One of the real oddities of JavaScript toolkits and online message boards is the prevalence of fan boys. The pattern basically goes like this:
- Ajaxian posts an article about something new in toolkit X
- Fan boys of other toolkits, regardless of the content of the article or great new feature, and often times without actually checking out the new feature, mention how great toolkit Y is and that you should use that instead, how that toolkit is better at Z, and then proceed to @#$% all over the work of the people working on toolkit X or product that uses toolkit X
It sunk to a new pathetic low when Sam Stephenson blogged about improvements to Prototype and Backpack. The fan boys were obviously not quite aware that Sam was the creator of Prototype, which made it all the more funny with his comment:
Ethan and Mark, we’re very happy with Prototype and script.aculo.us at 37signals, but thanks for your concern. Prototype has served me quite well since I created it in early 2005.
Several of us at Dojo have used Backpack for a long time. We like and encourage the use of any good quality open source project. I encourage you to use and embrace the toolkit or toolkits that work best for you, the way you work, providing the features that you need. I really don’t think the world is better served by the fan boy comments though, as it is just wasting the time of the community.