Now that Joomla (3.0) has almost given up on Mootools, what will become of it ?

[ghazal]

Hi,
my concern is in the title :
"Now that Joomla (3.0) has almost given up on Mootools, what will become of it ?"
As the framework will lose soon it's main user base (joomla), with the recent release of 3.0 version (jQuery replaces Mootools in the admin section, even though mootools stays, for the time being, in front-end).

My personal wish (as a dev with joomla) is :
* to keep on working with it,
* as long as it keeps on evoluting
* and mootools devs keep it alive.

[oskar.k...@gmail.com]

There's a lot of things we'd like to see happening to MooTools but the main Moo repo speaks for itself: last update a month ago, the 1.5.0 branch almost a year ago, 2.0 more than a year ago.

No wonder Joomla moved on.

O.

[Tim]

I was really hoping to see some updates after the hackaton. Maybe adding a Mootools 2.0 alpha or something like that will help. In addition: new blog posts/tutorials of "The Usage of Mootools 2.0 and AMD" or "Mootools 2.0 and MooFx 3" can help keeping this project alive ?

I know there's some examples of the new Mootools here (credits to FakeDarren): http://jsfiddle.net/user/fakedarren/fiddles/

And I know that Kamicane's MooFx 3 works pretty well: https://github.com/kamicane/moofx

I'm a real Mootools fan and actually waiting for something to happen.



Op zaterdag 29 september 2012 14:41:49 UTC+2 schreef Oskar Krawczyk het volgende:

[Clain]

As a JavaScript framework Mootools has its own identity..!!  Joomla leaving Mootools is a different issue..!!

• Joomla already do not have much of community base after the evolution of WordPress.
• Secondly more people go behind easy implementation frameworks like JQuery.
• Joomla adopted JQuery owing its popularity.

Somebody commented that Mootools dev cycle is too slow. Let me comment on that too.
Mootools is a very mature framework, Many of the features that other framework are now implementing has been already there with Mootools from the beginning.

Due to this reasons Mootools needs less cycle of evolution. Its really a tool rather than a machine. Tools are used to build machines.

Mootools is for developers who love to write JavaScript as JavaScript. While other frameworks impose new syntax's when using them.

Its like Linux ... You know .. Windows is used widely owing its ease of use. Mac is evolving to be a another choice now a days.

No mater what others use .. Geeks use Linux. They are used widely on servers that needs to be robust. You opt for Linux servers when its comes to hosting.

With Mootools and Linux.. possibilities are endless...!!

Thanks
Clain Dsilva

[Garrick]

I'd like to point out that the last change to Mootools-Core master branch was 25 days ago from the time of my reply to this post. And Mootools github account (https://github.com/mootools) has been active.

-Garrick-

[gonchuki]

For some reason there was a very healthy amount of contributions in the last couple months and then the drive died on its tracks after the Hackathon. It's like instead of serving to renew the interest in developing the framework it had the opposite effect.
The changes/fixes already landed are good enough for a 1.5 release, and there are even more changes wating in the form of pull requests but seems there's nobody to take action on those items. I'm getting an impression that at this point the issue is not the lack of contributors.

[Chad Meyers]

Thanks for the info.

I think the move for Joomla is a good one, based solely on popularity.  I spend so much time looking for extensions that are MooTools rather then JQuery so that I can keep my sites running on 1 framework only.  Not to mention that most MooTools extensions are better.  But SO many people code extensions for JQuery simply due to the popularity, I would just assume use all JQuery on a Joomla site.

I guess it's also confirmed, I am a geek.  I prefer MooTools, and am jumping ship from crApple OS X and moving to Ubuntu!

I love MooTools and am glad to hear it really isn't going anywhere. (as in disappearing)  I think the slower, maybe more thorough pace of MooTools is better.

<rant>  I hate having to upgrade a website 4-5 times before it is even finished due to things like Joomla rolling out pre-mature release after pre-mature release.  I do enough last minute fixes on my own thanks, I don't need to include someone else's too. </rant>

[Lee]

It is really easy to find good quality, reliable extensions for jQuery,
so that getting a table with data binding up and running to display a DB
table takes minute. I've found with MooTools, much as I love it for
coding, extensions are rarely kept up to date, the index of extensions
is not filterable by MT version, and most extension authors have
long-since abandoned their projects.

The jQuery docs are also easy to navigate, whereas the MT docs are not,
in as much as Google often finds old versions that are empty of content
beyond navigation.

With almost all JS fraemworks incorporating jQuery (are there any that
don't, any that build on MT?), it is hard to see a future for MT, which
is a great shame, as it is a far superior system.

On 30/09/2012 18:28, Chad Meyers wrote:
> Thanks for the info.
>
> I think the move for Joomla is a good one, based solely on popularity.
> I spend so much time looking for extensions that are MooTools rather
> then JQuery so that I can keep my sites running on 1 framework only.
> Not to mention that most MooTools extensions are better. But SO many
> people code extensions for JQuery simply due to the popularity, I
> would just assume use all JQuery on a Joomla site.
>
> I guess it's also confirmed, I am a geek. I prefer MooTools, and am
> jumping ship from crApple OS X and moving to Ubuntu!
>
> I love MooTools and am glad to hear it really isn't going anywhere.
> (as in disappearing) I think the slower, maybe more thorough pace of
> MooTools is better.
>
> <rant> I hate having to upgrade a website 4-5 times before it is even
> finished due to things like Joomla rolling out pre-mature release
> after pre-mature release. I do enough last minute fixes on my own
> thanks, I don't need to include someone else's too. </rant>
>
> On Saturday, September 29, 2012 1:45:22 PM UTC-3, Clain wrote:
>
> As a JavaScript framework Mootools has its own identity..!!
> Joomla leaving Mootools is a different issue..!!
>

> * Joomla already do not have much of community base after the
> evolution of WordPress.
> * Secondly more people go behind easy implementation frameworks
> like JQuery.
> * Joomla adopted JQuery owing its popularity.

[Aaron Newton]

At the risk of sounding like a downer, I'll put it to you this way: Successful open source software projects order things this way:

1) community

2) ease of adoption

3) transparent roadmap

4) code quality

In short, the health of the community, which constantly pulls consumers of the software up into being contributors and then committers, is the real asset. If you don't have people moving from consumers to contributors, eventually you'll just run out of (wo)manpower.

MooTools, much as I love it - and still use it! - and lest you think otherwise, my latest commits to my plugins - clientcide, behavior, etc - was last week - anyway, MooTools put this order backwards. The code quality has always been more important than anything. We have done a poor job of constantly pulling users of the framework up into being contributors, though we have tried. But compare the success of MooTools to that of jQuery. Every project out there uses jQuery, not because it's better code (I'm sorry, but it just flat out isn't) but because they always focused on their community. On growing it, empowering it, and engaging it. The code they write isn't as good, but I think it's clear that it doesn't matter. Unless your engineering team is a bunch of hardcore JavaScript geeks, jQuery is going to get the job done, even if it isn't pretty, and every eng. candidate you interview will have used it.

So if you're wondering why MooTools isn't being developed at a blistering pace, go look at what the core team of engineers is up to. Most of them work at Facebook now. The rest at other companies that are doing interesting things with JS but not using MooTools. And the framework is paying the price for having it's focus on quality and not on community, as there's no one there to pick up the work.

-a

[Trevor Orr]

Here is my take on all  the comments I have read.

Yes jQuery has what 50, 100 times the following as MooTools. Joomla is dropping MooTools, every developer has used jQuery, etc, etc, etc.

All this may be true, but so what? Who really cares? I sure don't.  None of what I have read will change me using jQuery over MooTools.  And even if these are true why does any of that mean that MooTools has to or will disappear?

MooTools will always be my framework of choice unless it actually does stop being developed which would be a sad day.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[Olivier El Mekki]

I'm not sure to understand why it seems to be such a terrible news.
Actually, I'm quite surprised it didn't happen long before. Joomla is a
cms, it's meant to let its users avoid coding. Mootools is not as good
there as jQuery even by a long shot, and that's a good thing.

Mootools is for people that want to produce a clean, elegant and
maintanable javascript codebase. So yes, there are probably less
mootools copies out there than jquery copies. There are also probably
more joomla installations than rails one.

Not a problem. When Mootools is the good tool to use, it is the good
tool to use. And it was clearly the wrong tool for joomla.

--
Olivier El Mekki.

[Lee]

On 01/10/2012 07:20, Trevor Orr wrote:
> ...

> All this may be true, but so what? Who really cares? I sure don't.

In my experience, 'who cares' is:

* Non-technical and so-called 'technical' project managers

* Product owners

* Commissioners

These are exactly the people who should not care what technology should
be used, but who demand jQuery because they know the name.

[Chad Meyers]

You mean like when a customer asks for flash ;)  You tell them, flash is no good for websites, but I can provide animation with MooTools. . . . they ask for JQuary, confirm they don't need JQuary, then convince them to let you use MooTools because it is better.  Better results, different name.

As long as MooTools is still around, I will use it.  Some day I may even know what I am doing and contribute to it!

On Monday, October 1, 2012 4:00:59 AM UTC-3, Lee wrote:

On 01/10/2012 07:20, Trevor Orr wrote:
...

[Tim]

Word.
That's also the reason why I think the Mootools 2.0 development should be more open to the community as of now. Set up a examples-environment and let everyone see how it works with practical examples. With this I think a lot more people can contribute better and faster, because they didn't have to setup there own environment.

Mootools FTW!

[Dimitar Christoff]

On Oct 1, 2012 1:03 PM, "Tim" <tim...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Word.
> That's also the reason why I think the Mootools 2.0 development should be more open to the community as of now. Set up a examples-environment and let everyone see how it works with practical examples. With this I think a lot more people can contribute better and faster, because they didn't have to setup there own environment.
>
> Mootools FTW!
>

Er. It is on github. It is talked about on the irc channels. If you want to get involved, you can, there isn't anything stopping you!

For example, @kentaromuira only came on to mootools recently, asked around on how to help, pestered a few ppl, wrote some code, tests, fixed some bugs and became a core dev. All in the space of 2-3 months.

Whining about mootools dying and doing nothing about it is something we all are guilty of, to a degree.

And to answer the OP. So what about joomla? Their community is closed off and release internally. rarely does anything come out of it to benefit the mootools community at large. Some of the most popular joomla plugins have been 'disable mootools'. I for one am glad, some of the spam on twitter and many of the joomla questions on SO will subside.

So, good luck to them. Mootools devs don't do it for joomla's sake, surely. :)

[Tim]

That's totally true. I think my reply sounded a little negative, where it should have sounded like positive input :-)
I'll digg into Github repo's and Git, thanks for that!

For the Joomla guys: You can still use Mootools by editting Joomla by hand and ofcourse remove jQuery  :-)

[ghazal]

As long as MooTools is still around, I will use it.  Some day I may even know what I am doing and contribute to it!

 +1

That's exactly what I think and intend to do.

[Timo Henke]

You know Contao? That CMS is growing more and more and guess what ... it uses Moo! ...

So god bless Joomla and let it drive away ... the CMS with the most hacks and the most exploited components ...

And btw. ... do we develop our Classes to impress a CMS?

my 2cent ..

[Blackhawk]

Another 2c.....

If MooTools can either get a major UI developer (Telerik,Infragistics) to support it or perhaps even a MooUI set of components, then perhaps MooTools might enjoy a larger following and grow rapidly.   What I see is that people tend to gravitate not to the framework necessarily, but to the sexy ui components first and then later adopt what they require.   

Arguably, most of us are here not because we started here, but because we started somewhere else and were frustrated with the lack of a solid framework for building apps.    That mentality is good for the conscientious developers, but for those just plugging away and doing as they are told, will just work with what they have and not look to go outside the box.

We need to get the masses involved so that MooTools comes up in watercooler conversations rather than jQuery, and (in my opinion) the best way is via a set of professional, robust and comprehensive UI components.

[Aaron Newton]

We need to get the masses involved so that MooTools comes up in watercooler conversations rather than jQuery, and (in my opinion) the best way is via a set of professional, robust and comprehensive UI components.

http://bit.ly/mootools-bootstrap

[Lee]

It looks really great but is this something you hope to build upon? I
didn't see a link to GitHub or a project page, or requests for help, or
a mailing list, so how won't the library go the way of the other
promising-looking MT UI libs?

I'm with the OP - we desperately need more simple plug-n-play UI
components that are easy to skin, just a little more high-level than the
slider and table classes.

Also, can we weed off the Forge anything that returns a 404 for demos
and downloads?

[Aaron Newton]

It looks really great but is this something you hope to build upon? I didn't see a link to GitHub or a project page, or requests for help, or a mailing list, so how won't the library go the way of the other promising-looking MT UI libs?

last commit 1 day ago:

https://github.com/anutron/mootools-bootstrap

related repos:

https://github.com/anutron/behavior (latest commit 8 days ago) 

blog post:

http://mootools.net/blog/2011/12/20/mootools-behavior/

I don't know what more you people want from me!

[Chad Meyers]

I remember a time when Apple was really good, if had pale fruit on it, it was good.  Why? because they controlled everything from the hardware to the software, and it all worked well together.  They still try to do this, but popularity and big money have dirtied the brand (IMHO) now I truly would not own any device that starts with an "i" - beware the popularity contest, it brings with it much much garbage that need's weeding.

Speaking of weeding, I agree, all the dead links and empty pages, *cough* *forum* cough cough** should be removed or cleaned up.

Give me some FTP access I'll hit delete on a few items!

[Dimitar Christoff]

I don't know what more you people want from me!

personally, I'd love to see you dance gangham style.  

on a slightly less serious note I think it needs 2 things. decoupling from behaviour for ease of use and drop in deployment. and. an enhanced js api so it's not all about data bindings. 

eg this week I rewrote your modal class and made it interface with js for setting headers footers and body as well as bind to models, forms, yes / no dialogues etc. it all depends on what you need it for and so on.

but yes it's totally awesome that its there and you can pluck it. thanks again Aaron :)

--
Dimitar Christoff

"JavaScript is to JAVA what hamster is to ham"
@D_mitar - https://github.com/DimitarChristoff

[Aaron Newton]

on a slightly less serious note I think it needs 2 things. decoupling from behaviour for ease of use and drop in deployment. and. an enhanced js api so it's not all about data bindings. 

All the widgets can be instantiated regular JS style. new Bootstrap.Popup etc. There's nothing requiring you to use Behavior. If you look at the code (https://github.com/anutron/mootools-bootstrap/tree/master/Source) you'll see there's a UI directory which contains all the widgets and a Behaviors directory which has all the behaviors. The docs (http://dev.clientcide.com/?version=MooTools%20Bootstrap) show usage for either.

 

eg this week I rewrote your modal class and made it interface with js for setting headers footers and body as well as bind to models, forms, yes / no dialogues etc. it all depends on what you need it for and so on.

but yes it's totally awesome that its there and you can pluck it. thanks again Aaron :)

Well yeah. If you want it to do something else, fork it, extend it, whatever. The current API assumes you'll interact with it with HTML nodes, but it's easy to wrap up to provide an API that generates that HTML tree for you... 

[Lee]

On 04/10/2012 23:06, Aaron Newton wrote:
>
> I don't know what more you people want from me!

Thank you, Aaron!

[Jose Achmad Palala]

It's possible that developers will try fit it in to the new tools like RequireJS or AMD and try to fit in to BackboneJS. And add it into the  in yeoman tools or grunt testing frameworks. 

What's interesting is many of the things developed during backbone was originally started by things like mootools (think classes). Backbone just organizes it up into MVC structure.

--
J.Palala

[Dimitar Christoff]

I do agree that i'd love to see mootools added to yeoman. Which means, add it to bower. Its a small file to add to the repo....

[patel.na...@gmail.com]

+1 for bower

--
Regards,
Nachiket Patel
http://www.jumpbyte.com

[Philip Thompson]

I'm currently using this exact functionality on a project where I'm mixing Behavior and direct js. Thanks for your superb work. Bootstrap is awesome. Bootstrap with MT is awesomer!

~Philip

[Andree Christaldi]

I just wrote a small blog entry as to why I've said bye to mootools, despite being a dedicated hardcore fan.. to jQuery..

http://www.flibbr.com/blog?id=1#.UUEXuByjFBm