Writing javascript is right up there on my list of things I enjoy with smashing my face on large bits on concrete and listening to Ben‘s mom sing. Based on the lovely demo’s I recently saw at DemoCampGuelph (shameless plug, April 9th, why won’t you be there…) I tried out extjs and yui for brainpark.

There was no real differentiator for what we needed on brainpark. They would both accomplish what we need to do today. I started with extjs and had that up and running in no time. Upon further inspection I gave yui a cursory test drive and was equally impressed. For the time being, yui has won out. The difference maker? Licensing. All things equal, I’ll run for a bsd license over some dodgy commercial one I don’t even understand.

Does that mean I won’t pay for software or will only use open source? No way. If, at any point, it becomes clear that extjs will save us developer time over yui then we’ll assess the license and go from there. Absolute minimum, yui comes with a community filled with yahoo’s developers and a license that effectively says “Take it down to the copy center and make as many copies as you want.” That’s an active community I have faith in and I’ll take that anyday over a commercial community staffed primarily, or entirely, with developers paid for by licensing revenue.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Software Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.