

Sproutcore 1.5 released - joegaudet
http://blog.sproutcore.com/post/4788153769/sproutcore-1-5-released

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jmathai
I'm sure it's got its merits but the Sproutcore site does a horrible job
explaining what it excels at.

For example, on the Demos and Sample Code page it has me install a ruby gem.

<http://www.sproutcore.com/demos/>

What the hell? You lost my interest at ruby and the command line.

~~~
tomdale
I'm sorry that you were turned off by the Ruby build tools.

Many people see the build tools and assume that you need to know Ruby to use
SproutCore. This isn't true. SproutCore apps are written 100% in JavaScript,
and Ruby just happens to be the language we used to create the tooling needed
to build serious web applications.

For example, the build tools will automatically concatenate your JavaScript
and CSS files, minify them, ensure that dependencies are loaded in the correct
order, provide a proxy so you can work around the single-origin policy during
development, generate unit tests, and much more. We think that the trade-off
is worth it, especially since all Linux and Mac OS X distributions come with
Ruby and RubyGems.

One of the guiding principles behind SproutCore is that it allows you to build
well-architected JavaScript applications where the separation of concerns is
clear. Being able to organize your JavaScript files is an important part of
that. I think you'll find that when you start building web apps of any serious
scale, you'll end up assembling a collection of command-line tools that do all
of these things. We just put them all in one place for you.

~~~
jmathai
Thanks for the response. I wasn't annoyed by any means. It's just really
confusing and I think sending mixed signals (hence, "what the hell?").

Most need to be sold on what's possible before I can be sold on organization
and architecture. If that's not your target audience then I don't think this
is a big deal. But if you want to get your hard work out to the masses then
show them what's possible and worry about the organization and architecture
later :).

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tomdale
Leaving out screenshots or a demo of the new theme was definitely an oversight
on our part. Sorry!

I've put up a build of our sample controls app that demonstrates the new
controls:

<http://samplecontrols.strobeapp.com/>

~~~
sharat87
I browsed the buttons demo for a while, then went to "Panels" demo. The combo
box worked fine at first, but after I opened an alert box and closed it, the
combo box does not work properly any more. The combo box popup does not appear
in the place it should be.

Screenshot: <http://i.imgur.com/EgRNJ.png> am on chrome 10, linux.

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joegaudet
We (matygo) use SC for our client side app, and once we got over the learning
curve we came to really enjoy it. The reason I posted this was there is a lot
of great stuff they put into 1.5 that should lower the barrier to entry for a
lot of people :)

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user24
We're seriously considering sproutcore for our next web project. Personally
I'm a little uneasy about investing so completely. I mean it's nothing like
jQuery or other libraries where you just sprinkle it here and there, it's an
entire development methodology. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Would be really great to see some feedback from other users.

~~~
joegaudet
With the release of Amber you'll be able to sprinkle in only the view layer,
or only the core if you see fit. So it'll be less of an investment.

However personally I think the other stuff that is in there is pretty slick as
well. The data bindings are pretty handy.

~~~
user24
Yeah, my boss is really sold on it. I think I'll come round to it once I start
playing with it. Interesting to hear about amber though, thanks!

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moomin
I'd be interested in the templating stuff as a jQuery plug-in. As it is,
knockout.js is a lot less violent for someone working with an existing
application.

