The good folks at Warpspire have spent a few days with the YUI and they (or rather he) was not all that impressed.

I have written about the Yahoo Interface Library in the past so I was interested in what he had to say about it.

Overall, I think Kyle gives a thoughtful argument and it definitely appears that he has gone more in depth with the framework than I have. However, in his review he gives the YUI a serious kick in the nuts. And while I am usually for a swift nut kickin’ when it is called for, I didn’t think it was warranted here.

In my experience, the YUI has always been a pretty cool framework to work with, so in an effort to stand up for it, I decided to “critique the critique”.

So here is my take on his take…

Critique #1 - Is it the DOM or the Dom?
Maybe I am just a bit more lenient, but this just seems like nitpicking to me. Basically the complaint is that when you call upon the DOM in the framework as an object it is “Dom”, but when it is used in say a method name it is “DOM”. He even mentions that he understands the reasoning behind the differences, but he still knocks them for it.

To me it would have been more egregious if “DOM” was the only object in the framework that was in all caps. In the end, you have to stick with a rule and be consistent. DOM is an acronym so that makes things a bit tricky, but the route they chose isn’t a big enough deal (I think) to make it the #1 complaint.

At the end of the day you are gonna ask yourself “does the framework do what I need it to do” and “how hard was it to make it do that”. The answers to those questions are not going to be greatly influenced by a minor syntactical issue.

Critique #2 - Not quite browser compatible
The gist of this complaint is that the drag and drop stuff in the YUI gets funky when using Safari. Is this Safari’s fault or the framework? Doesn’t really matter…it’s a problem. To me, this is a completely valid critique and should be taken seriously when deciding on a framework. If you are going to target Safari (and if you aren’t going after the tech or arts audience, then some people would advise ignoring it), then you should definitely be wary of incompatibilities…test early, test often.

Critique #3 - Anti-chaining
The author is obviously very “pro-chain”, and while I can see the benefits, to me its kinda like a ternary conditional. Yeah its a bit more “slick”, but it just makes it hard to read.

When I start using symbols like $ rather than words, it just gets too cryptic. Programming is already pretty mind-taxing, so why encourage a meltdown just to save a few lines of code?

If you are a javascript guru who is into chaining, then you might want to look into another framework. However, it is important to note that you can use chaining with the YUI if you slap this framework on top.

For the rest of us, this shouldn’t be too big of a drawback.

Overall
I think which framework you use is a personal decision. Most of them do the same things so it really comes down to a few choices on your part.

1. Documentation: Is there any? How is it? Is it written for newbs or ninjas? Are there good examples?
2. Support/Community: Is there one? How responsive is it? How good are the answers given?
3. Difficulty: Do you have to know a lot of javascript? Do you have to use advanced javascript (such as chaining) to grasp it?

When it comes down to it, when I have built sites using the YUI, I have been impressed…mainly by the support. If you need help, the gurus are there to answer your questions in a thorough manner. The documentation is good, but the examples can be a bit tricky to mold into your site (which Kyle notes as well). As to the difficulty…well ya gotta know some javascript. Nothin’ fancy, but if the language scares you a bit (and I understand if it does), then the YUI might be a bit overwhelming.

Also keep in mind that Yahoo will host the framework on their own servers which is a great benefit because it means the files are streamlined and served up on quality Yahoo hardware. As Kyle mentions, I wish more of the frameworks would follow suit on that one.

So if you are in the market for a javascript framework, then I would still advise giving the YUI a shot. However, if you agree with Kyle, then you might want to go with his recommendation of mootools. I, personally haven’t tried it yet, but Kyle obviously knows what he is talking about so I am interested to see what it can do.