Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, December 11, 2006:
jQuery, Wow!
If you're in the market for a powerful and user friendly Help Desk solution, please take a look at my company's flagship product HelpSpot.
The new product is using the jQuery javascript library and all I can say is wow. It’s the most amazing library I’ve ever used, especially considering how messy javascript is to deal with in general. One of my goals for the new product is really to limit the amount of code throughout the system. I’m trying to be a lot cleaner and more condensed then I ever have been. So far it’s really working out well between CodeIgnitor and jQuery I’m writing practically no code at all. Just kind of hooking things together. It’s still very early though and I’m really just laying out some basic UI components and admin areas.
Anyway, what really helped me get started with jQuery is the visual docs. It’s a much better interface then the alphabetical list. The way you select elements is so powerful and ingenious that it truly blows my mind. In fact if everything tests out as well as it seems to be working I’m going to seriously consider moving from prototype/script.aculo.us in HelpSpot to jQuery.
Another interesting anecdote is that I was able the to meet the jQuery creator at BarCamp 1 in NYC. I don’t remember if I even spoke directly with him, but I did hear him speaking about what he was up to with jQuery and see him use it a bit. I got a really good impression from him and had a good feeling that he knew what he was doing. It’s funny how those personal interactions make such a difference.
PS. before I get loads of comments on it, I will be announcing the new product shortly. The only reason I’m really waiting is I really wanted to have both the logo and the new UserScape site up before announcing. The logo is done, but we’re still a little ways off on the website. I’m going to see how far we get with that this week and make a decision after that.
Discussion
Be sure that you test your new site in IE 7, because none of the demos on the JQuery site work in IE 7 on Vista. The expansion demo on the first page does, but none of the others do.
Created by --Josh on 12.11.2006 1:24 am
"I’m writing practically no code at all. Just kind of hooking things together."
Sounds cool - kind of like, you now, working with Lego blocks?
Created by Nicholas Hebb on 12.11.2006 5:38 am
Interesting Josh. Actually I've only been testing using IE 7. I was thinking of only support IE7 actually, but I haven't been testing on Vista, just XP. So it could be a vista issue. Overall it seems to have much better IE support than moo (at least from the forum threads and a little bit of personal testing), so I'm sure they'll be bringing it up to speed. Vista will have been out a while by the time I release so it shouldn't be an issue hopefully.
I love lego's Nicholas! I don't mean to making sound like there's no original code in there, I am bringing some value 
, just that a lot of the generic code is gone because the frameworks handle it all.
Created by Ian on 12.11.2006 7:59 am
Someone was showing me JQuery demos at work last week. Pretty interesting!
Created by Bado on 12.11.2006 11:07 am
Ian, I was just joking in light of the recent round of No Silver Bullets discussions. For the record, I agree with Dennis Forbes that there may be no one big silver bullet, but there are a lot of little ones like this that have boosted developer productivity.
BTW, the jQuery visual docs really are impressive - both functionally and aesthetically.
Created by Nicholas Hebb on 12.11.2006 12:52 pm
Ian: is there any specific reason why you are considering moving away from prototype + script.aculo.us?
I am currently hesitating between prototype, jQuery and the YUI libraries for a new project, any insight would be welcome.
Created by Jean Moniatte on 12.11.2006 8:58 pm
Sure Jean. The first thing that's been bothering me about proto/script (PS) is it's huge size. It's so big physically that it does slow down the perceived page speed.
My second problem with it is that once you've been exposed to how powerful the jQuery syntax is, it's hard to do things any other way. Just today I was fixing some javascript bugs in HelpSpot and I was already thinking about how much simpler the fix would have been in jQuery.
I also like the community. I've found a lot more good code and just general commentary then I see on the PS community.
At the end of the day, how it selects elements and how you chain things together is just remarkably superior to anything else I've used. Of course we'll see how it goes. If I end up with loads of JS related support issues in the new product, I won't be moving HelpSpot to it, but I'm pretty confident that won't be the case.
Created by Ian on 12.11.2006 9:48 pm
Thanks a lot Ian, your insight is VERY much appreciated. I will definitely spend more time playing with jQuery.
I did not receive a comment notification email even though I subscribed for it. There is a slight probability that I simply missed it, but I thought I would let you know.
Thanks again, Sir!
Created by Jean Moniatte on 12.12.2006 1:45 pm
I'm getting the emails, so they're probably getting caught in your spam filters.
Created by --Josh on 12.12.2006 1:50 pm
Yeah it's probably in a spam filter someplace :-(
I also forgot to mention lots of other things, but a big one is having the effects built in. Sure they're not as many as script.aculo.us but how many do you really need? Slideup/down fade and maybe a few others. It's nice not wading through 8000 poorly documented effects.
It's also a lot easier to type jQuery instead of script.aculo.us
Created by Ian on 12.12.2006 2:40 pm