Prototype's evolution

[Cantrelle Vincent]

Dear all,

This is just a simple question related to the fact that everywhere I
look, especially on some french forums for developers,
it seems that the number of users of the jQuery library is growing /
increasing, and it's not really the case for Prototype.
I have always prefered to work with Prototype.js, but I must say that
sometimes I feel a little bit worried.
May be I'm wrong, I hope I'm wrong, and so I hope that I have a
"truncated" view of the situation, and that the number of users for
Prototype.js is still high enough, and the "motivation" of the core
team too, so that this library will be still maintained / improved in
the futur.
Can somebody give me a hint about that ?

Thanks in advance,
Vincent.

[shubhojoy]

I feel exactly like you, but I guess there'll always be some
prototypejs diehards (like me!). I tried out a little of JQuery and
frankly didn't like it in spite of it's... um... sex appeal. I also
went on to investigate other APIs like UIze, etc. Again I think they
all might have some good qualities and features, ... but I don't see
why anyone can't do the same stuff with PrototypeJS... so I am going
to stick to it... and hopefully soon port my old stuff to the latest
version, 1.7 that is, which includes some more convenient stuff for
which one had to write a bit of code before... advance measurement of
layers have been included now and this is very useful, Previously I
had to create my own hidden layer cached, load the data, apply visual
styling to the data and then obtain the measurement before displaying
the layer. Now that's all covered in one or two new API functions
which is good...

One of the things I like about PrototypeJS is the way you write it,
the semantics, that is. I don't know why but there are certain
languages and scripts I can take to because I like the way you can
write them, and certain others I would hate to see in any part of my
code. The classic example for me is VBScript and JS. When I first
began to web dev around mid-nineties, these scripts came my way as
options... and somehow I did not like VBScript at all,... even to this
day. And anyway, it's dead, fortunately. It's a bad feeling you get,
especially in the lower abdomen when you suspect that something, some
tool or language you have used for years and is good with is no longer
going to be around or becomes obsolete. However, my luck has been
good. JavaScript has only become better and now we have this OO style
APIs. CSS too, and server side PHP is definitely doing well, never
mind the new stuff like RoR. I think I made a good choice and ignored
ASP altogether, even JSP and CF... and I don't regret it.

[Phil Petree]

We've certainly had this discussion before and before weighing in I have to go on record as saying that I like Prototype! It has made quite a few things quite simple for me and I'm grateful for the work the authors have put into the product and even more grateful for the kind people who pitch in and help me when I get stuck.

 

Having said all that, in my opinion, nothing much has changed since the last time we had this discussion.  History is filled with examples of better technology loosing the battle to market share and eventually jquery will win the war just based on sheer numbers while tools like prototype, ulze etc. will become the oddities.

 

I still believe the things that prototype has to do is improve its documentation, get some forums working and get off the antiquated mailing list platform, get lots more sample code and libs published or promote scripteka or whatever its called.  If those things aren't done then its only a matter of time before jquery wins... certainly won't be this year but perhaps late 2012 or mid 2013 the tipping point will be reached and jquery will have enough market share to be considered the defacto standard.  I mean, even now if you go looking for a piece of code almost everything you find is jquery and when you do find a prototype version you find the author has either just released or is planning a release under jquery.

 

I know if someone came to me and said "hey, I'll buy your site for 1/2 gazillion dollars but you have to replace prototype with jquery because its all my developers use" then guess what, I'll be rewriting a bunch of code! And trust me, a lot of sites get developed with an eye on being able to sell them and using popular platforms is one of the ingredients to saleability.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Prototype & script.aculo.us" group.
To post to this group, send email to prototype-s...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to prototype-scripta...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/prototype-scriptaculous?hl=en.

[P.J.]

Prototype is still heavily used at The New York Times. And even though
we've begun incorporating jQuery into more of our projects I don't see
Prototype going away any time soon.

[Cantrelle Vincent]

Hi all,

Thanks all for your answers.
I agree with the fact that the communication around Prototype.js is
not "enough", and that it certainly miss a dedicated forum, with FAQ,
samples codes and so on.... to be frankly speaking, for example
scripteka was not really in my mind, and so I re-discover this kind of
ressource. For the french forum I was talking about, they have
proposed to open a FAQ section about Prototype, but nobody
answered ... (compared to the activity on Mootol and jQuery, that's a
pity) I should try to take a little bit of my time to propose some Q/
A, even if I think that I'm not the best to do that (javascript is not
all of my job, and I have a thousand of opened things to do).

[Phil Petree]

I certainly have the resouces to host the forums and would have no problem in putting them up and maintaining them but it would take a consensus of the powers that be because if none of the guys that answer the majority of the questions are interested then it would just be like the french forums when no one replied.

 

I dont mind investing time but I hate wasting it...

[Sander Thalen]

I also recently posted on the Lighthouse ticket system. But no response. I started writing about the documentation, but also mentioned that state of the community and the future. This is what I wrote:

------------

I have a question about the API Documentation that is generally available on the website of Prototype (and just a little more).

The 'new' style documentation refers to the 1.7 documentation while the old one is (good as it is!) still available which Google is still indexing and I access it via my bookmarks. I try to use the new documentation now and then but for some reason I don't think it is nice to use. Also other developers tend to use the old one, over the new one.

I really believe in the Prototype library - but I also notice that the jQuery (for example) community is growing larger and larger and less people seem to be interested in Prototype. It would be great if Prototype would become more popular, so that the community grows, which hopefully supports development as well. I think this can be achieved by adding a Forum on the website, that is easily accessibly. Of course I use the Mailing List as well, but a Forum would be an easy way to access. This is however not the most important addition I think.

The amount of information in the Prototype API Documentation could use a little more.. documentation. This way more people can see how the full power and potential of Prototype can be unleashed and why this is such an interesting library.

A good example of what I believe that is a good manual, is the PHP manual. A semi-fixed format where you can find all the required information to quickly use the specific class/function. Especially the Examples are very handy. I know the Prototype documentation has examples, but for this new function Element.Offset only a little amount of documentation is present - actually I don't know how to use it (yet).

What are the plans for the documentation? Would it be possible to add examples myself? And also.. how does the Prototype team see the future regarding a community?

If this sounds like a cry for help, well.. maybe it is. But not 100% for me, but for the entire community!

Regards,
Sander

------------

[Richard Quadling]

As a member of the PHP Documentation team (an official title as PHP is
an Open Source Project and any one can contribute), I'd just like to
add my few pennies worth.

1 - The PHP documentation is stored as DocBook 5 XML - http://www.docbook.org/
2 - The documentation is stored on a SubVersion server -
http://svn.php.net/viewvc/phpdoc/
3 - We have many translations, some undertaken by a handful of people.
4 - We have an online editing facility, allowing unregistered users to
correct/enhance the manual, with their changes being verified by an
existing member of the team - https://edit.php.net/
5 - We also allow unregistered users to add notes to the manual. These
aren't directly part of the official documentation, but can still be
present within the online manual, and in offline Windows CHM files -
http://www.php.net/download-docs.php
6 - You can become a member when the quality of your changes are
acknowledged and supported by other members - a meritocracy.
7 - All of this may be overkill for Prototype.

Richard.

--
Richard Quadling
Twitter : EE : Zend : PHPDoc
@RQuadling : e-e.com/M_248814.html : bit.ly/9O8vFY : bit.ly/lFnVea

[Jason]

I agree with both Richard and Sander - and there might be a middle
ground

I think that community comments, examples etc are a good addition to
documentation and help users that are starting out - it would also
give the new user a sense there was someplace to go for help. There
has been many times I was working with a new function and was able to
figure it out from the community comments instead of the "official"
documentation (no offense intended)

On the other hand full blown PHP documentation like is overkill and is
too much too fast

On the third hand - I would be more than happy to contribute to
building the community section, but I'm not sure if a PHP guru will be
much help (as I'm assuming its built on Ruby)

On Jul 21, 2:53 am, Richard Quadling <rquadl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 1 - The PHP documentation is stored as DocBook 5 XML -http://www.docbook.org/
> 2 - The documentation is stored on a SubVersion server -http://svn.php.net/viewvc/phpdoc/

> 3 - We have many translations, some undertaken by a handful of people.
> 4 - We have an online editing facility, allowing unregistered users to
> correct/enhance the manual, with their changes being verified by an

> existing member of the team -https://edit.php.net/

> 5 - We also allow unregistered users to add notes to the manual. These
> aren't directly part of the official documentation, but can still be

> present within the online manual, and in offline Windows CHM files -http://www.php.net/download-docs.php

[Walter Lee Davis]

On Jul 21, 2011, at 8:32 PM, Jason wrote:

>
> I agree with both Richard and Sander - and there might be a middle
> ground
>
> I think that community comments, examples etc are a good addition to
> documentation and help users that are starting out - it would also
> give the new user a sense there was someplace to go for help. There
> has been many times I was working with a new function and was able to
> figure it out from the community comments instead of the "official"
> documentation (no offense intended)
>
> On the other hand full blown PHP documentation like is overkill and is
> too much too fast
>
> On the third hand - I would be more than happy to contribute to
> building the community section, but I'm not sure if a PHP guru will be
> much help (as I'm assuming its built on Ruby)

The current documentation (1.7) is generated directly from the source
code using a tool written by one of the core guys -- I think it's
called jsDoc or something like that. Anyway, it's just static HTML,
CSS and JavaScript (naturally) once that tool is done.

I think that if there was enough energy for moderation, or some sort
of community moderation system, that a great add-on to the site would
be something like Disqus, so the user comments and corrections could
be added to the mix. That's the thing I really love about the PHP
site, and miss in other languages. It's an annotated encyclopedia that
has lots of interesting stuff written in the margins by everyone else
who ever used it. I can't count the number or really hard problems I
was able to solve by looking at someone's example code in the comments.

Walter

[bill]

On 7/21/2011 9:42 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:

On Jul 21, 2011, at 8:32 PM, Jason wrote:

I agree with both Richard and Sander - and there might be a middle
ground

I think that community comments, examples etc are a good addition to
documentation and help users that are starting out - it would also
give the new user a sense there was someplace to go for help. There
has been many times I was working with a new function and was able to
figure it out from the community comments instead of the "official"
documentation (no offense intended)

On the other hand full blown PHP documentation like is overkill and is
too much too fast

On the third hand - I would be more than happy to contribute to
building the community section, but I'm not sure if a PHP guru will be
much help (as I'm assuming its built on Ruby)

The current documentation (1.7) is generated directly from the source code using a tool written by one of the core guys -- I think it's called jsDoc or something like that. Anyway, it's just static HTML, CSS and JavaScript (naturally) once that tool is done.

I think that if there was enough energy for moderation, or some sort of community moderation system, that a great add-on to the site would be something like Disqus, so the user comments and corrections could be added to the mix. That's the thing I really love about the PHP site, and miss in other languages. It's an annotated encyclopedia that has lots of interesting stuff written in the margins by everyone else who ever used it. I can't count the number or really hard problems I was able to solve by looking at someone's example code in the comments.

AGREED !

-- 
Bill Drescher
william {at} TechServSys {dot} com

[Tom Gregory]

Plus one from me too.

I agree there should be an easy way for "writing in the margins" (as
Walter put it). I wouldn't encourage allowing those pages to be used
for help requests (which could get overwhelming for a reader to slog
through), but like the php.net docs, neat solutions and gotchas
related to the page's topic. Good comments could be incorporated into
the docs. It's a low-commitment way to encourage contributions (w/o
the need for git, patches, etc.)


TAG

[Jason]

So based on a handful of responses - there would be a benefit to
having "margins" - but we still need a blessing from the core devs to
either give the right people access or to start implementing it.

Any of the Prototype Devs out there?

[Walter Lee Davis]

They're infrequently on this list, but anything you post on Prototype
Core will be read by all of them, fairly immediately. TJ Crowder
created an informal Wiki for this very purpose, and I contributed a
tiny amount to it early on, but it seems to have languished and I know
I haven't done my part there at all. It would be great if there was a
link between the official documentation and whatever we come up with
in the way of marginalia, obviously the best thing would be to
intermingle the two as is done on the PHP documentation site.

Walter

[Phil Petree]

The core devs need to appoint a "Community Activist" whose responsibility it is to build the community and who has the decision making authority to implement these changes without bugging the devs with all our needs.

[Sander Thalen]

@Phil: I think that is a good idea. One person could invest some time in starting the engine to keep the community going and growing.

Anyone that is able to point out this topic to the right person in the Prototype Core team? I think that, from seeing all the posts in this topic, that it is certainly worth it to give it a try to add more tools for the community (e.g. like adding comments like in the php.net manual pages instead of a separate wiki which is not read).


Regards,
Sander

[Victor]

At least the possibility to fix documentation typos and wrong code samples will be the great leap forward. Many of the tickets at https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/42103-prototype-documentation/tickets are more than 6 months old.

[Cantrelle Vincent]

Hi all,

I'm happy to see that the topic is not dead and that some ideas are
coming out ...
(too much work sometimes)

@Sander: maybe I'm missing something (sorry in this case), but do you
have finally any answer (from Prototype's side) concerning your email
your decribed on th 20 Jul ?

Regards
Vinc.

[shellster]

I'm seriously considering building my own site to start adding things
like community documentation, additions to prototype, and plug-ins.
While the Prototype Dev's certainly don't owe me anything, I've been
pretty disappointed in there response time to user requests and even
submitted patches. I think if someone were to essentially "fork" the
project (me), but still give prototype all the credit it deserves, it
might be the best thing for the community. If I could generate enough
community buzz, and add a bunch of well written features to prototype,
perhaps then, the devs would start pulling some of the changes back
into prototype's core.

[Phil Petree]

This is the same old discussion that's been going on for months and I wonder if it will ever get resolved to the satisfaction of those of us who use the tool to enhance our sites.

 

From what I can tell, there seems to be an uber-geek philosophy of "make it better and they will come" and, to a degree that's correct. The problem is, history is filled with technically superior products that ultimately failed because of poor marketing and/or not listening to their users (betamax vs vhs and myspace vs facebook for two glowing examples).

 

My fear is that prototype will ultimately face the same fate...  be a technically superior product with a few guys pitching in and carrying the weight (anyone who follows this feed knows who the guys are who always pitch in with an answer) while marketing, support, easy access to developed libs and all the other goodies go ignored which causes adoption of the product to dwindle because these things exist on another platform.

 

Why is this important?  I have a buddy that has a very successful site written in cold fusion, he developed the site just to familiarize himself with the language.  Turns out, the site took off, he quit is day job, ran the site, and recently got a contract for heaps and tons of $$$ for the site.  The catch?  He has to rewrite the site in either .php or .net because the buyer won't take it as a CF site.

 

Does anyone want to end up with a site that, when its time to sell, will be told, "that's all great but we're a jquery shop so you have to get rid of prototype... nobody uses that anymore!"

 

From a product standpoint, I'm sure the developers have their hands full and they do a really great job delivering a product that, for the most part, takes us away from browser level coding in a reliable and consistent manner. Personally, I am extremely appreciative of their efforts and I hope they keep up the good work!

 

We all know what the but is... But I do think they need to set some community direction and allow the product to grow.

[shellster]

Well written.

As an opensource developer (aside from my day job), I am aware of the
danger of caring too much about what the user thinks.
I am also aware of the potential dangers of forking a project.

What I want is some sort of answer from the Prototype devs on how they
want the community to pitch in. Do they want us to develop our own
plugin websites, or do they want us to create an interface for their
main site? Do they want to develop it? Do they want us to develop a
comprehensive library as an extension of Prototype or as part of
Prototype? Will they ever official endorse such efforts (assuming
certain obvious caveats)? Unfortunately, it seems that the devs don't
care to provide any feedback on any of these issues. I am not
expecting anything more from the devs, but as a matter of courtesy I
would like them to explain how they would like us to get involved
instead of users just doing their own thing.

Also, the answer of "submit a patch for consideration" doesn't really
cut it in this case, because I've personally seen patches never get
acknowledged, let alone get added. I've yet to see a patch get
added. Users aren't going to waste their time writing and cleaning up
code, if there's not at least a good chance of their patch being
considered.

In short PrototypeJS needs to address these questions before the
project either falls into disuse or the users take matters into their
own hands and strike out willy-nilly and fully fork the project.

[Phil Petree]

I believe this is the 3rd time this subject has been brought up in the past year and, to my knowledge, devs have made no comment nor provided any direction so, as they say, no answer is an answer!

[Brian Williams]

that's  very good point, Phil.

I've been reluctant to say anything on this, but maybe another voice will take a step closer to an action.

Recently Prototype lost one of its largest "clients" -- Magento.  Starting with v2.0 Magento will be using jQuery.  This is a big blow to the framework, imo (I've been doing steady Magento work for the past 2.5 years) and nearly every single frontend person I have worked with has made jQuery into working in Magento to get the animation effects that they want, etc.

It seems that everyone wants something more from this framework -- forking is *always* an option -- look at Kohana -- started as a fork of Code Igniter because CI didn't have things some people wanted.  Now look at FuelPHP -- a fresh new php5.3 based framework based on CI, Kohana with a dash of RoR thrown in.

If there are people with the knowledge and the desire and the experience to say fork-it and go, I say more power to you -- just make sure you map it out and plan strategically, and where ever possible make it somewhat backwards compatible.

Also, if you could get away from that whole $ magic function (say put it inside a wrapper?) -- that would make a LOT of frontend devs happy and dump a lot of confusion and headaches for some people.

Of course just 2 cents from someone who really sucks at JS and is beyond inactive in the community, so feel free to ignore me.

[ncubica]

Please somebody from the prototype dev core team answer us!!!!!!! we
love prototype, but is dying!!!

[ncubica]

btw... google groups is closing... does anyone knows what is gonna
happen with this email group??

[T.J. Crowder]

Hi,

On Aug 19, 8:08 am, ncubica <ncub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> btw... google groups is closing... does anyone knows what is gonna
> happen with this email group??

Where did you hear that? I don't see anything about it on the Groups
main page[1] or help[2], or the Wikipedia page[3]. They recently
rolled out a new UI update[4]. I don't think Groups is closing. It's
clearly not a flagship Google product, it's slow as all get-out,
administering groups can only be called byzantine, but...

They have removed some features[5] (the "about" box on the group's
Home page, group "pages", and group "files" -- most of which are
redundant with other, better, Google products) quite a long time back
and they're finally deleting the files related to them at the end of
the month (until then zips are still available for download), but
Groups itself doesn't seem to be closing.

[1] http://groups.google.com/
[2] http://groups.google.com/support
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups
[4] http://www.groups.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=1046505
[5] http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=1046705

You know, when I started out, I didn't expect or intend this note to
be so long or to have so many references. It just
kept...growing... :-) Sorry about that.

Best,
--
T.J. Crowder
Independent Software Engineer
tj / crowder software / com
www / crowder software / com

[ncubica]

T.J. As Always you're right sorry is not true google group is closing.
Thanks for the note. ;)

[Andrew Dupont]

Thanks for the input, guys. *Lots* of interesting stuff to read in
this thread, and I'm gonna try to ruminate on all of it and respond at
the end of the day with something long and thoughtful of my own.

Cheers,
Andrew

[Andrew Dupont]

OK, let's start from the beginning:

On Jul 13, 9:36 am, Cantrelle Vincent <vcantre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope that I have a
> "truncated" view of the situation, and that the number of users for
> Prototype.js is still high enough, and the "motivation" of the core
> team too, so that this library will be still maintained / improved in
> the futur.

Prototype's development over the past few years has been typified by a
few months of inactivity, then a furious week of activity, and I doubt
that will change anytime soon. It happens that way because I'm
juggling several different open-source projects on top of my day job,
and so I try to rotate between them every few weeks.

So don't read anything into the periods of inactivity. I don't have
any plans to stop working on Prototype.

On Jul 15, 12:49 pm, Phil Petree <phil.pet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I certainly have the resouces to host the forums and would have no problem
> in putting them up and maintaining them but it would take a consensus of the
> powers that be because if none of the guys that answer the majority of the
> questions are interested then it would just be like the french forums when
> no one replied.

If people feel like this mailing list isn't serving their needs, I've
got no problem with someone wanting to start a forum somewhere else.
Frankly, I think the best solution would be to encourage people with
support questions to post on StackOverflow and tag their questions
with "prototype" or "prototypejs" or something, but I'm open to other
suggestions. Certainly, if someone were willing to maintain some
forums, I'd be happy to give them the vouch, because that's a task we
know we'll never have time for.

On Jul 21, 8:42 pm, Walter Lee Davis <wa...@wdstudio.com> wrote:
> The current documentation (1.7) is generated directly from the source  
> code using a tool written by one of the core guys -- I think it's  
> called jsDoc or something like that. Anyway, it's just static HTML,  
> CSS and JavaScript (naturally) once that tool is done.
>
> I think that if there was enough energy for moderation, or some sort  
> of community moderation system, that a great add-on to the site would  
> be something like Disqus, so the user comments and corrections could  
> be added to the mix.

Our documentation tool is called PDoc, and it's Tobie's brainchild. In
fact, he had spent some time modifying it to generate one HTML page
per method for precisely this purpose — so that we could enable Disqus
commenting on every page. I think the project got shelved when Tobie's
daughter was born, or else when he started working for Facebook. I'll
follow up with him and see if that's at a point where he can hand it
off to someone else.

I share the concerns about moderation, because while I agree that
PHP's documentation comments are a net benefit, many of them contain
sloppy code and încorrect information. But I think Disqus's "likes"
are a good start. Hopefully the cream will rise.

On Jul 26, 2:42 pm, Phil Petree <phil.pet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The core devs need to appoint a "Community Activist" whose responsibility it
> is to build the community and who has the decision making authority to
> implement these changes without bugging the devs with all our needs.

T.J. used to serve in this role, but stepped back some time ago
because of other commitments. You can blame me for not seeking out
someone to take his place; that's mostly why the documentation tickets
have been languishing on Lighthouse. I'm happy to "appoint" whoever
you guys think would do a good job.

On Aug 17, 10:04 am, Phil Petree <phil.pet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My fear is that prototype will ultimately face the same fate...  be a
> technically superior product with a few guys pitching in and carrying the
> weight (anyone who follows this feed knows who the guys are who always pitch
> in with an answer) while marketing, support, easy access to developed libs
> and all the other goodies go ignored which causes adoption of the product to
> dwindle because these things exist on another platform.

I know the major libraries have had a playfully-competitive
relationship for years, but I'm not altogether concerned with the
"market share" of Prototype. Someone asked about this on Quora, so
I'll link my answer [1] here so as not to re-state myself.

I will say, though, that if we're crowning winners and losers, then
jQuery "won" a long time ago. It is certainly the _de facto_
JavaScript library for web development. The good news is that the
"losers" of the war aren't looking so bad; libraries like Prototype,
MooTools, and Dojo still have loyal user bases, and I doubt they're
going away.


So here are the next steps, I think: I'm going to touch base with
Tobie and learn the state of his Disqus project. Meanwhile, weigh in
and let me know who you think could fill T.J.'s gargantuan shoes in
the realm of documentation and community activism. Cool?

By the way: I did stop watching this list closely a while back, but
told myself I'd check in from time to time. Clearly I've dropped the
ball. I'll try to do better. Meanwhile, I'm always accessible via
Twitter (@andrewdupont), GitHub (savetheclocktower), or at this very e-
mail address.

Cheers,
Andrew

[1] http://www.quora.com/What-must-Prototype-JS-do-to-become-the-library-of-choice

[Victor]

Hello Andrew!

Great to see that someone from developers still reading this list. You didn't cleared the situation about lighthouse bug tracker and code patches. Will someone somehow react to the bug messages, questions about code, proposed patches etc.? Or posting bugs/wishes/patches in bug tracker is just waste of time?

[Andrew Dupont]

> proposed patches etc.? Or posting bugs/wishes/patches in bug tracker<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886-prototype/tickets>is just waste of time?

I can assure you that any ticket created in Lighthouse will be dealt
with. It might sit there for a few weeks while I'm working on other
things, but I promise it's not a waste of time.

If we release a version of Prototype without having dealt with a
ticket you created, please contact me and tell me about it. (By "dealt
with" I mean either resolving it, assigning it a milestone, or marking
it as invalid.)

Cheers,
Andrew

[Victor]

Fine. Here is a list of my Prototype tickets (not counting tickets for Prototype documentation):

1269 new event.js - bug in isSimulatedMouseEnterLeaveEvent none -- 30 days old
1223 new Consistent usage of prototype_event_registry none -- 4 months old
1249 new Build with recent Sizzle version none -- 4 months old
1248 new Selector engine detection none -- 4 months old
1222 new Unused object: Event.cache none -- 4 months old
1147 new Form.getElements performance optimization none -- 9 months old
1063 new Element.undoClipping and inline overflow:auto none -- over 1 year old
1053 new Slow element.previous(expression) and element.next(expression) none -- over 1 year old
1054 new Element.lastDescendant none -- over 1 year old
992 enhancement maximumLength parameter in dom.js on github (master branch) none -- over 1 year old
1029 new Make private function isDetached available as Element.isDetached none -- over 1 year old
955 enhancement Form.Element.clear() for checkbox none -- over 1 year old
778 √ invalid Option to minify output of Object.toJSON() none -- about 2 years old
746 √ duplicate Object.isDate() none -- about 2 years old

Only two oldest tickets were closed as invalid/duplicate, and no one enhancement/performance optimization/code cleanup/bug report was considered. So in order to use Prototype in serious projects I should make custom builds, additional helper scripts etc. and don't wait for years while someone of developers will even look into my tickets. As a consequence my experience and code is not shared between Prototype community.

[Andrew Dupont]

I'm sorry, Victor. I'll make sure these get addressed before the next
release.

Cheers,
Andrew

On Sep 1, 2:10 am, Victor <vkhomyac...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Fine. Here is a list of my Prototype tickets (not counting tickets for
> Prototype documentation):
>

> 1269<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1269-eventj...>new event.js
> - bug in isSimulatedMouseEnterLeaveEvent<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1269-eventj...>none -- 30 days old
> 1223<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1223-consis...>new Consistent
> usage of prototype_event_registry<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1223-consis...>none -- 4 months old
> 1249<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1249-build-...>new Build
> with recent Sizzle version<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1249-build-...>none -- 4 months old
> 1248<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1248-select...>new Selector
> engine detection<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1248-select...>none -- 4 months old
> 1222<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1222-unused...>new Unused
> object: Event.cache<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1222-unused...>none -- 4 months old
> 1147<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1147-formge...>new Form.getElements
> performance optimization<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1147-formge...>none -- 9 months old
> 1063<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1063-elemen...>new Element.undoClipping
> and inline overflow:auto<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1063-elemen...>none -- over 1 year old
> <https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1058-ie9-pr...>
> 1053<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1053-slow-e...>new Slow
> element.previous(expression) and element.next(expression)<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1053-slow-e...>none -- over 1 year old
> <https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1051-typos-...>
> 1054<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1054-elemen...>new
> Element.lastDescendant<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1054-elemen...>none -- over 1 year old
> 992<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/992-maximum...>enhancement maximumLength
> parameter in dom.js on github (master branch)<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/992-maximum...>none -- over 1 year old
> 1029<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1029-make-p...>new Make
> private function isDetached available as Element.isDetached<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/1029-make-p...>none -- over 1 year old
> 955<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/955-formele...>enhancement Form.Element.clear()
> for checkbox<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/955-formele...>none -- over 1 year old
> 778<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/778-option-...>√ invalid Option
> to minify output of Object.toJSON()<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/778-option-...>none -- about 2 years old
> 746<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/746-objecti...>√ duplicate
> Object.isDate()<https://prototype.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8886/tickets/746-objecti...>none -- about 2 years old

[Cantrelle Vincent]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you very much for your answers here.
I'm glad to have your explanations and opinion; I've read your answer
too in the subject
"What must Prototype JS do to become the library of choice?" (with the
link you provided) and I will tend to say that I'm ok with your
position (If I can say, not sure it is correct in english, sorry).
Even if I don't have to care about "market share", even if nobody will
never ask why I have used this or this library (I'm lucky compared to
some of the others participants) - I can deal with a "niche library"
as you say as I working in a "niche" too -,
I really needed this kind of clarifications.
I still have a last question, however, but I don't want "overload" the
topic here.
(nevertheless, I hope I could have your point of view for this one
too)

Best regards,
Vinc.


On 23 août, 02:07, Andrew Dupont <googlegro...@andrewdupont.net>
wrote:

> [1]http://www.quora.com/What-must-Prototype-JS-do-to-become-the-library-...

[Phil Petree]

I'm going to violate one of my personal rules about responding to posts when I have had a glass or two of wine (or, in this case, margharitas):

 

What has been sticking in my head from Andrews response are these two phrases (in quotes):

 

> Prototype's development over the past few years has been typified by a
> few months of inactivity, then a furious week of activity, "and I doubt
> that will change anytime soon."

 

 

> So don't read anything into the periods of inactivity. "I don't have
> any plans to stop working on Prototype."

What I read in to this is that Andrew has said he is not "planning" on ceasing development anytime soon BUT plans change and when something else takes his attention away, then development will cease.

 

Now, it could be like my own forms generator... I don't write code for it every day.  In fact I only upgrade it or fix a bug when I need a new feature or I find a bug (no one else has reported any).  If that's the case then I understand but then I might use my form generator to crank out a few forms but I wouldnt build a business that depended on my supporting that product for the next 'x' years.

 

I think what I and others were looking for was some form of commitment... a commitment to moving the community forward was a commitment to prototypes future and I am left with the feeling that prototypes future is uncertain.

 

Andrew, this isn't a personal attack, I just need to speak frankly and honestly because I personally own my own sites and I write the code behind them.  If I invest tons of time in a framework like prototype then I am hitching my star to yours.  If you quit working on prototype then I am left with some major rewrites and those rewrites are not trivial and in one case could cost lives.

 

I am still left not knowing which way to turn.

 

 

[greg]

I think we'd all love to see Prototype be more popular, but does it
really matter? It's here, it works, it works well and it's a great
base on which to build complex apps. If the developers decide to not
make any more upgrades we'd still have a great tool. I think of it as
a house foundation and what I build on top is the house itself. If
the guy that laid the foundation decided to retire, it doesn't affect
my house. I can always add on to my foundation or find someone that
can.

I still can't understand why tools like Prototype are free. I'd pay a
yearly fee for it. If enough of us did, then perhaps the author(s)
could make a living from it. But, seeing as they aren't, we can't
expect them to upgrade Prototype endlessly for no money. We all need
to earn a living.

Having said all that, what I'd like to see in Prototype is A-just
keeping it up to date with new browser technology, and B-a way to make
it play better with others. I know jQuery has a no-conflict mode, but
it would be nice if we didn't conflict in the first place. Maybe a
way to assign $ to some other name.

To make Prototype more popular I think that we can't expect the
Prototype developers to do all the work. There's a lot of great stuff
out there built on Prototype but what I find frustrating is the time
it takes it make it look/feel like the rest of my stuff. That's not a
Prototype issue. I think if all that code were better organized and
managed it would move Prototype forward. For instance: if we had
volunteers who could project manage, do good design/CSS work, design a
framework that allowed 'widgets' to share a common base/communicate,
program, establish standards and so on, then with some effort we could
have a great tool with great add-ons. Imagine how simple things would
be if all Prototype widgets shared the same CSS classes and usage.

I'm willing to be a part of such a group.

On Sep 2, 11:10 pm, Phil Petree <phil.pet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm going to violate one of my personal rules about responding to posts when
> I have had a glass or two of wine (or, in this case, margharitas):
>
> What has been sticking in my head from Andrews response are these two
> phrases (in quotes):
>
> > Prototype's development over the past few years has been typified by a

> > few months of inactivity, then a furious week of activity,* "and I doubt
> > that will change anytime soon*."
> > So don't read anything into the periods of inactivity. "*I don't have
> > any plans to stop working on Prototype*."

[Victor]

it works, it works well

...but when you find a bug, no one will fix it except yourself in your custom build
 

and it's a great
base on which to build complex apps.  If the developers decide to not
make any more upgrades we'd still have a great tool.  I think of it as
a house foundation and what I build on top is the house itself.

Usually when we plan to build a house (complex application) we make sure that the foundation will not disappear in the next couple of years (framework will be supported, bugs will be fixed, etc.)
 

 If
the guy that laid the foundation decided to retire, it doesn't affect
my house.

Wrong analogy. The application will be complete only when it's dead (unused anymore). Living application is continuously maintained, bugfixed, extended, improved, refactored etc., and the foundation (Prototype) can (and should) be updated to more recent/stable/modern version.
 

volunteers who could project manage, do good design/CSS work, design a
framework that allowed 'widgets' to share a common base/communicate,
program, establish standards and so on, then with some effort we could
have a great tool with great add-ons.  Imagine how simple things would
be if all Prototype widgets shared the same CSS classes and usage.

I'm willing to be a part of such a group.

+1

[Andrew Dupont]

(Dammit, I've got to set up an alert for this thread so new messages
don't fall through the cracks. Sorry for the late reply, guys.)

On Sep 2, 9:10 pm, Phil Petree <phil.pet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What I read in to this is that Andrew has said he is not "planning" on
> ceasing development anytime soon BUT plans change and when something else
> takes his attention away, then development will cease.
>

> [snip]

>
> I think what I and others were looking for was some form of commitment... a
> commitment to moving the community forward was a commitment to prototypes
> future and I am left with the feeling that prototypes future is uncertain.

Your reading is correct, more or less. I have no plans to stop working
on Prototype, but I'm also not pledging an oath of support.
Truthfully, it's not that time-consuming to maintain, and I believe in
it and find it rewarding to work on, so right now I can't imagine what
could come up in my life to make me cease development on Prototype.
But the possibility remains. (Eventually, maybe after 1.7.1 gets
released, I'd like to find someone new to add to the core team so that
it can keep going if I need to step back.)

Or, in short: you're right that I can't give you a commitment.

On Sep 2, 9:10 pm, Phil Petree <phil.pet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Andrew, this isn't a personal attack, I just need to speak frankly and
> honestly because I personally own my own sites and I write the code behind
> them.  If I invest tons of time in a framework like prototype then I am
> hitching my star to yours.  If you quit working on prototype then I am left
> with some major rewrites and those rewrites are not trivial and in one case
> could cost lives.

First of all: if you've got JavaScript that could kill people if you
try to refactor it... well, um, be careful with that. Yeah.

I understand what you're saying. How about this: if I ever decide to
cease development of Prototype, I'll release a script that ports the
Prototype API to jQuery (or whatever framework is atop the hill). In
other words, you'll be able to swap out Prototype with said script and
it'd just call the equivalent jQuery methods under the hood. That, at
least, would be a way forward for you. Does that help at all?

On Sep 15, 5:08 pm, greg <i...@wildanimaltracks.com> wrote:
> For instance: if we had

> volunteers who could project manage, do good design/CSS work, design a
> framework that allowed 'widgets' to share a common base/communicate,
> program, establish standards and so on, then with some effort we could
> have a great tool with great add-ons.  Imagine how simple things would
> be if all Prototype widgets shared the same CSS classes and usage.
>
> I'm willing to be a part of such a group.

This exists, in fact, albeit in an unfinished state. I've been working
on scripty2 UI [1], on and off, for about 18 months; it's designed to
use jQuery UI's CSS conventions so that you can use a jQUI theme for
scripty2 widgets and vice-versa. If you can help with this effort in
any way, I'm all ears.

Cheers,
Andrew


[1]: http://scripty2.com/doc/scripty2_ui_section.html