Javascript Libraries
Trying to work out what Javascript libraries we should be concentrating on for FarCry core development. At the moment things are a little bit higgledy-piggledy and folks are implementing what they can to get things done. In view of that I've been researching a bunch of libraries that I think we should be concentrating on for future development, with a view to removing and reimplementing non-standard approaches as time allows.
Client Side Validation
The CF7 client-side validation libraries are actually pretty good and flexible. The only issue is that we can't use them if we want to maintain backward compatability with CF6.1 which is a central goal of the 3.0 series. An old favourite of mine is qForms, from PengoWorks. This is the library we're going to concentrate on using for client side validation requirements.
JavaScript Framework
Prototype is a JavaScript framework that aims to ease development of dynamic web applications. Featuring a unique, easy-to-use toolkit for class-driven development and the nicest Ajax library around, Prototype is quickly becoming the codebase of choice for web application developers everywhere.
Also we should be using Behaviour to keep everything in the HEAD and out of inline elements.
Javascript data transport
So I'm a fan of JSON - we're already using bits of this internally. We'll be looking to leverage this data transport much more in the future. I shouldn't forget the great work by Jehiah and the CFJSON project.
Special Effects Libraries
Of course we want to start participating in all this fancy UI footwork that is rich internet application development so we need a few libraries for this. I'm looking at a lightweight library where possible and something more heavyweight only where needed.