As a front-end web developer most of the development I do is done in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. As the JavaScript widgets and applications that I build become increasingly more complex, the need for solid JavaScript framework becomes all that much more important. You certainly don’t need a JavaScript framework or library to build a rock solid application, however using one will make it much faster, painless, and enjoyable. For years I’ve been using the MooTools framework and before that the MooFX libraries to help build rich interactive JavaScript applications and interface widgets. I’ve used jQuery on occasion when I had to due to client requirements, but it’s always left me wanting more. While jQuery makes it dead easy to find and manipulate DOM elements and do some nice easy animations, it doesn’t do much beyond that. I’ve never really been able to articulate exactly why I prefer MooTools over jQuery, however Aaron Newton has done an excellent job with a very detailed and fair comparison of jQuery and Mootools at: jqueryvsmootools.com.

I personally hope the MooTools community grows to a size comparable to jQuery’s. We need a helpful, friendly, and loyal community to spread the word about MooTools and help other developers, at any skill level, understand not only MooTools better, but JavaScript itself.

A couple months ago I started researching different ways that we could replace our current TV setup. We were subscribed to our cable company’s top cable package with HD channels, PVR, and hundreds of channels we never watched. Essentially we were paying $80 a month to record TV shows that we would watch days or even weeks later,  and watch old re-runs that we had seen dozens of times that we put on as background noise when there was “nothing on”. The PVR was a total disaster even when it did work properly, which it rarely did. If you set the PVR to record “Lost” on ABC’s HD channel, the next week it would be listed as “Lost HD” or “Lost HD (5.1)” and wouldn’t get recorded due to the variation in the listing name.  I won’t even get into the abysmal user interface that the team at work analyzed in great detail in the Teehan+Lax PVR Report.  We were paying almost $1000 a year to watch old reruns of Friends and use an unreliable, out-of-date, and terribly clunky piece hardware/software to record our favourite TV shows. This was totally ridiculous.