Titanium vs Sencha - learning curve? [closed]

Question

Sencha has a steep learning curve, but how does this compare to titanium? is titanium easier to learn?

Answer 1

I've worked with both Sencha Touch 1 (some ST2) and now re-working my application in Titanium.

• Sencha Touch easier time with developing cross-platform interfaces that looked consistent across devices. Titanium suggests you target the platform using commonly understood interface differences between the IOS and Android platforms.

• ST has a mature MVC structure to help you develop your application. If you like MVC, Titanium doesn't really have this working to the level that ST does or at all. They are working on it. On the flip side, after learning a bit more about Ti's structure, I like it all the same.

• From what I can understand, Titanium maps your interface elements to the native interface elements on the target platform. With ST, I had performance issues with my interface on some Android platforms. Specifically, there were problems with the Android 3.0 platform that I can remember. This was the main reason for my switch to a different platform.

• For my needs, both platforms had a way to store data. ST helps you with this more allowing you to autoload data if you set it up properly, which was very nice. In Titanium, loading data is more managed by you. Sencha uses a 'stores' system that can perform reasonably well. Using it takes a bit of time to understand if you come from the database world. Titanium allows you access to SQLite, so if you are from the database world you can usually get going with that pretty quickly.

• Titanium provides you a method to create native modules for each target platform. I don't believe Sencha Touch has a method for this. So if there is something that Titanium hasn't implemented, you can write it yourself to get some sort of native platform function. I don't think you have that option with Sencha.

I feel that I get a more native look and feel with Titanium over Sencha Touch. To do this is definitely more work on your part to implement that so there is a trade-off. I do miss the MVC structure that Sencha has just because it makes sense to me. There are some ways of using MVC in Titanium, but after attempting to understand several community created attempts I gave up on that. The Titanium structure makes sense once you give up on trying to fit it into Sencha's MVC structure like I initially attempted. Odd OS specific problems with Sencha Touch lead me to ultimately give up on using it. Pages with a few fields on it scrolling around would jitter, even in the example apps. I know this was a 'platform performance problem' on Google's side with Android, but it eventually turned me to Titanium. I cannot attest to the performance of Titanium yet, because I haven't completely tested it for my own needs.