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Poll: What mobile HTML5 framework do you use?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: What mobile HTML5 framework do you use?

#31

Post by TimRR »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #26

Why not include an option for people who don't use a framework? It'd be nice to get a perspective on the portion of developers who are rolling their own mobile webapp. With mobile web development, the frameworks add needless complication and bloat. All the successful good-looking mobile webapps I've used (Twitter, FB, etc.) don't use any of these frameworks.

I'd think most roll their own apps, framework or no framework. But yes, there should be one alternative for no framework and another for native development. To your other point, if you look at frameworks like jqMobi and a cpl of others there really isn't much bloat. You can further remove functionality/widgets (or just don't call plugins) you don't need in your project. You mentioned the FB and Twitter apps. Thing is, it's not less code there, just smarter code and better design. They employ some gifted and smart ppl.

Re: Poll: What mobile HTML5 framework do you use?

#32

Post by robocat »

Bit late to add a custom/other option?

We use a custom framework... Existing frameworks are moving targets, usually have significant amounts of 'dead' code (for our product) and are very hard to maintain (easy to run into significant framework level bugs very quickly)... Rolling your own involves other compromises of course :-)

Re: Poll: What mobile HTML5 framework do you use?

#33

Post by minikomi »

bradgessler wrote: post #25

Zepto + Backbone + PoH (Plain' ol HTML) + CSS3. Its so light-weight and fast on any mobile device.

One more vote for this, especially if you are only targeting newer android / iOS, it's liberating to be able to use new CSS/JS and keep it trim and neat. However, there's a lot to be desired in mobile browser space still.

I really hope android browser can mature to the point where the browser wars (think firefox vs Chrome) come to the mobile space.. Geolocation for example there's a huuuge gap between how accurate iOS is compared to android (especially with wifi switched on).

Also, I realize that it's more idiomatic (and reflective of what's really happening) for jQuery mobile to present the user with a waiting spinner, request the content, and then change pages on receiving the content.. But it feels much more responsive to cheat and slide to the next page then present a spinner.. Just a personal nitpick.

Re: Poll: What mobile HTML5 framework do you use?

#36

Post by wavephorm »

TimRR wrote: post #31
dreamdu5t wrote: post #26

Why not include an option for people who don't use a framework? It'd be nice to get a perspective on the portion of developers who are rolling their own mobile webapp. With mobile web development, the frameworks add needless complication and bloat. All the successful good-looking mobile webapps I've used (Twitter, FB, etc.) don't use any of these frameworks.

I'd think most roll their own apps, framework or no framework. But yes, there should be one alternative for no framework and another for native development. To your other point, if you look at frameworks like jqMobi and a cpl of others there really isn't much bloat. You can further remove functionality/widgets (or just don't call plugins) you don't need in your project. You mentioned the FB and Twitter apps. Thing is…

Agreed. Mobile web apps should be simple, fast, and to the point. Most of these frameworks are redundant if you know DOM and CSS appropriately.

Re: Poll: What mobile HTML5 framework do you use?

#38

Post by funkyavocado »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #17

Don't forget iUI. :-) It's minimalist, but very lightweight and fast, and is great if you want a native-like iOS look-and-feel in a web app. http://www.iui-js.org/ Edit: as others have noted, there's some overlap. The project I currently have under development uses PhoneGap, jQuery Mobile, and iUI for different functions.

Just curious why both iUI AND jQM? I was hoping iUI could be a lightweight replacement for JQM. What does it lack?

Re: Poll: What mobile HTML5 framework do you use?

#40

Post by natedub »

cft wrote: post #20

we use Google Closure ( http://code.google.com/closure/library/docs/overview.html ). If you are making complex apps comparable in complexity with google docs or gmail, this seems to be the way to go..

Us too. After a year, we're still really happy we went with Closure, but trying to convince most javascript developers outside our team to learn it has an uphill battle. The learning curve is rather steep, there are no tutorials besides Michael Bolin's (excellent) book, and the similarities to java turn some people off.

But once you get past all that, you have a powerful library with a good set tools for unit testing and a compiler that does dead code removal, function inlining, optional type checking through JSDoc annotations, etc. Its miles ahead of any pure-javascript solution because compilation is so tightly integrated into the whole development process. And yet you don't have to compile to run the code in development, so debugging is no harder than before.

That said, it's worth noting that the closure library is not a framework. You build your own application structure, models, etc, so it's definitely more work to get started.

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