Should i spend my effort implementing knockoutjs or look into jQuery Data Link [closed]

Question

I've recently been using Steve Sanderson's knockout js library http://knockoutjs.com/ in my client side web development. I just recently found out that microsoft has contributed code to jQuery for a Data Link plugin that seems to duplicate what I like about knockout.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/10/04/jquery-templates-data-link-and-globalization-accepted-as-official-jquery-plugins.aspx
https://github.com/jquery/jquery-datalink
http://api.jquery.com/category/plugins/data-link/

Should I scrap my knockout code and go with the embraced and extended jQuery?

Answer 1

I'd stick with Knockout personally -- it's already been demonstrated to work quite well, it's in active development, and it knocks data-link off the charts when you compare features. In short, Knockout seems ready for prime time, while data-link feels unfinished.

(I stress tested Knockout by having it data-bind a dropdown to an array of 5,000 items, while also calculating the number of unique items in the array and adding that to another data-bound element. My calculations and the re-painting of the browser chrome took far longer than the data-binding and updating.)

Now, that being said, I would keep an eye on data-link and probably continue to play around with it -- if it gets off the ground, it will be a very viable alternative. (Given the success of jquery-tmpl, the other major piece to come out of the Microsoft-Jquery cooperation.)

The better one to compare Knockout to would be documentcloud's backbone. I'm looking into backbone next week, so I don't have any good recommendations for now, but I've been very impressed with underscore (another of their projects), so I would definitely recommend looking into it as an alternative.

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The score 4 years later
_{for those who are wondering}

Knockout has been used in production on all kinds of projects for years, is now at version 3, and has a healthy ecosystem around it. jQuery.datalink became JSViews, which is still in beta.