Client-Side Frameworks

Many web developers find it useful to build their web applications on top of a client-side framework library. These libraries are “frameworks” in the sense that they build a new higher-level API for client-side programming on top of the standard and proprietary APIs offered by web browsers: once you adopt a framework, your code needs to be written to use the APIs defined by that framework. The obvious benefit of using a framework is that it is a higher-level API that allows you to do more with less code. A well-written framework will also address many of the compatibility, security, and accessibility issues described above.

This book documents jQuery, one of the most popular frameworks, in Chapter 19. If you decide to adopt jQuery for your projects, you should still read the chapters leading up to Chapter 19; understanding the low-level APIs will make you a better web developer, even if you rarely need to use those APIs directly.

There are many JavaScript frameworks other than jQuery—many more than I can list here. Some of the best known and most widely used open source frameworks include:

Prototype

The Prototype library (http://prototypejs.org) focuses on DOM and Ajax utilities, like jQuery does, and adds quite a few core-language utilities as well. The Scriptaculous library (http://script.aculo.us/) can be added on for animations and visual effects.

Dojo

Dojo (http://dojotoolkit.org) is a large framework that advertises its “incredible depth.” It includes an extensive ...

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