

Ask HN: For a UX heavy webapp, JS or Python?  - J3L2404

As I venture out into the maze of options for coding a webapp I am totally baffled as to which direction to begin. I am learning both Python and JS, but the frameworks are numerous and increasing daily. Either will work for the logic and data part, but which is easier to create a decent UX (which frameworks). It doesn't have to be the newest and hippest, but stable and not likely to disappear. Any advice would be much appreciated.
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lhorie
"Create a decent UX" is pretty vague. You need a framework for doing what?
MVC? UI?

On the server-side, python is more mature/well-supported. On the client-side,
javascript is currently the only serious option.

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J3L2404
Thanks for responding. I need a framework for UI, but MVC would be a bonus and
is what I am used to through Obj-C. The app will be light enough to run client
side so it could be JS with JQueryUI maybe. On the other hand GAE seems like
it would make the administration end very easy but how good is Django for UI?
The app will have several mini-apps that popup and will be essentially
different instances of the same class so MVC would be nice but UI is the
priority.

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lhorie
Django et al won't do a whole lot for you in terms of complex UI - server-side
frameworks are mostly for keeping development organized. They will usually
include (or allow you to include) javascript libraries like jQuery to ease the
UI development, though.

The choice of framework/library on the client-side depends on what you need to
do. If your UI is really heavy on complicated form elements, Ext.js might just
do the trick. For things that require very complex drawing, you might want to
look at Raphael. If you want an all-purpose middle-ground library, jQuery and
its ecosystem are a good choice.

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kls
_If your UI is really heavy on complicated form elements, Ext.js might just do
the trick._

I tend to recommend Dojo over Ext. Due to the licensing issues with Ext and
the fact that Dojo has significant backing in the industry. As far as feature
set they are similar and would be considered full client side UI development
toolkits. They are good if you are building Web Apps. If you just want to
sprinkle in some elements on a web page stick with jQuery.

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lhorie
I have indeed heard good things about Dojo; I just didn't want to recommend
something I haven't used.

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kls
Sure that is very pragmatic and a good policy. I started on ext. But after
Dojo gained industry backing and the licensing finagling with ext I switched.
I have never looked back since. The nice thing about Dojo is it offer the
robust web app framework like ext. It also can be used minimally with the
selectors like jQuery but if people are going to just use selectors and a few
other helper functions I tend to point them towards jQuery.

