Re: jQuery negatives: dual/triple/quadruple special-case uses for both function calls and method names

John...

I should have added on to my OP. Better examples are really what is needed,

not changes to the language. Let me read through and see possible RW

examples of eq() or is() and let me say "hey I did that very thing last

week, but with 10 more lines of code)".

andy

-----Original Message-----

From: jquery-en@... [mailto:jquery-en@...] On

Behalf Of John Resig

Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 1:48 PM

To: jquery-en@...

Subject: [jQuery] Re: jQuery negatives: dual/triple/quadruple special-case

uses for both function calls and method names

Sure, that makes sense - and it's obviously difficult. I think the burden

may lie on us to write better examples - although, it's hard to think of

ones that aren't complex that also aren't contrived.

At this point, I look for fringe cases in jQuery where, simply, a plugin is

unable to duplicate functionality (or where a plugin would be hugely

bloated, where the result in core would be quite simple, instead).

That being said, I'm still advancing the library with some fun methods like

.andSelf() whose uses won't become commonly apparent until far down the

line.

--John

On 8/16/07, Andy Matthews <lists@...> wrote:

John...

To be fair...it's very easy to learn the basics of jQuery, but it's

quite a lot of work and time to learn the really cool stuff. I've

never used eq() or

if() and those other because I simply don't understand what they do.

I'm sure some of them could improve my code dramatically but I don't

even know WHEN I might use them, so I don't know when to look for

them. Does that makes sense?

andy

-----Original Message-----

From: jquery-en@... [mailto:jquery-en@...]

On Behalf Of John Resig

Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 12:53 PM

To: jquery-en@...

Subject: [jQuery] Re: jQuery negatives: dual/triple/quadruple

special-case uses for both function calls and method names

I don't understand this argument at all. So this guy is proposing that

we change all the jQuery methods to:

$Array([array of elems])

$Selector("str")

$HTML("html")

$Element(DOMElement)

and:

.appendElement(DOMElement)

.appendHTML("html")

.appendArray([array of elems])

what on earth does that gain you? What's the purpose of using a

language that can overload arguments and not actually using that

feature? What's the advantage of increasing the size of your API 4-fold?

Incredibly weak argument, obviously someone who's never used the library.

Some method names make no

immediate sense, like .one or .eq, and you can't immediately tell if

a method acts on the first element in the collection or all of them.

These arguments are slightly more valid. Although .eq() is going away

in 1.2. I really don't know what to say, in this case it was simply a

design decision. We could've had:

.val() (return nothing, do nothing useful)

.val("val") (set value)

.getVal() (get value)

.getVal("val") (return nothing, do nothing useful)

But why have a state of a method perform nothing useful at all? Why

not overload it to actually do something? Why double the size of the

effective API with half-useful functions?

--John

On 8/16/07, Mitch <goofy167@...> wrote:

What do you guys think of this critique of jQuery I found on Simon

Willison's site (which is good reading).

http://simonwillison.net/2007/Aug/15/jquery/

<quote>

jQuery is definitely a popular utility function library, but the

sheer amount of dual/triple/quadruple special-case uses for both

function calls and method names is an instant turnoff for me.

The jQuery object itself can perform a selector query, embed a DOM

element, create a DOM element from HTML and assign a DOMContentReady

event handler - and probably more. Event handling is separated into

separate methods for each event type. Some method names make no

immediate sense, like .one or .eq, and you can't immediately tell if

a method acts on the first element in the collection or all of them.

I can't recommend jQuery to the developers I am mentoring because it

is in itself a completely separate abstraction, and a muddy one at

that. They will end up having to learn jQuery instead of having to

learn DOM, CSS and JS, and when being considered as a direct

replacement for those it fails both due to complexity and

inconsistency."

</quote>

Mitch