Closure Library or YUI 3

Question

I'm architecting an enterprise web application using python, django. My final decision to make is which javascript library to use. I'm thinking about using Google's closure library or YUI3. Most of the development, I've used jQuery.I can code fast with jQuery but doesn't seem right for enterprise use.

YUI 3 seems pretty good. It includes most widgets I want to use, but Closure library does almost the same. Better offer with Closure library is they have Closure Compiler, but seems like Closure requires to write much more code than YUI 3. Documentation from YUI 3 is pretty good too.

The application will be for both web and mobile devices, so the library should not break in mobile device such as Android or iPhone.

If you were me, what decision would you make?

Answer 1

Disclamer

I mostly draw on comment about jQuery in enterprise environment and since I lack experience in YUI, I can not give any conscious advice for [not] using it over Closure.

But in lack of any other answers I'll share my experience with Closure.

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Closure library

As for Closure library, which I have been using for last few projects but am, by no means, expert at it, I can say only good things.

Library provides the core components you need when building any kind of UI. But, unlike jQuery, it does not come with trillions of "ready-to-deploy" plugin-in scripts, or as some would say, with no batteries included.

It's got basic events, controls, xhr, dialogs, form components etc., and by my account the most important thing, namespaces (or at least something looking like them...).

With this you can create your own custom UIs limited only by your imagination and the power of JavaScript (and JS is very powerful language even if it does have its own annoyances).

And with help of Closure compiler, which not only minifies the code but it excludes all unused code, does type checking, gives warnings useful for debuging and so forth, it looks like solid foundation for building large applications ground up by teams of any size.

In my opinion, main reason for using Closure over jQuery in enterprise projects is consistency. Plugins are awsome but they tend to include inconsistency at all levels, either programming practices, visual styles and structure, performance, usage, you name it. Removing these small inconsistencies on large project can waste lot of time.

So in conclusion, if you have large project needing custom UI and a lot of flexibility Closure is the Right tool for the job. And with "namespaces" it even feels all Pythonish.

P.S. We also use Django on server side.

Answer 2

You have touched on most of the important aspects here, the type checking, minification, namespaces, but I would like to add a few more. Alongside is the templating sollution they offer, which is not only super fast and has full internationalisation support, this mixes in and compresses with the library. It also compiles down to java code so you can render on both the server and the client from the same template. Then there is the component architecture which has a complete livecycle, seperates renderers from components, (if you are familiar with swing or flex you will get the idea), it has two models, one is client side rendering and the other is decoration which plays beautifully alongside the server side rendering.

The testing sollutions are well defined and now the We have thousands upon thousands of lines of javascript and without closure it would have been an unmaintainable mess IMO.