Why dojo toolkit get so little spotlight on HN compared to other js frameworks? | Hacker News Reader

Why dojo toolkit get so little spotlight on HN compared to other js frameworks?

2 pointsergo144 comments

Hey guys, I often see how much praise does jquery/sensa get here.<p>But very little is posted about dojo toolkit (http://dojotoolkit.org/), and I feel that it deserves more recognition, since requirejs/AMD formats come from http://dojofoundation.org/, same goes for cometd protocol back in early web 2.0 days.

Since I'm a pretty early user (from 0.4.x days), I know that documentation wasn't good enough etc. But things have changed considerably since those days - and currently the framework is very modern with it's AMD approach to build things, application/model infrastructure, widget infrastructure, topic system, i18n support, a11y support. There is a good Zend Framework integration layer in PHP. So this makes me wonder, why we don't hear more about it here and other places?

Is it that it's more verbose when it comes to code? The only place I often see dojo mentioned would be javascript positions in banks since they probably use a lot of their widgets.

I seriously think that this is the most underpraised (is that even a word?) javascript framework, so I would love to hear why people are not using it, is it because everyone knows jquery/needs their plugins? (a lot of what is available externally there is bundled as dojox/dijit component in dojo)

I run JavaScript Weekly (for context, it's an e-mail newsletter with about 33k subscribers) and I get asked this quite a lot.

The answer is made up of many variables but comes down to it not being as popular, it not having anywhere near the volume of plugins being made for it as jQuery, nowhere near as much content produced about it, and so on.

Dojo is great but there doesn't seem to be a concerted effort to promote it in a way that it hits critical mass with regards to other people generating screencasts, tutorials, plugins, etc, that do well on sites like HN, Reddit, or even getting shared on Twitter.

For something to have wide exposure, it doesn't matter how good it is. What matters is how it's promoted, pitched, and marketed. Things like jQuery, MongoDB, and Rails have done a great job of the latter even if they're not the most technically excellent solutions.

yeah, but what always puzzled me, what exists there as jquery plugins is often available as dijit, dojox - provided directly by framework itself.

I think the issue is that Dojo and jQuery are very different in their aims, Dojo is a comprehensive toolkit, where jQuery is more focused on selectors and the dom, it has grown over time but it is not as complete as Dojo or some of the other project that's goal is to be a comprehensive toolkit. Dojo targets the same market as YUI or Ext and out of those I personally prefer Dojo. Dojo is a good tool when you are looking to replace a tradition large application with an HTML based equivalent. It's not so great for packaging up a 3rd party widget that people can just drop on their page.

Further I see Dojo as following the Java or .NET model of one large well integrated project where building apps with jQuery is more like the Perl approach of small projects contributed by a host of individuals. So with jQuery you generally go out and get Require.js, Underscore.js, Backbone.js and piecemeal together your libraries as you need them. There are merits to both models but some prefer one over the other. For me I use both, but it depends on the requirements. If someone wants a large corporate app replaced with a HTML version, I choose Dojo, if someone wants a widget that they can give out to third parties I choose jQuery.

I love just about everything about dojo. The source is easily understandable (compared to jquery in my opinion, also the extensive inline documentation is very well done), and it is a great framework. Having said that I think dojo never caught on to the mainstream masses not because it lacked online docs or a nice browsable api like jquery has (although it wouldn't have hurt it), but mainly because you simply have to understand what you're doing when you use dojo. jQ abstracts so much from the dom and simplifies it to such an extent that a complete newb can in notime get some web interactivity going (which is all most people have wanted / still want). Also the fact that jquery keeps its purpose domain small (just dom api, no graphics widgets, etc), means it concentrates on the 80-90% common use cases for site owners.

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