipedia has a comparison of frameworks, but I thought I'd ask here first.

Comments

[cnoocy]

Start with XMLHttpRequest directly. Then switch to a framework once you have an app under your belt.

[mattsnaps.livejournal.com]

The comparison chart on Wikipedia seems pretty useless, unless you need a specific feature and want to learn quickly which frameworks support it. There's no row for "doesn't suck to program," for example.

I don't really have a comment on whether starting in prototype/whatever is better than starting out with raw XMLHttpRequest. I started out with this hunk of crap called xajax, and then switched my codebase over to prototype. I ended up debugging down to the level where the framework talked to the request object in both cases.

I do not know if I would have "learned faster" or whatever starting out at the lower level. Compared to 680x0 assembly it's all pretty high level, so I feel like I win anyway.

It is inexpensive to perform easy experiments with a few different frameworks.

[ghudson.livejournal.com]

Some UI-oriented developers at MIT did some comparisons and experiments with various toolkits and settled on jQuery. (It's worth noting that these people have no interest in Rails; Prototype tends to be more attractive to Rails developers.)

[matthew.gray.org (from livejournal.com)]

Depends on what you mean by "get my feet wet". If you really mean, just "see how it works" or "make a purely toy app", then use XMLHttpRequest to learn the underlying gunk. If you mean "write a simple but useful/real app", use Prototype or jQuery (I'd pick jQuery). If you mean "write a complex/real app that I will want to evolve and maintain going forward", use jQuery or GWT. But, GWT is really a whole different ball-o-wax and has some major advantages, but it's also got some issues. Script.aculo.us is also worth a look.