Ask HN: So i am down to Ext.js or Sproutcore

[EasyCompany]

I have spent a whiles going through a dozen js frameworks and these two seem to top my list. I need to choose one of these, an suggestions pls? I don't mind the licensing fee for Extjs, its just down to capability regarding making web apps with desktop performance. Thanks in advance for suggestions.

[pixelcort]

Haven't looked at Ext.js lately, but SproutCore has a pretty solid client-side ORM, as well as excellent KVO/KVB and a useful computed property system (think of them as observable getter/setter functions that appear like any other property from the outside).

The view layer is okay, although it takes some time getting used to. It does, however, focus heavily on performance, which you mentioned is important.

Regarding versions of SproutCore, I'd highly recommend sticking to keeping up to date with the master branch on GitHub. The released version (1.0) is missing some nice performance and bug fixes found in the master branch. There is also another branch that is focusing on a new theme and view rendering system but I haven't looked at it recently.

For documentation, docs.sproutcore.com is nice, but nothing beats reading the source code for this framework. There's also the mailing list and #sproutcore on IRC.

[EasyCompany]

Its hard to see the power of Sproutcore as there are not many examples, whereas Ext.js has many, so u can really see its power. But, digging deeper into Sproutcore and looking at what apple has done and papercube it looks very exciting, although u have to scrounge around for examples. I guess we have to look to the future and realise that Sproutcore is still growing and in the next 12 months it will be even better. O! just remembered the other issue, is keeping up with all the additions and changes, i had to search and search to find that Greenhousse even existed, then there is three other add ons, that i have just installed that were also hard to find.

[EasyCompany]

Thanks, i actually searched github and found like 10 sample apps with source code.

[japanesejay]

I use dojo toolkit for our web app development. In the past, we've evaluated YUI and ext.js too. All are great frameworks but it all depends what you are doing and how comfortable you are working with js. If its simple widgety stuff, maybe even jquery would be sufficient?

Also take a look at cappuccino.org. They have an interesting approach in web app development.

Good luck!

[EasyCompany]

I don't like objective-j, so cappuccino is out. Why is Dojo your framework of choice? Thanks.