Alan Blaine Whitney

If you do any web 2.0 style rich internet application stuff, a good JavaScript frameworks is a must. There are two frameworks that I have used a bunch. Prototype with Scriptaculous and jQuery. Before I get to far into this, let me say, I really like both. Both are powerful, both are extremely good libraries.

I started with Scriptaculous (with means prototype as well).  This worked very well.  I was so impressed with the utility methods in prototype and the way ajax calls were wrapped.  Scriptaculous/Prototype has powered many websites that I have put together.

Lately I have been using jQuery.  I have only done one large project with jQuery.  I found jQuery very powerful as well.

So which one is better, well, it depends.  Here are my opinions.  Documentation for all three (prototype, scriptaculous, jQuery) is good.  Prototype and jQuery’s documentation is the best.  Scriptaculous has many more visual effects than jQuery.  jQuery’s selector (“$” function) is way more powerful then prototype’s.  jQuery’s syntax is better, more efficient.  jQuery plugins simply rock.

I would recommend both.  In the future, I will use jQuery.

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